One Up On Chocolate

I was so pleased with the responses that came into my post “Feed Me Chocolate.”  “Look, Mike,” I said. “People like my blog!”

“No,” he answered.  “They just like chocolate.”

He’s right.  Chocolate is definitely more exciting than I am.  But heh, heh, chocolate can’t blog about itself so I’ve got one up- for now…Two kind readers, however, have alerted me to an all mighty chocolate: Xoçai™.  Harder to spell, but apparently, much healthier than M&M’s, Xoçai™ is some sort of antioxidant-rich superfood. Diana McCalla says, it has “no preservatives, no processed sugars, no bad fats, no caffeine and it tastes like the most decadent Belgium chocolate you have ever tasted.”  Sounds pretty great, and I don’t even require any sort of Euro decadence.  I’m good with Hershey’s.

But I think I’ve already established that Hershey’s fun candy is out of the question for me, and Xoçai™…I don’t know…I haven’t tried it, but I’m not sold on it yet.  I’d be willing to taste any of the products, just not the nuggets because the word nuggets grosses me out.  Which leads me back to the very processed, sugary, trans-fatty dark chocolate in my supermarket… I asked Mike to pick some up last night for another experiment.  “Let’s go for 70% this time,” I said.

Mike is an adventurous guy, and he came home with not one, but two 70% bars.  The first was plain bitterness.  The second, bitter chocolate with smashed up pieces of bitter coffee beans.  “Yum,” I said.  “So this is what it tastes like to chew on a Tylenol caplet and a capsule of penicillin at the same time.” (*note- I love coffee, but chewing on the beans…not for me).

The next part of the experiment involved letting the chocolate dissolve on my tongue, per reader advice.  Mike and I both tried it.  Mike is generally more cheerful than I am, and he seemed pretty content with the whole thing.  He had a glass of red wine in his hand, a soccer game on TV… all was good.  But not with me.  After dissolving the chocolate on my tongue, there was a bitter residue all over my mouth that I desperately wanted to get rid of.  My first thought was to brush my teeth.  Then I feared the taste of toothpaste and bitter chocolate combined might cause me to gag.  At a loss for what to do, I did the stupidest thing possible- I went back for more chocolate.  Maybe I’ll get used to it, I said to myself.  Let me just keep trying…

Jessica Apple

Jessica Apple grew up in Houston. She studied Bible and Ancient Near Eastern Studies at the University of Michigan, and completed an MA in the same field at the Hebrew University. She began to write and publish short stories while a student, and has continued to write essays and fiction while raising her three sons (and many pets).

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Jessica Apple

Jessica Apple grew up in Houston. She studied Bible and Ancient Near Eastern Studies at the University of Michigan, and completed an MA in the same field at the Hebrew University. She began to write and publish short stories while a student, and continues to write essays and fiction while raising her three sons (and many pets). Jessica’s work has appeared in The New York Times Magazine, The Financial Times Magazine, The Southern Review, The Bellevue Literary Review, Tablet Magazine, and elsewhere. She is the diabetes correspondent for The Faster Times. In 2009 she and her husband, both type 1 diabetics, founded A Sweet Life, where she serves as editor-in-chief. Jessica loves spending time with her sons, cooking with her husband, playing with her cats, reading, biking, drinking coffee, and whenever possible, taking a nap. Follow Jessica on Twitter (@jessapple)