Saturday, February 14, 2009

Chocolates and Hearts

With Valentine’s Day comes chocolate, lots and lots of chocolate. Many of these love signs have cute and tempting packaging but the quality of chocolate is bad. Too much chocolate butter and not enough cocoa and lots of sugar make for a very unhealthy gift.
I personally prefer to get a regular box of good quality chocolate and nice card than a heart-shaped red box of bad chocolate! But to each, his/hers own!

Check these chocolates for nice pakaging. (I don't know about the quality though!)
Recently I’ve got chocolate from friends far and near, and been wondering about quality of chocolate a lot!
A friend brought us a box of Macadamia nuts covered with milk chocolate from Australia (the box had a picture of Qualla bear on it) and it was phenomenal! Not too sweet, not too oily and very tasty. Australian chocolate lovers, you have a gem in your hands!
Then dear hubby picked a box of chocolate from “The Fudgery” in Banff, Alberta, Canada. These chocolate pieces are huge! Although the quality of chocolate is great, the sweets have only a chocolate shell and are filled with a very sticky caramel taffy too sweet and sugary to eat. The box is still sitting half full in the cabinet!
Later another friend gave us a huge box of “Kirkland” chocolate cover biscuits. Although titled with premium quality Belgian, these chocolates are not better than Hershey bars. I think I’m becoming a chocolate snob because I didn’t like any of the chocolates in the box. They are all too sweet and too oily for my taste. The thick biscuit adds to overbearing sweetness of these chocolates. Half a box is still full and whenever friends are dropping by I beg them to eat as much as they can!
My recent discovery though is keeping my faith in chocolate industry. Truffles from Starbucks come in four different flavors, Coffee, Chai tea, Vanilla and Caramel; and taste great. I’m in love with coffee truffles and chai tea ones, high quality chocolate, great flavor and nice packaging; all good! These chocolate truffles are almost as good as Godiva in fraction of the cost.
Speaking of Godiva, dear hubby had ordered two box of Godiva for Valentine but made a mistake and the boxes were delivered a month earlier! I finished the last truffle last weekend, now he has to go out and hunt chocolate!

Happy Valentine and enjoy your chocolate!

2 comments:

Bev(QB) said...

Aradia! You sound a bit like a *gasp* CHOCOLATE SNOB!!

Say it ain't so! LOLOLOL

Now me, the closest I've come to liking ANY gourmet chocolate is those new-fangled Dark Chocolate Peanut M&Ms. YUM! And I don't even LIKE dark chocolate!

I know, I'm such a cretin, aren't I? ;-p M&Ms are probably the trailor trash of chocolate to you chococentrics.

Aradia said...

Bev honey,
I know! I do sound like a snob! Lol!
Truth is I’ve got used to very dark chocolate with high cocoa content and low sugar, all because I’ve decided to lower my calorie consumption and to get more bang for less chocolate!
Peanut M&M’s? I personally don’t like them, not because of M&M’s but for peanuts! I’m not allergic to peanuts; just don’t like the taste.
And NO! I don’t think M&M’s are trailer trash! Lol!
Am proud to announce I love regular M&M’s! (Have to get them in those tiny packages to keep myself from overeating!)
The lowest of lows in my opinion is Hershey Bars! No taste, vary fatty and too sweet!