Some Don't Like It Hot

I love chocolate. I eat at least a little bit of it almost every day. I always feel a bit stunned when people assume that being vegan means I can't eat chocolate, as if dairy were inherently a part of chocolate! And as if I would have ever become vegan in the first place if it meant I could never have chocolate again! I pretty much like chocolate in every form... however, there is at least one thing you can do to chocolate that will ruin it for me.

You put your chocolate in my chipotle! You put your chipotle in my chocolate! Two great tastes that taste bad together.

I've had tastes of various types of chocolate bars that wrongly include some kind of  pepper over the years, and I was never a fan. Obviously, this food issue is cut from the exact same cloth as my issues with mole. I just can't get my head (or my taste buds) around the concept of chocolate being combined with spicy foods. I get chocolate + salty, I get chocolate + fruity, I get chocolate + almost anything on God's Green Earth, aside from insects or hot peppers! And no matter how many times my husband tries to assert that cacao grows in the same climates as jalapenos, hence, this somehow means they belong together, I disagree!

Anyway, my husband had acquired one of those Vosges bars, pictured above. He didn't want to share much of it with me, since it was a gift for him, and he knew I wouldn't appreciate it, but he did let me have a square of it. It was basically a mole flavored chocolate bar. He was right. I couldn't appreciate that!

So, I picked up my own spicy chocolate bar the other day.... one that doesn't cost it's weight in gold, the way the Vosges bars do. I got this one:

I'm not going to say I liked it, because I didn't. But I didn't dislike it as much as the Vosges bar. Frankly, the Vosges is a much higher quality product..... hence, it is more flavorful. So, while taking a bite of that Vosges bar was like a mouthful of mole, the Theo bar didn't have a strong mole flavor at all. It tastes almost normal while you eat it, but then you are left with an unsettlingly spicy after taste.

I'm only about 30% done with my spicy Theo bar. I'm eating a piece of it once a day. We'll see if I manage to adjust. If I feel any improvement, I'll go ahead and buy one of those million dollar Vosges bars for myself, to see if I can deem myself worthy of appreciating the "good" stuff!

Chocolate bars with spicy pepper in them are a drag.

So far, I haven't dare to open the package of those seaweed snacks... maybe tomorrow?