Good chocolate

I've been doing a lot of writing recently, and it's come to my astounded attention that I am very flexible with my chocolate standards. There's GOOD chocolate for those days when I have the money and need the reward, and writing chocolate.

Writing chocolate is different from good chocolate, because it comes in bulk quantities. Big bags of Milky Way Midnight, bags of peanut butter M and M's. Humongous tubs of orange jelly sticks dipped in pseudo-chocolate.

And the good stuff. Russell Stover recently came out with a new line of "European" style chocolates in a bag. Delicious. I tried the Black Forest. (not so bad, but the undertone of cherry really seemed kind of blah when you've tried the real German made deal) And the Swiss-style. Wonderful. It had a faint mocha undertone, with a tad of crisp (how the hell did they get it so crisp?) white chocolate under the milk chocolate layer. Sort of like a Belgian molded candy without the price tag. And not that nasty Guliyan either. Guliyan has got to be the bargain-basement dreck of belgian chocolates.

There's this chocolate shop a block away from me, the Royal Chocolatier. They dip all their product on premises. I love their dark chocolate walnuts, and chocolate-coated orange peel. Very European vibe to their stuff. Although their marzipan was GREEN (deliberately, and NO clue why) and tasted pretty...Americanized. Not much of an almond paste undertone and no grit.

The good thing is they do drinks. Like a Starbucks for cocoa. And I'm feeling the need. Gotta run.