In Praise of Chocolate

A Champlain Chocolate Family Portrait

The destination for tonight's pilgrimage. The sign says it all.

When we lived in Paris, I used to walk by one of the best chocolatier in the whole city on my way to and from work. Hevin was his name and chocolate was his game. And what a game it was. Good lord that was good chocolate! Well worth the $40 or $50 a pound that it cost. But all good things eventually end, and our access to Hevin chocolate abruptly ceased when we moved back to the States. Enter stage left, Champlain Chocolate, our local Vermont chocolatier. Their small factory is up in Burlington and although their chocolate isn't quite Hevin heavenly, it's pretty darn good chocolate and the sales people are infinitely more pleasant. They have a big retail store near Stowe, one of our big ski towns, and we try and go by half a dozen times a year to get a big chocolate fix. Christmas is one of those times obviously, and we buy enough chocolate to both send out care packages to deserving family members and get us through the holidays. Lucky us, tonight was the night for our Christmas run. As I post this I have just finished eating enough chocolate to be both very content and slightly nauseated. It may be another couple of hours before I can eat any more. Chocolate is, sadly, one of those exquisite pleasures that the many scolds in our society would like us to feel guilty about. It's fattening, it's too overtly sensual, it's expensive and unnecessary, it contributes to global warming, it's not free trade, it contributes to diabetes and on and on. In this regard chocolate is a lot like sex. Most everybody loves it and would like to have more, but somehow we're not supposed to. The good news is, I've pretty much freed myself of any feelings of guilt associated with societal scolding, and there are 10 pounds of chocolate in the house. Now if I could just get back to Paris to visit Hevin...