Chocolate bliss

Mom arrived into town today, and after a nice Chinese lunch at Vegi House she commented that she would like to go to "that chocolate place - what is it, Gir - Ghirar - something?" to pick up a gift for someone.

"Oh, no no no," I told her, "Ghirardelli's for the tourists. The real good chocolate is to be had at ScharffenBergers." And as we happened to be in Berkeley all ready, we went over to the factory.

There have been a lot of cool improvements since I went there with redneck_queer some years back, and it was pretty special then. The tours are more frequent - we were able to participate in the next one without having to make reservations 2 weeks in advance. The tours still include a variety of awesome samples. And the gift shop - oh my. They have added a line of truffles - flavors like anise, lemon, and sea salt caramel. There is ice cream - chocolate port ice cream and blood orange sorbet. There are hand-dipped fruits - apricots, ginger, pineapple, champagne grapes! Swoon. Just swoon.

The prices, alas, are astronomical, so I simply bought six little 50-60 cent squares of their plain chocolate in different strengths ranging from 40% to upwards of 80%. That will last me a good long while. But I have a feeling I will find my way back sometime for those chocolate covered champagne grapes.

Meanwhile, I am very cheerfully buzzed on the free chocolate and nibs samples. Oh my oh my.