The Chocolate Standard

I have often said that I'm not an addictive personality -- but don't dare take my chocolate and coffee! My love, affection and perhaps reliance on chocolate is so profound that when S and I had just started dating he confessed to me that one of his only concerns was that I talked about chocolate so much I would get very, very fat. Why I wouldn't have done so in the preceding 36 years I'm not sure.
I have recently tasted a chocolate bar that made me feel rich. Chocolate has done many things for me in the past, but this bar was so fine it was a whole different experience. It was a small taste of a DoMori Barrique bar. I was standing at the bottom of the stairs in my entry hall, an inauspicious place for encountering an entirely new yardstick for the quality of chocolate.

As both a chocoholic and cook, I immediately tried to guess what combination of flavors was in my mouth -- it wasn't just dark, rich (75%, as it turns out) chocolate. I tasted cinnamon. It was buttressed and enhanced by other spices, including pepper, but they were so scarce that they just made it richer; they weren't distinct flavors for me.

This particular DoMori bar came from the Manor grocery in downtown Lugano (a fine place); it sells for 6.80 Swiss francs there. That's about $5.50 for a 50g bar. I've seen them online for 2.45 GBP. For me, chocolate will never be the same.