The Chocolate Garden

I first heard of The Chocolate Garden back in 2001 on TV ... The Food Network did a feature on them.

You know how TV shows featuring foods have the hosts take a bite ... and no matter what, they all say: "Yum, this is amazing"... but you can tell by the looks on their faces that as soon as they go to commercial, they're bending over the trash bucket? Ya. Well not this time. When they tasted the Chocolate Garden's truffles, time seemed to slow ... all you heard was: "mmmmmm". Eyelids were slowly closing in their most unexpected public moments that proved to be nearly orgasmic.

I immediately got online & ordered a two-pack. Six days later I received my order & tasted them for the first time. Five minutes after that, I was placing another (much larger) order.






I may have mentioned before, how cranky I get when I go to 'gourmet chocolate shops', pay too much & end up disappointed. One of the reasons I fell so immediately head-over-heels with The Chocolate Garden, was because these suckers are hand-rolled. The truffles you get in many "gourmet" shops are mass produced, and have a horrendous wax coating that just makes my tongue say: "ewww" the moment I put it in my mouth.

There's no wax on The Chocolate Garden's truffles.

Let me just say this ...

Oh ... My .... God.

Chocolate lovers, you will know - with your first soft bite - these are simply, the world's greatest chocolate truffles.

Period.

Ghirardelli Chocolate

As a self-proclaimed chocolate connoisseur, I have to say, I know chocolate. Chocolate & I have been having an ongoing love affair for more than forty years.

I've been to the local malls where the fancy-schmancy chocolate shops claim to have the best chocolates in the world, spent waaay too much money for something that tastes the same as a $2 hollow chocolate Easter bunny.

I've tried every chocolate bar known to man.

Belgian chocolates are very good. But even they, pale in comparison to Ghirardelli. (GEAR-UH-DELLY)



There's just something about the taste of Ghirardelli that makes you -- if you're a true chocolate lover -- sigh ... and feel the rush of calm surround your body like a warm, soft blanket.

It's the greatest natural high that I know.

I read once, that they roast their cocoa beans differently than other chocolate manufacturers. Ghirardelli takes the little seeds out of the bean & roasts them at precise temps, in order to get specific flavors. Most other chocolate manufacturers roast & burn the bean ... the result being ... burnt seeds, under-roasted seeds ... varying, inconsistent flavors.



I've even visited the factory in SanFrancisco.

It was a thing of beauty. Huge vats of slowly stirred, thick liquid chocolate. I wanted to jump in. I wanted to swim in it. I pictured myself diving in. Evidently, someone had the idea before me because there were Plexiglas walls surrounding the vats.

All in all, my visit to the Ghirardelli factory was one of the most memorable experiences of my time in SanFrancisco... even though I didn't get to go swimming.

The grocery stores carry double chocolate ghirardelli brownies & ghirardelli semi-sweet chocolate chips. The next time you're gonna make brownies or chocolate chip cookies, I challenge you to spend the extra $1.50. You WILL NOT regret it. :-) I promise.