Maybe I'm getting old, or maybe chocolate is getting worse, but I'm loosing all interest in the stuff.
In the UK, three big corporations control the chocolate and sweets business: Cadbury Schweppes; Masterfoods/Mars and Nestlé. Once upon a time I could eat things that they all made, now their "chocolate" just gives me diarrhoea within about 20-30 minutes. However the smaller guys with their organic/fair-trade/real ingredients stuff is fine, and as it's more expensive I eat less of it!
Strange world....
Masterful pun! (or did you mean "losing"?
Dyslexia and lack of careful spell checking I fear. However as you say it seems better as a mistake than the intended meaning.....
If Gary Larson can get away with errors being better than the original then I think I can.
I've got a couple of bars of Lindt 85% cocoa chocolate in my desk at work. It's such strong stuff I find that I'm not eating it very quickly. (Confession - I may not actually be hard enough to cope. I suspect I'm going to wimp out back to 72% next time). It's not fair trade, but I suspect it's more ethical than Nestlé. However, my tea is fairtrade (with the teabags foil sealed in groups of 40, which is useful). Their coffee is good too.
Re:85% proof
ajt on 2003-03-27T16:53:47
I must confess to having brought back some rather nice Lindt chocolates back from Paris last weekend. They are not fairtrade or organic, but there is no chemical goo, or cheap low grade ingredients in there, and they taste very nice, and have no side-effects! Like you said the higher actual chocolate content does make it easier to have smaller helpings....
Re:85% proof
nicholas on 2003-03-28T10:34:09
I got mine from Sainsbury's in Alperton. It's not as romantic as Paris, but much faster to get to from work. (I'm not convinced that I really like working at a location where the only place of note I can get to within a lunchbreak is Alperton; an arduous treck along Hanger Lane, the highlight of which is a scenic view of the River Brent)
Re:85% proof
ajt on 2003-03-28T11:51:45
Yet Another Paris Confession: I don't normally go to Paris to get chocolates, my Sainsbury's is in Basingstoke, and it's very unromantic. In fact my local Sainsbury's is actually terrible!
Re:85% proof
nicholas on 2003-03-28T14:07:40
But it's more fun using the Eurostar to go chocolate shopping. Last year I went to the German Perl Workshop by Eurostar, and bought very nice chocolates in Belgium on the way back. This year, I flew, and found some perl merchanise instead.
I may go by Eurostar again next year, given that both the chocolates in Brussels and the seafood pizza in the Gare de Midi are very nice. It should be faster, given that first part of our rail link will be open by then, and the Belgians have built a new line towards Aachen. (Is that already open?)
Re:85% proof
ajt on 2003-03-28T14:51:24
I can't deny that a trip on the Eurostar is more fun than (in my case) your average SouthWestTrains slam-door scrap-heap. I think I can also say that shopping in Paris is also more exciting than Basingstoke - sorry Basingstoke the new "Festival Place" isn't that good, but it is a lot closer to home...
I'm not sure about the new lines, but apparently the UK side gets updated this year, so the multi-million £/€ trains don't have to run on 50 year old, congested, commuter lines for all their UK side of the trip.
If you happen to pop over to Paris next there is a very nice "cake" shop just out side Gare du Nord. I've not been in the shop, but I've had some stuff bought from it, and it was jolly nice indeed!
Re:85% proof
nicholas on 2003-03-31T14:51:30
back to 72%IIRC Lindt is 70%, but Sainsbury's own is 72%. However, they had a 3 for 2 offer on Green & Black's
:-) My cow-orker has given up chocolate for lent, and it's not clear how long this offer will last. I suggested that he had only given up eating chocolate for lent, but he wasn't buying that idea. So I suggested that he should give up poor quality chocolate for lent. No. His resolve is too strong. I guess that means that I can safely eat it without offering him any, but I'll try not to, as it feels cruel exploiting his resolve.
Re:85% proof
ajt on 2003-03-31T21:04:18
According to Google, Green and Blacks's web site is here Failed!!!. They must be running a stupid browser sniffer, and it complained when Google arrived, so it turns up in Google with a title of "Failed!!".... Don't you just hate bad site design?
Nice chocolate though, they have a 70% dark, a 34% milk and a white "cocolate" in their base range. I find the dark is a bit bitter, but it is very good in cooking and works well in hot-cocolate. I like the milk version, which is also good in cooking, and the white is okay, but it don't really count as chocolate....
;-)
