Oh one more thing

I'm not a chocolate snob. No, really. Yes, I will eat only dark chocolate over 80% cocoa, and will not even consider any piece of trash over 75% without a gun over my head. It's true that I consider the Hershey's chocolate factory and its products to be the products of a secret cabal to defame the true nature of chocolate and everything that's great with the world and instead sell pure sugar in its stead. I will admit that on more than one occasion -- almost at least once every week actually -- I have eaten the tiny bar of 85% dark chocolate from Aldi (made in Germany) for a meal. My defence is low calories in case you're interested. And yes, most of those meals have been breakfasts. It is true, now that you bring it up, that I eat not because of the antioxidants (I'll be honest here, I do not know what they are nor would I really care even if I did) but because I enjoy the flavor. But really, I'm not a chocolate snob. I don't eat that much chocolate!

It started when the shared grocery chocolates started disappearing not a day after we'd gotten them. Many a bar went into the happy mouths of my roommates without so much as seeing my face. I figured the solution to that was to get a darker version. So I started at 45%. As it turned out, my roommates liked those darker ones even better (because they actually tasted like something that was not rancid fat mixed with bottom-shelf unprocessed sugar) so there were days when they didn't even make it back to our house. I started getting darker ones. Around the 70% mark, they started discovering that dark chocolate in milk is incredible, particularly if it's unadulterated by whatever crap the confectionery brands are trying to load you with. So up went the cocoa percent. I discovered, after several months of gradual discovery, that 85% was around the mark when no one else but I could safely touch the chocolates. I mean, I could have gone higher (our other grocery store sells even higher %) but it was not the extra price, and besides if Aldi's only willing to go that far, who am I to doubt the impeccable tastes of the finely refined palate of Aldi customers.

My roommate (who wasn't around for these chocolate wars) calls my bars 'bars of mud' now, because to him they are weird in texture without all the fat and sugar to hold together, and in taste, without all the rancid fat to give the classic 'bitter' chocolate flavor. No, he fails to appreciate my personal history and commitment to chocolate eating. Why should I stop after all, my bars are free from potential suitors, don't have a buttload of sugar, and honestly, make one HELL of a healthy low-calories breakfast. I'm a practical man after all, not a connoisseur. NO, I'm most definitely not a snob. Don't even.