ChocolateBet: September 13, 2006

I check out of the Artemis hotel and I take a small airport shuttle van to the airport. On the way, we pick up and drop off some other passengers, and I get to see what appears to be a real windmill off to the left. The adventure-kid in me can now leave Amsterdam happy.

Thanks again to all the great people in Amsterdam I met this week. They very patiently dealt with my lack of Dutch, and made me feel embarrassed a bit for my fellow Americans once again...As almost everyone I tend to meet in Europe (and in most countries I've traveled to) speaks more than one language, and usually some English. Thanks especially to the waiter in the Artemis Hotel restaurant, who very kindly watched me eat dinner, and periodically asked if I needed anything else, as I tried to keep from falling asleep head-first into my soup from jet lag the second night I stayed/ate there. (I tend to be wide awake the first day after rubber-banding through time zones, and then hit a wall sometime later in the second day. Note: to self, please do not schedule important business meetings the afternoon or evening of the second day if possible unless you want to offend people.

OK, on with the chocolate of the day...Sorry, I hope I haven't lost too many of you already with all this diary-tic accounting of my travels in the meantime....So, today, I'm wedged into my KLM airline seat and winging back over the Atlantic, and I'm harvesting my chocolate of the day from a square of chocolate mousse cake. I'm actually fileting off the top layer very carefully with my plastic fork, because I can't have the cake layer underneath -- as wheat/gluten does not so great things to me.

We'll see if I can get to 365 different types of chocolate (without repeating) without eating any wheat or gluten by-products. This leaves out most cookies, cakes, and many other items that have added wheat starch, wheat flour, and the like. But, more on that later. There are already lots of sites and blogs that cover this topic already I'll bet. (Search terms: Celiac Sprue, wheat/gluten intolerance, wheat-free, etc.) Hah, I like a challenge. Of course I'll find 365 different kinds of chocolate without wheat-stuff in it!

Chocolate of the Day:
part of a piece of cake
? brand (KLM Airlines meal)
chocolate mousse cake (frosting/filling)