better than chocolate

As far as I'm concerned, there are not too many things better than chocolate. So I was thrilled when one of my co-workers, who had spent a good chunk of his summer in Berlin, gave me some fabulous chocolate from the shop he was living next to.


This is probably the BEST chocolate I have EVER had. Delicious milk chocolate with strong ground coffee. Yummy! Dolfin chocolate is made in Belgium and is apparently available throughout Europe. According to their website, they have a variety of interesting flavours including dark chocolate with pink peppercorns, dark chocolate with green aniseed, and milk chocolate with Hot Masala!

Oh, and the package pictured above...empty.

...everyone here knows how to cry...

Every summer, we spend a couple of weeks at the cottage. Steve's grandfather built a rustic cottage on a large, lakeside property outside of Ottawa many years ago. As a result, we always have a summer vacation spot. I often jokingly tell my unmarried friends that it's wise to marry into a family with a cottage. Truly, I am only half joking. I am very thankful for the cottage and love having somewhere to take a holiday that doesn't cost anymore than a week off at home.

Part of our cottage ritual is a trip to nearby Smiths Falls to visit the Canadian Hershey Chocolate Factory. Here you get to view part of the factory floor (my favourite is where they make the Reese's Peanut Butter Cups) and buy chocolate for cheap! Sadly, Hershey announced today that they will be closing the Smiths Falls plant. 400 people in a town of 9,000 will lose their jobs and an area institution will disappear. As a chocoholic, this makes me very sad, as much for my chocolate addiction as for the local economy. I worry about the effect that this will have on Smiths Falls and hope that they can recover.