Mm, chocolate - The Chocolate Society.

Image from The Chocolate Society.

Because life is actually really boring (I'm a grad student! I have more reading than one could ever imagine! I don't have time to do anything but read!), and all I've been doing is eating chocolate, I decided that I'd start profiling all the marvelous chocolate I've been eating recently.

When I say chocolate, I don't mean your normal boring ol' Hershey bars you can pick up from the market. Oh no, don't you know me better by now? When I say chocolate, I mean delicate artisan confections, made with only the purest and best of cocoa beans. I was spoiled for life the first time I stepped foot into Christian Constant and had my first true chocolate. It was "just" a chocolate bar - but this was far from the supermarket crap. Oh no. A dark milk bar with hazelnuts, and it was beyond sublime. Thereafter, it was only the best for me. (For a quick - and slightly more affordable - fix, Scharffenberger, which you can pick up at Whole Foods, will do the trick nicely.)

Strangely, I have an aversion to chocolate desserts. I think it has something to do with the fact that by the time I get 'round to dessert, I've eaten a full meal and the thought of chocolate makes me cringe because there is no way I can cram another bite in - and so I turn to fruit tarts and panna cottas at that point. Chocolate should be savoured in small bites. It is entirely too rich - and too precious - to be the ending to something. It should always be the star.

So, the first chocolates I decided to profile are from The Chocolate Society. No, I have not gone off the deep end (yet) and taken to ordering chocolate (and paying the hefty shipping premium) from overseas. My friend brought them back from London as part of my birthday present. (Did I mention that I have the bestest friends ever?) She got me an assortment of bonbons, like the ones pictured in the photo above.

I can't even describe how delicious these were. My favourite were the pralines. It's too bad that words can't really do these justice. So I'm not going to even try. Just be jealous.

I like their fact page too. Not that one never even needs a reason to eat chocolate, but hey, it says here that chocolate helps hangovers. I'm going to definitely try that out the next time I get drunk. You know, like.. tonight.

And loooook, you can actually join the Chocolate Society, and get all sorts of treats and discounts. If I lived in England, I'd sign up for this in a heartbeat. But sadly, it doesn't really make sense when I live all the way over in the US and would have to pay the exorbitant shipping prices. Ah well.

This store almost makes me want to go to London. Almost.