How to Turn Bitter Events into a Sweet Life

Let’s face it – life can be hard. No matter who you are, no matter what your circumstances – bad things can happen to you. Your heart can get broken, a business deal can fall through, or your investments can go up in smoke. (Not that THAT has happened to any of us recently.) You need a boost – a way to hit your own personal reset button and get back in the game. Because that’s the secret really – you can’t give up. You have to have the hope that things will be better – that tomorrow is another chance to find love, put together a great business deal, or earn even higher returns.

I don’t think anyone can do this resetting for you – I think you have to do it for yourself. You have to find some techniques that work for you. Lately I’ve been using some techniques I borrowed from the love of my life, chocolate.

1.) Try new things (this can be read new books, listen to new music, hang out with new people, wear new clothing styles – you get the picture). Chocolate has been trying new things since it was discovered by the Aztecs. It started as a hot drink; it evolved into a myriad of candy bars, and now is an ingredient in everything from salad dressing to breakfast cereal. Chocolate is definitely a player in the game of life – always pushing the limits – even combining itself with bacon! If chocolate leads such an adventurous life, so can you.

Human nature is such that we get set in our ways, we hate change. This leads to boredom and depression. Mix it up!

2.) Have fun! Chocolate is definitely not uptight. The minute chocolate shows up – everybody smiles. Chocolate can be serious – when you start talking about dark chocolate and the benefits for your heart –that’s serious. But chocolate immediately reverts to fun. I have in my possession at this moment a grinning dark chocolate Easter Bunny. This bunny can save your life (in tiny doses) AND make you laugh. The key is that chocolate doesn’t take itself too seriously.

We get blue when we start taking ourselves and the things that happen to us WAY too seriously. We think if we make one mistake, our lives are over. We are so hard on ourselves! The truth is, if you gain 10 pounds, most people don’t even notice. But you can sure beat yourself up about it. In the grand scheme of your life – will people remember how skinny you were or how much joy you brought them? Remember how you thought you’d never recover from the loss of your first love? In 20 years, you’ll feel the same way about the loss of your invested money. Over time, very few things really matter. Have more fun – THAT is what you’ll remember and that is how we very often measure the true quality of our lives.

3.) Live unconditionally. Chocolate gives its all to you. It expects nothing in return. From the fragile cacao tree all the way through harvest and roasting and transport and preparation – chocolate goes through heck just to offer itself to you. And it doesn’t care if it winds up as a truffle in a fancy restaurant or a Tootsie Roll in a Halloween bag. It is still chocolate and still received with love and affection by all.

We don’t do this – we hold back. We worry about what other people might think of us. We don’t go to the beach until we lose weight. We don’t say what we really think because someone might not like us. As we age we get worse, we say “No” more to opportunities than we say “Yes.” Our world shrinks. Assume you are chocolate and wherever you go, in whatever form you take, people will like you and accept you. Be comfortable being you. Next time you find yourself putting conditions on your life (I’ll do it when I’m thinner; when I have a date, when the kids are older – remember – you may never have this chance again.) Chocolate ALWAYS shows up.

4.) Be flexible, but stay true to your nature. Chocolate can be a lot of different things. It can be molded into almost any shape imaginable. It can be paired with many other foods and mixed with many other ingredients. But we all know the taste of chocolate.

We humans can’t control much – not other people, not the weather, not the stock market. Very few things are under our direct control. To have any degree of happiness, we have to be flexible, to be willing to compromise, to share. We have to accept change. But, you must be true to yourself. If you sacrifice your core values, you will never be happy. If you hide your true nature and try to be something you are not, you will never be happy. Be like chocolate – be yourself. It won’t work in all situations, but when it does, the world will cheer.

I’m not saying these are easy – I think the reverse is true. But if you can force yourself to do them, I guarantee the results will far exceed the effort. And the more you do them, the easier they become. You can take bitter (the cacao bean) and make it sweet (chocolate). In the candy shop of life, you are your own chocolatier. Will you create a masterpiece? Or give up after the first bad batch?

Easter in the Tropics

What the hell was I thinking when I suggested orange as an Easter flavor? It apparently already IS an Easter flavor. How little I know. And I gotta tell you all, I am going to be biased here - I'm not a huge fan of orange. I like orange as a jelly bean, but so far, not much else. Well - I mean, I like orange juice, but we're talking candy here.

I was even at the Just Born factory when they told us the new flavor for this year was orange. I was covered in orange sugar dust - how could I have forgotten???

One of the things I like most about these is the multicolored sprinkles - how festive is that? And, now this is kind of weird - the inner marshmallow is pink. I don't know how that happened - I saw them made - orange blobs - solid orange goo. It's an Easter miracle!!! (I'm not going to say anything about Just Born and Resurrection - I'm already headed for the tropics as it is.)

Miracles aside - the taste is definitely orangey. If you like orange, marshmallow and sugar, these are custom designed for you. Having eaten them hot off the line, however, I am ruined forever and nothing less will do.

Even Hershey has orange Kisses!

Okay - that bag design is totally boring - I'd go so far as to say - it's ugly. And the Kisses - not so good. If you are into orange you might like these - kind of like a creamsicle. Too orange, too sweet, too gross.

Even Cadbury has an orange egg!! What rock have I been living under??? There's an orange rabbit on there for God's sake! Orange is an Easter staple! Orange is the backbone of Easter!

Of all the orange things, Cadbury was by far the best. I even sliced open my finger performing the autopsy on this baby (I BLEED for you all!). And it was worth it - check this out:

Wow - how cool is that? They still have the yoke! I was sure it would just be solid boring orange cream. Go Cadbury - you rock! These are worth trying, but I really prefer the traditional Cadbury Egg. These are just sooooo orangy! But Cadbury chocolate is so delicious it makes a nice combination. I still don't know why orange for Easter, but some things may never be understood. It's good that there are still some mysteries in the world.

And I missed some eggs for the Eggstravanza! There is a white Reese's Egg:

And a fudge Reese's Egg:

And a Mound's Egg! Will the possibilities never end???

I still think the original Reese's Egg is the best. White is good, but it's terribly sweet. It's my second choice. Fudge is last in my book - the fudge almost overpowers the peanut butter. And you know how I feel about peanut butter. I adore peanut butter. I would join the peanut butter cult if I knew how to find them. I could fall in love with Mr. Peanut - well. he might need to lose the monocle. Wait - back to Easter.

The Mounds Eggs has no weird aftertaste like the Almond Joy - the coconut was good and moist. No weird cream. But I still like Bounty best in the coconut category.

Orange you glad they didn't pick banana?

Chocolate is a Many Splendored Thing

Happy Monday, everybody!! Thought I'd share some shots from the GORGEOUS chocolate shop in the Bellagio - Jean Philippe Patisserie: http://www.jpchocolates.com/

I gained weight just by breathing in here:

Look at these great chocolate sculptures:

And the show piece - a fountain with white, milk and dark chocolate. When I die, will you all scatter my ashes here?

Can you tell how big this thing is? It's amazing! I tried to break in, but casino security stopped me.

Of course, something has to pay for all this fancy beauty. See this chocolate bunny? He's MAYBE three feet tall. Cute, right?

Look at the price tag:

That is something that is staying in Vegas.

As far as the love life, I actually had a great date this weekend!! Woohoo! Can you believe it? I have to proceed with GREAT caution, however, because I actually like this guy. After the Afghanistan Affair I'm proceeding VERY slowly. (Obviously my judgement when it comes to men has not been the best.) Of course, we'll have to see if he likes me - there's the Big Personality, my chocolate obsession, and a myriad of other quirks to consider. Good grief - I could probably get better odds in Vegas!

Have a great week!! More EGGSTRAVAGANZA to come!!

And know that any country that produces a $325 chocolate Easter bunny is the greatest country in the world!!

More Eggstravaganza!! Cuckco for Coconut

I have to tell you, I still don't know how or why coconut became an Easter/Spring flavor. If anybody has any ideas, please let me know. I mean, why not banana? Or orange? Or the dreaded and horrifying lavender? But, hey, I'm rolling with it. (The White House doesn't have the only Egg Roll in town.)


The first coconut offering is from Lake Champlain Chocolates (LCC). This egg is dark chocolate with their awesome logo on it:







I hate to say this, because I love LCC, but this coconut is a joke. It's a great dark chocolate egg, but the chocolate completely overwhelms this "coconut" filling. I say "coconut" because it didn't really taste like anything other than dark chocolate.





I have another bone to pick with LCC. This egg was part of an assortment:





The assortment has six flavors - gorgeous colors - very pretty. But when I took them all out and counted them, it had:



9 java - boo!

9 peanut butter - yea!

5 hazelnut

4 coconut

2 raspberry

1 caramel



Call me crazy, but I expected a more even mix. I only got 1 caramel (which I LOVE) and 9 java (which I hate). Not happy. I think we need to redraw the egg districts.



You know how I feel about Russell Stover. I bought their crummy candy at Halloween and again at Christmas and then decided No Mas! Compared to all the other chocolate makers, I just found their stuff inferior. But they had some great egg flavors I hadn't tried, so I decided to give them yet another chance.






They don't look bad - hell, even Russell Stover can make an egg shape. (Santas are WAY out of their league, but they can handle the egg). I like the nest - it's cute and using the jelly beans actually took some creativity! Go RS, it's your holiday!


The nest is really good, it is basically the Christmas Wreath I loved with three jelly beans on it. Nice and coconutty, moist - the only RS candy I really, really like.

The egg, however, is disappointing. It's the only egg that says it's a coconut CREAM egg, so maybe that explains why it's a little more gooey than all the others:

I think the "cream" might be marshmallow. This tasted sweet and not very coconutty. I didn't like it. If you like coconut, get the nest, forget the egg. (Boy, if only more people took that advice......)

You can't talk about coconut without talking about:

I was REALLY looking forward to eating this egg. I always liked Almond Joys, but I haven't had one in forever. Now get this - it has a weird taste. The only way I can describe it is like a cooking odor got into it. I know, gross, right? But that was what it was like. I opened another sealed one, tried it too - same thing. I don't know if I got a bad batch or what, but these were seriously disappointing.

The final coconut egg is from See's Easter candy - it's the giant one at the bottom:

See's has an Eggsortment (my make up word - you know I work fast and loose with the English language) containing peanut butter, coconut, and two flavors we'll review next. I like the sheer size of these eggs. Yay See's!

See's coconut egg is much better than Stover's, but it's very sweet. I like more a coconut taste. But of the eggs, See's was the best. And the biggest! WooHoo!

LCC has to get an honorable mention (even though I am still bitter about the assortment) for the deliciousness of their chocolate. It was definitely the best of the bunch. (or the dozen - eggs don't really come in a bunch, coconuts do........).

Now this isn't an egg, this is a bar made by Mars but not available everywhere. I got this one at World Market. It looks a lot like an Almond Joy (sans Almonds):

This bar ROCKS! It was the best of all the entries - at least as far as coconut goes. Nice chewy chunks of coconut - yum! Looks just like the Almond Joy egg when autopsied, so no real info there. If you're looking for a good coconut bar, this is the one for you. Happy Easter, My Little Coconut!

More Peanut Butter Eggs (Better, Faster, Stronger)

I strongly agree with Marcus Buckingham, author of Discover Your Strengths, who says that rather than trying to work on our weaknesses, we should do the most to maximize our strengths. For example, I'm a great speaker, but I'm a lousy computer programmer. It makes much more sense for me to hire a web guy rather than try to get better at programming. I can spend that time getting even better at speaking.

One of my seminar attendees asked about this when I advised that an important part of leadership was putting the right people in the right jobs. I always use the example that some people are great at dealing with customers - they have outstanding people skills. There are other people who should be kept far, far away from customers. Not everyone can do every job. The question was, "Shouldn't you move people around to different jobs so they can learn different skills?" I said no - echoing Buckingham's words. Later, of course, I though of a better example. Would a football coach take his best kicker and put him in at QB so he could learn some different skills? No way. Put your people where they can excel. It's what will win the game and what will make the most money. The leader should figure out what people are best at and put them in positions that make the best use of their skills.

What does this mean for you? Figure out what you are best at - chances are you enjoy it the most - and find work that utilizes those skills. Don't know what you're best at? There are a lot of assessments that can help you figure it out, but the bottom line is that none of us can do everything well. Success is about figuring out what you do best and doing more and more of it!

And that bring us to our chocolate! I failed to include in my peanut butter Eggstravanza, Peanut Butter M & M's Speck-tacular Eggs (See? the BP is not so good with the details):

These compete most closely with Reese's Pieces Eggs:

Here they are naked:

Now, the M & M Eggs look just like regular peanut butter M & Ms except for the speckley Easter colors. But the Reese's Eggs are completely different than regular Reese's Pieces and therefore, I give them higher points. I also like the colors better.

But for the real deal - you gotta autopsy:

I wondered why the M & Ms weren't as good as the Reese's - they have chocolate. Now I know I am committing heresy, but I like the candy shell and the peanut butter better WITHOUT the chocolate. I think this is a great example of our motivational point. Reese's owns peanut butter. M & M's rocks chocolate and peanuts, but peanut butter, not so much. Do what you are best at, don't try to be all things to all people.

**WARNING** - if you buy Reese's Pieces Eggs you will not be able to stop eating them. Motivation by Chocolate and its author, Denise Ryan, are not responsible for any weight gain, increased heart rate, erections lasting longer than four hours, blurriness of vision, increased cholesterol levels, or fighting among family members. Happy Easter!!

Tomorrow - COCONUT EGGSTRAVAGANZA!!!

Random Acts of Chocolate in the Spring

Still no luck in the dating arena - during my latest Match.com date, the guy didn't even crack a smile much less actually laugh. I am, however, pretty sure he was breathing. For his part, I'm sure he thought I needed to be put on Ritalin. The date gave new meaning to the phrase "one man show."

Springtime makes people do crazy things - fall in love, plan weddings, dig in the dirt. Apparently candy makers are also struck with Spring Fever. (I couldn't bring all those eggs on the road with me, so Eggstravaganza will pick back up in the next entry.) These aren't really Easter candy, although there are Easter Eggs on the Three Musketeers bag - right under the Limited Edition banner:

VERY festive - don't you think? Covered in dark chocolate and flavored with raspberry, these are a more subtle pink than those screaming red cherry ones I reviewed a few entries ago:

But again, I'm not digging the taste - there's something medicinal about it. Not so good. This edition needs to be kept limited, very limited.

Coconut seems to be a springtime favorite although I have absolutely no idea why. See's has a coconut egg, Russell Stover has a couple of coconut Easter things, Almond Joy does an Easter Egg. Why? I can see Summer - tropical - but Spring? Is there some politically correct Caribbean Easter Celebration? Is it the egg-like shape of the coconut? Anyway, check these out:

Coconut Creme Kisses - see the flowers? Springy.

I gotta tell you, I was skeptical here. I mean, how many damn flavors of Kisses do we need? How much coconut can you even fit in there? I just knew these were going to be gross. Well, I'll be damned if Hershey's didn't do it again! These are really good. There are actually coconut flakes in there! And, while I like coconut, I do not love it (coconut cake is not my favorite). But here, the chocolate coating created the perfect blend of flavors. These were surprisingly good. (Nothing on the Hershey wrapper about the coconuts being grown on a 500 year old coconut plantation, harvested by free-range natives with machetes sparkling in the sun, but they are GOOD.)

I like my chocolate like my friends - down to earth. Just be yourself. Don't go all prima donna on me. I mean, I do think these different sea salts are interesting and enjoy the creativity of the chocolatiers in using them, but when we start talking about how they sparkle in the sun, we have drunk WAY too much of the culinary Kool-Aid. At the end of the day, I just want my chocolate to taste good.

Hershey's is trying to get in on the higher end with their Truffle Kisses. I reviewed the cherry ones a few entries back and they were awesome. These chocolate truffle ones are good too:

These are made with a much better chocolate than the regular Kisses and they are larger. These were good, but nothing to really write home about. I liked the cherry ones better. Save your money and buy one grain of salt at Vosges.

So this spring - have fun, be yourself, and don't forget to laugh. And remember, Almond JOY is the nutty one - the world needs more joyous nuts!

This visit to Vegas has been a little bittersweet. That's because Afghanistan Affair man and I talked about coming here when he got back. Bastard. (Oops, did I type that out loud?) I've been to Vegas several times (solo every one) and I've always thought that it would be a great place to go with someone you were into. I mean, let's face it - Vegas IS Sin City. It's sexy. It's fun. It's hot! But, c'est la vie. The hope of finding somebody to share stuff like this with is what keeps me trying.

However, mostly the trip has been sweet. The weather is amazing, the town is packed (Spring Break and March Madness), and I'm here making money. I'm also sitting in my room at the gorgeous Bellagio enjoying the view:






See the mountains? And the water? That's where the fabulous Bellagio Fountains are - I can see them too when the shows on. How cool is this???

Not only is the view great, the Bellagio is decorated for spring and it is gorgeous:

Now that's some yard art I can live with! That globe has water coursing over it and it is breathtaking.

The speech went well (the BP does come in handy!) and I spent the rest of my day checking out the chocolate situation. One of the places mentioned in the LA Times - Chocolate at the Wynn - is closed. Boo!

But M & M World is alive and packed:

Now you have to admire the genius of M & M World. Every time I've ever been in one (Vegas,Times Square) it has been packed. This one is FOUR floors of M & Ms promotional items that people are falling all over each other to buy. People (myself included) are paying to buy marketing materials. I bought a M & M hoodie for $42 and I love it! I will plaster the M & M logo on my body and pay to do it! I love M & Ms and I want the world to know it! There was even a celebrity there:





I wonder if he's single?

You could also make your own color combination of M & Ms choosing from just about every color imaginable. Lowe's paint section ain't got nuthin' on Mars. At $11.99 a pound (good God!) these were flying out the door. Take that, Naked Cowboy.

But, of course, I didn't stop there.

There's a Vosges Store in the Forum Shops at Caesar's Palace. The Forum Shops are my favorite place to shop in Vegas. I love the ceiling that changes as if you were outside. I like the cheesy Greek statuary and the fountains. And they have some very high-end shops, but a good mix of affordable ones too. Oh - I saw the Cher store - she's performing out here. And the stuff was cool - kind of hip and Gothy. But if I met a guy wearing a Cher shirt - that would scare me. But I digress. Vegas does that to me - too many shiny objects.

Love the saying in the window: one taste and my lips were seething. Vosges is just soooo cool.

I was intrigued by this because I didn't really think seething seemed quite right, but number two in the definition is right on:

–verb (used without object)
1.to surge or foam as if boiling. (uh...maybe not, eww)
2.to be in a state of agitation or excitement. (oh, yes)
3.Archaic. to boil.

Oh - the fountains are going right now! WOW! It's dusk and they are lit up - so romantic. Sigh.

Anyway - I went a little crazy in Vosges. But, hey, I passed by all those ritzy designers and I don't gamble - what's a ton of chocolate? And I got something I have been dying to try. One of their cheese truffles:

I didn't have my autopsy tools, so I had to bite this one to show you the inside.

Gotta tell you - didn't like it. Ate one, trashed the other. At $2.75 each this wasn't the cheapest experiment. Hey - I guess I DO gamble! The money that goes to Vegas STAYS in Vegas!

The cheese taste wasn't too overpowering, but it was definitely there and I just don't think the combination does much for either chocolate or cheese. But you may like it. I didn't like the bacon chocolate combo either but some people do. I think these two are fads that will not stand the test of time. But hey, the Circus Peanut is still around, so what do I know?

I also went to Payard and have great shots of the chocolate fountain at Bellagio. But I'll save those for next time. Wish you all were here with me - we would be having a blast!!

The one good thing about being a solo traveler is you can spend as much time as you want doing whatever you want to do. It would be the rare man who would want to hike up and down the strip in search of chocolate. Freedom is a beautiful, beautiful thing. I am so lucky to be here, to have work that I adore, and a shopping bag full of some of the best chocolate in the world. I just need to stop thinking about what I don't have and start celebrating what I do have. Motivation by chocolate!!

The Great Caramel Throw Down

I love caramel. But like chocolate (and men) caramel is all over the map. Some caramel is nice and chewy, some is almost like liquid, and some is that horrible wheat flour stuff in Goetze's caramel creams. GLACK!! Of course, the best caramel for you is the one you like the best. But I think you have to try a lot of caramels so you can figure out which one is really your favorite.

All these caramels taste so different I thought I should get a definition of caramel. From Wikipedia:

Caramel (pronounced /ˈkærəmɛl/ or /ˈkɑrməl/) refers to a range of confections that are beige to dark brown in color and derived from the caramelization of sugar. Caramel also refers to a soft, dense, chewy, caramel-flavored candy made by boiling milk, sugar, butter, vanilla essence, water, and glucose or corn syrup.

Yahoo! I'm all about milk, butter, and sugar - YAY! And all of the caramels we'll review here (except for one) are covered in chocolate. YUM!!!

In the last entry I told you how fabulous the caramels from The Chocolate Fetish were. Well, today we're going to look at their sea salt collection:

http://www.chocolatefetish.com/proddetail.php?prod=SSCGBO&cat=8







And because it's easier for me to compare and judge than just describe, we're also going to look at caramels from another Asheville chocolatier, French Broad chocolates:

http://www.frenchbroadchocolates.com/salted_honey_caramels.html

We'll talk more about their other chocolates in an upcoming entry.

And since all the celebrities (including our new President) keep raving about Fran's chocolates, we'll take a look at them too:
http://www.franschocolates.com/home.php?cat=1

Okay - first off, the diamond shaped thing is not a caramel - it's a hazelnut milk chocolate truffle. And it's very, very good - especially if you like hazelnut.

Okay - on to the caramel.

Let's compare all the dark chocolate sea salts and then the milk chocolate ones.

The winner is The Chocolate Fetish - their caramel is slightly softer than French Broad's and has a richer taste. There is also a better marriage between the chocolate and the caramel in the Fetish caramels. The French Broad chocolates use a local wildflower honey rather than corn syrup - I don't know if this accounts for the difference in taste and texture or not.

The Fetish caramel is so rich and chewy - it's just amazing.

Now what about the famous Fran's? Third place! Too salty - the salt completely overpowered the caramel. Now French Broad's caramels could actually have used a little MORE salt. It was too subtle there. Fetish was just right, Goldilocks.

Now here's the thing - if you only had Fran's you might think it was good. The combination of salt and caramel is a delicious one. But when you compare it to these other two - not so good! And Fran's is the most expensive, thank you very much. In this case, celebrity endorsement is worth more than quality.

Now what about the milk chocolate ones?

Fetish wins again! I just can't tell you all how amazing these caramels are. They have such a rich, deep taste. And look at all the different salts - they use SIX different salts from around the world. This really gives you an amazing taste experience. You would never think salts could taste so differently.

This time Fran's comes in second - I really liked the milk chocolate ones much better. The salt was less overwhelming than on the dark chocolate ones. But it was close, the French Broad caramels had a delicious finish. The chocolate was a bit smoother on the Fran's caramels.

So, when it comes to chocolate covered caramels, The Chocolate Fetish RULES!

All I want to do is get you to try something different. You may decide you'd rather have Kraft caramels any day, and that's great! But choose based on knowledge, not just because those are the caramels you've always eaten. And remember, this blog is about chocolate, but the message is bigger. Don't just do what you've always done or hang out with the same people you've always hung out with. Try new things! Meet new people! Your life is as big and as exciting as YOU make it. Everyday can be an adventure.

Even salt can be exciting!!