Doctor's Orders: Eat More Chocolate

Then one night a few weeks down the road, when it was a bit warmer out in May, I ate some again and, that time, it really grabbed me. At first I thought this was maybe just part of the Amedei intrigue, the seemingly dark powers at work behind this dark chocolate, some sort of secret way to get under your skin and get you quietly hooked when your mind isn't looking.

But in talking this seemingly inexplicable shift through with Duff, she pointed out that, although few consumers realize it, the temperature at which we eat a chocolate has a big impact on how we experience it. In hindsight of course this totally makes sense. I've been saying the same thing incessantly about good cheese and cured ham, etc. for decades. Eat 'em straight from the fridge and you miss at least half the flavor.

While I don't keep chocolate in the cooler, sure enough when I first started tasting this stuff the weather was much colder. And lo and behold he day I started to like it a lot better the weather had turned and we'd hit the way warmer temperatures of mid-to-late May.

Once I unwittingly got the temperature thing in alignment (or as a friend of mine's four-year-old has taken to saying,, "in awinement") I can honestly speak to how much I like the Amedei. It's got a lot more balance than I first thought, meaning that a lot of good things come up but none take over and none really hit the ball out of the park on their own.

I'd say it's buttery but not really unctuous or anything extreme like that. It's meaty but still really very mellow. Kind of coffee-ish but really only slightly so. It's got a little bit of fruit in the flavor but nowhere near the way a lot of the great Valrhona chocolate hit those cherry high notes. I'd say it's got a pinch of maybe fresh pear, a hint of a toasted hazelnut.

Duff added in "a lot of coconut." I'd say it's got a pretty nice, big creamy mouthfeel that lingers really, really long. Without getting overly romantic about it, "caress" would be a good word to use to describe that it seems to do on the tongue. Of course, Duff did say she's in love. Me, I think I'm just appreciating and giving newly double meaning to the phrase "going over to the dark side."

Much to Duff's delight, I've started buying chocolate bars in bunches. Half a bar a day adds up, and it's not cheap, but it's generally less than the cost of smoking half a pack a day and in this case seems to enhance your health, not make more trouble than any of us needs. The good news then is that I've gotten a lot closer to our chocolates than I've ever been, and that Duff can add about $40 a week to (less my discount, I guess) to her chocolate sales line.

Who knows what will come of all this dabbling on the dark side, Amedei or otherwise. I will say that my blood pressure is a bit lower than it's really ever been in my adult life.

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