I am getting very bored of being off work, but whilst the amount of time I have spent in bed has led to such other negative side effects as the discovery today of the beginnings of a dreadlock in my hair, it has of course also meant that I have had time to get this blog going.

I am concerned that it has got to this time of night without me starting my entry, which is at least partially because various contacts have been online, and I am notoriously bad at containing my messenger habit. This is not helped by having my laptop in bed with me on a wireless connection which has been playing up for months but which I finally seem to have sorted out with some help from a friend last week, and with a phone call to VAIO-link today. The woman I spoke to was, by the way, one of the most abrasive ‘technical support analysts’ I have ever dealt with. She wouldn’t accept that I had previously registered with them, and, wanting my serial number, wouldn’t allow me to read it off the underside of my computer, but insisted on talking me through the steps required to get into the BIOS, occasionally barking out questions about what was on my screen to check that I was following her. (Just so you know – I cheated and read it off the sticker. I had to follow her instructions, obviously, so she didn’t catch me out, but I got a great deal of satisfaction from wilfully disobeying at the last minute.)

Anyway, I digress… Today’s posting is about the other thing that has been keeping me occupied these last few days. Last weekend I discovered that I shared my love of Green and Black’s chocolate, Maya Gold, with my housemate, Bloke.

In fact, we both proclaimed it the best chocolate ever. We decided, however, that this was a very sweeping claim to make without substantiation. When I went into our local deli on Sunday to buy some comfort food, and made the delightfully fortuitous discovery that they stocked a very classy looking brand called L’artisan du chocolat, I realised that we could begin our experimentation in earnest.

To this end I bought two bars out of the great array of flavours they had in stock, as well as a control bar of Maya Gold. The first was a dark bar called Madagascar – ‘sharp, intense, with red fruits and citrus notes’, the second, Ecuador – a milk chocolate with a ‘creamy, intense vanilla and caramel bouquet with a hint of malt.’ With some difficulty, I managed not to finish them before Bloke and Blonde returned that afternoon. Our verdicts were that the Madagascar, which being a citrus and spice affair is the Maya Gold’s natural challenger, is, at only 64%, a very good dark chocolate, but that it didn’t quite stand up to the Green and Black’s. The others dismissed the Ecuador out of hand, although I, usually very snooty about milk chocolate, rather liked its vanilla notes, and felt that it was a precocious little bar which could definitely hold its own in the same circles as its more sophisticated, darker relatives.

Yesterday I had cause to pop out again to stock up on necessities such as sun dried tomato, chorizo and chick peas, bleu d’auvergne and Bath Olivers, and of course, free range eggs and organic farmhouse bread to make the boiled eggs and soldiers I always crave when I am ill (…memories of being in bed as a child with mum bringing them to me – the yolks runny, the toast buttered – before kissing me goodbye, trailing just a whiff of her Oil of Ulay moisturiser…). At the counter, the Black Cardamom caught my eye. ‘Our house blend infused with green and black cardamom pods. Spicy, fresh, with a hint of smokiness’. On finishing the bar this afternoon, Bloke and I agreed it was very, very good – perfectly spiced, and at 70%, a natural accompaniment to a cup of Guatemalan coffee (oh for the days when I could handle caffeine!) and a good game of Scrabble on a blustery afternoon.

I made a vital error, however, and didn’t buy a control bar. So while we conceded that the Black Cardamom falls slightly and disappointingly short of the reigning champion, we may have to re-test under more rigorous conditions. We realise we have a long way to go in our quest to find the world’s best bar of chocolate.

Blonde returned home early today. She has caught my sore throat and won’t be at work tomorrow, and she has agreed to help us in our challenge. I think I may need to address some of the less savoury results of my illness, though. When I told her about the baby dreadlock, she responded that there is no excuse for not having brushed my hair for the last week, and she is worried that I may develop bed sores next!

This entry was posted on Wednesday, February 16th, 2005 at 11:49 am and is filed under Levity. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.