IKEA

I'm sitting here on a Saturday morning listening to some King of Pop. Happy Birthday M.J.!

Anyways, Brittany brought me some chocolate from Ikea the other day. If you know me, you know that I LOVE IKEA! I could spend a whole day inside Ikea and not get bored. Funny, I always find something there that I need - even if it's just coasters or dish towels or a picture!

So when I find out that there's a giant bar of chocolate from Ikea waiting for me, I'm pretty stoked. This is Swedish chocolate produced in Germany (oddly enough). The label says "Choklad Ljus".



It's very good. Not too rich, but delightfully creamy. The taste is a little buttery. But for just a dollar a bar (it's a big bar), it's well worth it. I'd say it's pretty true to the well-known Ikea ways - simple. No fancy packaging, no crazy fillings or additions. Just good chocolate.

I'd really like to try the dark chocolate next time. The hazelnut doesn't look so bad either; although, I'm partial to Godiva's hazelnut praline; it will be a tough one to beat. Ikea milk chocolate earns a 10 on the chocolate emergency scale for great chocolate. Yummm

Go NuGO

Recently I've been trying little things here and there to go green.So I thought to myself, self, why not go organic? My first step is a little one and it obviously involves chocolate. Duh.

I've picked up a NuGo Organic Double Dark Chocolate Bar which is actually vegan as well. It says it's made with real dark chocolate. Usually with chocolate granola or protein bars the chocolate {spoiler alert!} isn't real chocolate. It's chocolate flavored vegetable fat. Now I will eat a lot of things if they are covered in chocolate. But vegetable fat... not so much. So this is actual dark chocolate and it's actually quite tasty.

The bar itself is quite appealing, covered entirely in chocolate - and it smells even better. The soy crisps in the middle are delightfully crunchy but not as crispy as I would have expected. The chocolate is delish.

This one is hard to rate because it's not exactly what you would pick up for a chocolate emergency. It's more of a healthy chocolate snack. So on the Healthy Chocolate Snack scale it earns a 10. Eat this instead of something out of the vending machine next time.

Chocolate's Best Friends

While you can't go wrong with solid milk, dark, or white chocolate, most of the time if people are eating chocolate, they're eating it with something else. What chocolate is mixed with could make all the difference in taste.

I'll eat anything if it's covered in chocolate. Although, here are my top three favorite chocolate companions:

1. Strawberries - Godiva Chocolatier gets the award for best Chocolate Dipped Strawberries. They fly in huge HUGE berries from California and dip them fresh. But eat 'em quick; these fresh berries only last 24 hours before going bad (if you can wait that long).

2. Almonds - Landies Candies in Buffalo, NY gets this award for their dark chocolate bar with almonds the size of the "return" key on your keyboard. Very good.

3. Caramel - Once again the award goes to Godiva for the Dark Caramel Embrace. Gooey or chewy doesn't matter. I like the dark caramel because it's not too sweet for a normal vanilla caramel. It's chocolate caramel wrapped in dark chocolate. Perfect texture, perfect taste.

Rounding out the top ten would have to be peanut butter, pretzels, toffee, raspberry, rice krispy treats, coffee, and hazelnut.

Did I miss any? Leave a comment with your favorite chocolate companion. Who's hungry?

Reason #16 why I hate the English language

There are exceptions to every grammar rule.

A dancer is one who dances. A writer is one who writes.

An officer is one who offices???

Gah!

My latest indulgence

During a rather stressful morning in the office, a friend of mine turned it around by dropping off a little gift on my desk. It was a rocky road brownie from Au Bon Pain.

While I'm not much for Walnuts, there wasn't an overwhelming amount of them in there. The brownie itself was pretty good. I like my brownies pretty fudgey, but this was more cake-like without being dry. My favorite part were the butterscotch chips hidden inside. The edges were nice and crispy, yet still chewy.

Absent were the marshmallows. Perhaps these treats would have scored a perfect 10 had there been some marshmallows but still very tasty. 9 out of 10. Highly recommend it.

Why Chocolate?

Last night as I was hanging out with Benjamin, my kitten, I was wondering why I crave chocolate as much as I do. There have been hundreds of articles written on chocolate, and I could regurgitate them to you now, but here's what I've narrowed it down to.

It has been proven that chocolate has physiological effects on the body. It is linked to serotonin levels in the brain; aka the chemicals that get off balance in people with depression. Therefore one might assume that eating chocolate can actually make you happier. For me, yes; for most people, probably not.

Dark chocolate has been argued by some to be healthy for you in moderation. Yes, that's why I eat dark chocolate; because it's healthy for me. Yeah. Right.

I eat it because it tastes good. Chocolate is my favorite food. Strawberries come in close second. Chocolate covered strawberries - now we're talkin. Chocolate does make me happy, too. It's my comfort food. Yummm

Seattle's Best

I've had Seattle's Best Coffee before so I thought it apropos to try their chocolate. I figure, pretty good coffee = pretty good chocolate. I got the Milk Chocolate Almond Toffee. I shied away from the coffee beans and cherries because I wanted to get a good idea of what the chocolate tasted like.

Upon first bite, I couldn't help but notice the toffee first. It is a huge piece of toffee wrapped in a thin shell of milk chocolate. The toffee was good. Perhaps I'm not English enough, but I didn't think it was much more spectacular than anything I'd find inside a Heath Bar. I know I may be a little bit biased, but there wasn't enough chocolate for me. The balance just wasn't there. It was about 85% toffee, 10% chocolate. The other 5% was a pleasant little surprise of almond. Not a whole almond, but still a good combination.

Overall a good chocolate. The chocolate itself was not cheap and actually tasted good, without relying on the toffee for flavor. $4.95 for 4oz. I give it an 8 out of 10.

Bucket List

If you don't already know, I have quite a lengthy Bucket List, or as I like to call it, "my list of things to do before I die." I try to fill it with fun things I've always wanted to do, but also practical things so that I actually have a chance at completing these things.

I've done pretty good so far at completing a few things. I've danced in New York (twice). I've driven a convertible with the top down. I've run up the down escalator; fallen in love; and read countless numbers of books.

A few I still have to complete are ride on the back of a motorcycle; get married; travel to Europe; and the one I keep thinking about: get everyone to dance like in a Michael Jackson video.

I'm a little bit worried that I won't be able to complete this one. It's going to be a feat. I'll just have to get a random group of people to dance to the same song.

I thought of this the other day on the bus ride home from work. I was listening to my ipod when the song "Shut up and drive" by Rihanna came on. I was jammin' on the inside and had a mini daydream of everyone jamming along with me on the bus. We were hopping over the seats and swinging from the poles as we traveled down McKnight Road. All the way singing the lyrics to the bus driver.

About halfway through the song I snapped out of it and started to realize how hard this one will be. I won't take it off the list, but I definitely want to have this one on tape when I complete it.