Confessions Of A Chocolate Chaser

Many women, if not most, have a little bit of a Carrie Bradshaw Syndrome in them. I certainly saw it with my mother and my older sister when I was growing up. My mother alone must have owned a minimum of 30 pairs of shoes when she was in her prime. My sister went the extra mile by working at Saks Fifth Avenue during her university days to feed her shoe addiction to get that twenty percent employees discount on all those unpronounceable European designer labels.

Somehow, perhaps by a freak of nature, the Carrie Bradshaw Syndrome passed me by. I never had a desire to own those coveted four-inch, feet-deforming, corn and callous-forming, $800 pairs of Louis Vuitton, Manolo Blahnik or Gucci stilettos. Why would any woman spend $800 on a pair of shoes that only guarantees to turn her feet into hammer toes?

Instead of lusting after the latest pair of designer shoes or handbag, I lust after different brands of chocolates. I willingly drop $3-4 for a 2-ounce morsel of dainty, handcrafted artisan chocolate. Most of the time, I do not have access to fine chocolates. I do the next best thing by indulging myself with Lindt chocolates by setting aside a weekly budget to feed my addiction. Chocolate tablets are included on my weekly grocery shopping list. Since I live in a humid, tropical climate where the average room temperature is around 70-71 F, my vegetable crisper contains more bars of chocolates than vegetables.

Whenever I go back home to Los Angeles for a visit, I spend around $100-200 shopping at different chocolate boutiques. My shoe-obsessed, Carrie Bradshaw-stricken sister and friends ask me how I can spend so much on chocolates.

Before the age of 16, after having saved up a decent amount of my allowance, I would willingly put up with L.A.'s less than impressive public bus system and venture out of the typical sprawling Southern California suburb that I called home. I would take two bus rides to Beverly Hills just so I could get away from the ubiquitous coarse, adulterated, sugar and hydrogenated vegetable oil-filled, mass produced chocolates that came by the name of Hershey's, Nestle, or Mars that were offered. Those chocolatier shops on Brighton Way briefly transported me to a small universe of smooth, finely ground cocoa that is free of any vegetable oil substitutions, but laced with only the purest cocoa butter, thus providing that rich, silky and luscious smoothness that melts the moment I put a flavorful morsel in my mouth. I would return to my sprawling suburb of Volvo and station wagon-driving soccer moms with five or six pieces of chocolates from Teuscher, Neuhaus, or Leonidas with $1.50 left in my pocket.

Article Author: The Kitchen Masochist

Yuppie by day, freelance ghostwriter by night, painter on the weekends, a reluctant cook to fill all those spaces in between and the author of an obscure food blog called "The Kitchen Masochist."

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