Chocolate Combinations

Everybody needs a friend--chocolate is no different. And throughout time, Chocolate has found some great partners, and some that make my stomach churn (chocolate covered coffee beans? Are you kidding me?). Some stand outs that come to mind are caramel, peanut butter, fresh strawberries, and nuts.

When I was a kid, my mom would make hand-dipped chocolates at Christmastime. She usually stuck to three standard flavors: mint, orange and vanilla (although she has since branched out to include cookie dough and coconut). Vanilla was okay, orange was nasty (but that's just me), and mint was heaven. On the day she dipped them, I would hang around, waiting for her to finish so I could taste them. I loved to suck the chocolate of the toothpicks she used for dipping. The toothpick left a little hole at the top that allowed us to decipher the flavor, but my mom tormented us by covering the hole with a dab of chocolate so we couldn't tell what flavor awaited us beneath the chocolate. Anyone who's ever picked up a chocolate covered anything expecting an explosion of yumminess only to find something distasteful, knows how frustrating it is not knowing what flavor lurks inside.

My siblings and I eventually got pretty good at finding the flavors we liked. Sometimes we could see a hint of color on the bottom of the chocolate (Mom used green food coloring for the mint and orange coloring for the orange). If that failed, we would try to use our sense of smell to tell them apart. But if we did bite into something we didn't like, someone who liked the flavor was always willing to finish it off.

Most days, I have a difficult time choosing between chocolate-mint and chocolate-caramel. Fortunately, my father-in-law (yeah, I married that particular boyfriend) works miracles with chocolate and I can get both flavors in a delicious, bite-size truffle anytime I want! (And so can you--along with sixteen other flavors, check out the truffle picture on the left)

Okay, so we all know what we like. I'd like to know what you don't like. Leave a comment that tells me the nastiest chocolate combination you've ever tasted--then go enjoy your favorite!

Discovering White Chocolate

Unbelievably, at sixteen I had yet to experience the joy of eating white chocolate. In fact, I wasn't really aware that it existed. My boyfriend, whose father was a pastry chef, inviting me over for a dinner that he cooked himself--Chicken Cordon Bleu--yum! Of course, being the eccentric teen that he was, he served a side of green pineapple tidbits and Sprite spiked with Country Time Lemonade.

After we ate, we lounged around in front of the television for a while. Then he asked me if I wanted dessert. Having tasted many of his father's wonderful creations--danishes, cookies, brownies, cheesecake, etc--I wasn't about to pass up the opportunity for more. My boyfriend disappeared into the kitchen and returned with a fist-sized lump of what looked like mozzarella cheese. I literally sagged with disappointment. No cakes or cookies? No brownies or pastries? All I rated was some cheese?

I said as much, and my boyfriend laughed. Not cheese, he told me, but white chocolate. No such thing, I insisted. Then he cut a piece off and handed it to me. It definitely didn't smell like cheese. I carefully placed it into my mouth--and discovered heaven. The chocolate melted on my tongue and slipped down my throat, the flavor lingering pleasantly in my mouth.

I begged for more, and my boyfriend happily cut me another, larger, chunk. We finished the block of chocolate (more accurately, I finished the block of chocolate). And I have been hooked ever since.