You may have noticed that a number of items on my chocolate list are out of stock. That’s because some types of confectioner’s chocolate are hard to get right now, largely because of industrial and transportation shutdowns due to Covid. The milk chocolate I like has been unavailable for over 4 months, and my stock is almost gone. I can get lower quality milk chocolate, but I don’t want it. Low quality milk chocolate doesn’t taste as good, and it often contains bad stuff: palm oil instead of cocoa butter, imitation vanilla instead of the real thing, powdered milk, and old or low quality cocoa beans. I would prefer to be out of stock rather than use bad chocolate. My chocolate has my name on it.

HOT CHOCOLATE?
Restaurants are constantly coming up with novel and surprising ideas for chocolate desserts. There are now restaurants in several cities that pour melted chocolate over the hands of their customers, and then you lick the chocolate off your hands. That’s the dessert. See photo below. This does not appeal to me at all. What about you?