ChocolateBet: December 29, 2010

Chocolate(s) of the Day:

Just Born, Inc.
Peeps

1.) Chocolate Mousse flavored Marshmallow Reindeer
Good+
Weight: .39 oz. (11.16 g.) in 1 reindeer/ 2 3/8 oz. (67 g.) total pkg.
Calories: 40 calories in 1 reindeer
Cost: $1.39 total package of 6
Purchased from: Piazza's Fine Foods, Palo Alto, CA

2.) Milk Chocolate Covered Mint flavored Marshmallow
OK+
Weight: .10 oz. (2.8 g.) in 1 package/tree
Calories: 11 calories in 1 bite

3.) Dark Chocolate Covered Marshmallow Pumpkin
OK+
Weight: .10 oz. (2.8 g.) in 1 package/pumpkin
Calories: 12 calories in 1 bite

Peeps! Who can argue with Just Born, Inc.'s famous marshmallow
Peeps, especially chocolate flavored and chocolate covered ones.

Today is Day #7 of Chocolate and Something Different Theme Week. I would have done a full Peeps theme week in 2010, but I couldn't find seven different kinds with chocolate.

My favorite was the reindeer. It could easily imagine this Peep lolling around in a large mug of hot chocolate.

ChocolateBet: December 24, 2010

Chocolate of the Day:

1 bite
Tom and Sally's Handmade Chocolates, Inc.
Reindeer Pies
Good
Weight: .2 oz. (5.6 g.) / 2 oz. (57 g.) total package/pie
Calories: 30 calories (estimate)
Cost: $
Purchased from: Michael's in Mountain View, CA

Today is Day #2 of Chocolate Theme Weeks that didn't quite make the cut in 2010. Every day this week I'm focusing on a different theme that was too unique for a whole theme week, but worthy of mention in its own special way.

It's Christmas Eve. Please pass the reindeer pies. Somehow that doesn't quite fit in with today's Christmas Eve holiday meal. However, Tom and Sally's Handmade Chocolates is one of several companies that have had fun with chocsimiles (chocolate facsimiles) of animal poop. Over the past four + years I've sampled chocsimiles of Montana moose poop, Wyoming bear poop, Monterey Bay otter poop....So, why not poop from one of  Santa's reindeer? The package assures me that "Yule love them" and the pie in question is, in fact, "Pure Chocolate, No Doo-Doo"-- Belgian Milk Chocolate with Almonds to be exact. In closing, Tom and Sally's also leaves us with this bit of advice: "Beware of UFOs: Don't look up on Christmas Eve"...and..."Santa leaves the presents. The reindeer leave the pies."

Happy Christmas Eve to all who celebrate this occasion. May visions of sugar plums dance in your head -- and may these plums crowd out any other images I've just conjured above.

ChocolateBet: November 2, 2010

Chocolate of the Day:

4 pieces
Hotel Chocolat Ltd.
Tiddly Reindeers
Very Good
Weight: 1.5 oz. (42.5 g.)/ 3 oz. (85 g.) total package of 8 reindeers
Calories: 225 calories (estimate)
Cost: $ N/A - evaluation samples
Purchased from: N/A - Hotel Chocolate is based in London, England

Today was Day #5 of Chocolate and Christmas-is-Coming Theme Week.

A tiny sled box with 8 tiny (Tiddly) 70% dark chocolate reindeer from Hotel Chocolat (London, England) landed on my plate today. Unfortunately for them, only 4 survived the encounter.

Not to get too gruesome, but bites of the first reindeer produced quite a hard snap. I suspect in cold winter mornings (when chocolate is firmest) this snap may produce a mild ringing of sleigh bells in your head, but by the time I'd eaten the last one of the four unfortunates in the afternoon, the warmer weather had softened the snap a bit.

Examples of 1.) Well-fed, friendly 70% dark reindeer and 2.) Reindeer dreading what comes next as a hand reaches out, at right.

ChocolateBet: May 11, 2010

Chocolate(s) of the Day:

1.) Splendid Chocolates - Milk Chocolate Reindeer
(1 pair of chocolate reindeer antlers)
Good
Weight: ~ .3 oz. (8.49 g.) in 1 set of chocolate antlers; (1.4 oz. (40 g.) in 1 reindeer)/ 5.6 oz. (160 g.) in total package of 4 reindeer
Calories: 45 calories in 1 set of chocolate reindeer antlers
Cost: $0.69 (post-holiday sale)
Purchased from: World Market/Cost Plus, in Mountain View, CA

2.) Pieterman - Holland - Chocolate Flavoured Crayons
(1 crayon)
OK+ - Good
Weight: .087 oz. (2.5 g) in 1 crayon; .87 oz. (25 g.) in total package of 10 crayons
Calories: 13 calories (estimate) in 1 crayon
Cost: $2.50 per package of 10
Purchased from: Candy Baron, at Pier 39, in San Francisco, CA

Welcome to Day #5 of Chocolate and Fun and Games Theme Week. Today's chocolates came from Canada (reindeer) and Holland (crayons).

Reindeer Games....No, not the movie, but an animated holiday TV special with Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, from many years ago. That's what came to mind when I looked at these Splendid Chocolates milk chocolate reindeer that I purchased during a blow-out post holiday sale a few months ago. I couldn't say no to a package of four tiny reindeer who seemed to be pleading through the clear plastic wrap. Save us! -- for a limited time only, 69 cents.

The Urban Dictionary (see urbandictionary.com site) defines "Reindeer Games" as activities that are enjoyed by a clique or a select group. (Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer wanted to be like the other reindeer and play in their reindeer games.) I ate just the antlers from one reindeer (before picture), because I was having two chocolates today. So, now I have a doe (after picture). This was probably not what poor Rudolph had in mind.

Moving on to the second chocolate of the day...Please don't eat the crayons. As children, we learned that crayons, paste, and bugs were off the menu about the time we started to toddle around upright. Well, rules were made to be broken. These Pieterman crayons are edible; and it was fun to try to draw with them on hard surfaces. Parents will appreciate this. (Probably not.)

ChocolateBet: December 26, 2009

Chocolate(s) of the Day:

1.) Palmer - Santa's Coal
1 piece
Good - Good +
Weight: .5 oz. (14.125 g.)/4 oz. (113 g.) total mesh bag of 8 pieces of "coal"
Calories: 75 calories for one piece (estimate)
Cost: $
Purchased from: Walgreens, in Palo Alto, CA

2.) Reese's - Reese's Peanut Butter Snowman
3/4 snowman
Very Good
Weight: 3.75 oz. (105.7 g)/(5 oz. (141 g.) total
Calories: 540 calories for 3/4 snowman
Cost: $4.99
Purchased from: CVS/pharmcy, in midtown Palo Alto, CA

3.) Sweet Time - Red Reindeer Noses
1 serving
Good
Weight: 0.70 oz. (20 g.) total package - chocolate round shell + red pieces inside
Calories: 100 calories
Cost: $0.59
Purchased from: Walgreens, in Palo Alto, CA

Today was a post-Christmas chocolate windfall -- from chocolate coal, to snowboarding peanut butter and chocolate snowmen and a chocolate clown nose -- no wait a minute, there were little mini red shelled chocolate candies inside this little chocolate nose orb (see image above).