There are four basic food groups: milk chocolate, dark chocolate, white chocolate, and chocolate truffles. Anonymous
Calling all chocoholics…
It happened on an internet search for hotel info, when I stumbled on some enticing chocolate headlines, and followed the chocolate-chip trail.
“Eat Chocolate, Live Longer,” led the way; “Fueling your car with chocolate,” almost stopped the wandering (what a waste, I thought) but a Chocolate of the Month Club put us back on track and then, there it was, a chocolate discovery to culminate any choco-search — a hotel with “The Chocolate Suite.”
“Why not treat yourself to a mouth-watering, lip-licking weekend of chocolate?” their ad begins, which sounded like a hotel spin-doctor’s come-on, surely? Nonetheless, they’re reeling us in like a hungry fish.
“Dinner will be a very chocolatey affair. Chocolate is featured in every course, but other dishes are available if your stamina is waning! Retire to the lounge for coffee and homemade chocolate truffles.
“The following morning, breakfast includes delights like Pain au Chocolate and Chocolate spread.
“Afterwards we start on the Chocolate Treasure Hunt followed by chocolate tasting and demonstration, then settle down for the night.”
Where else but in the Chocolate Suite, of course, where “guests will have the chance to enjoy the delicious taste of Divine chocolate.”
The Chocolate Suite is, unfortunately, an ocean away, in the Three Ways House Hotel in England, only a stone’s-throw from Stratford-on-Avon, and it’s £140 per person per night to be surrounded by “Divine” chocolate?
Comfort Kwaasibea and Comfort Asare-Kwabi are at the other end of the Divine Chocolate Fair Trade story. They’re cocoa farmers from Ghana, and this is where this chocolate ramble was headed from the beginning.
The two women were in England recently representing their farmers co-operative named Kuapa Kokoo in Ghana, Africa. (In their local language, Twi, their co-operative name means “Good Cocoa Farmers Company” and their motto, “Pa Pa Paa,” means “the best of the best of the best.”)
Their new co-op (1998) owns one-third of Divine chocolate suggesting the owners of Day Chocolate Co. put their money where their mouth is, and joined hands in a Fair Trade agreement.
It seems so simple, yet it’s some of the same old story food producers face in far too many places in our hungry world, getting ripped off by other members of the food-delivery chain.
Greed sure messes up a lot of our beautiful planet eh?
We’ve met Fair Trade in some fine coffees, and other products, even chocolate, on the shelves of caring Whitehorse businesses, and a tip of the hat to them.
I wonder how we engage the people of the world in Fair Trade arrangements instead of war?
Keep trying, I guess, and maybe one day it will prevail over the stupidity of war. I guess it’s time to open the giant-size chocolate bar Bill gave us and contemplate the words of anonymous who often comes as close as anyone to nailing down our crazy world: “Life is like a box of chocolates, full of nuts.”
The 12-step chocoholics program: Never be more than 12 steps from chocolate!
The Sweetest Room…
The Chocolate Suite sounded like Chocolate Heaven until The Sweetest Room in the World came along:
“The walls are paneled in dark chocolate. The ceiling is white chocolate with marzipan almond-paste mouldings. All the furniture is chocolate coated.
Even the vases, dinnerware and cutlery on the chocolate-covered Biedermeier table are formed from solid chocolate, as are the ornate picture frames on the chocolate walls.
It’s real, it came to being in 2004 when the Halloren Chocolate Company in Germany celebrated its first century of making chocolate by putting this room together, but, and it’s a big but — the floor is chocolate coloured, you can walk in but it’s in their company museum so it’s hands, (or tongues), off … on second thought, the Chocolate Suite is hands-on chocolate, so it goes to the top of the list of places to visit when next in Gloucestershire, England.
“Chocolate is cheaper than therapy and you don’t need an appointment.”
Another tip of the hat to friends, chocolate, and all our guests from Outside here for The Games. Welcome, strangers. Of course, a stranger is a friend we haven’t met yet, so a second welcome, friend. May you enjoy our home as much as we do.