National Chocolate Day!!!

In celebration of National Chocolate Day (no, really, it's a holiday - Facebook said so) I decided it was time to make this looming blog idea a reality. Because I love chocolate. And I have things to say. Many, many things to say. The first thing is EAT CHOCOLATE! I could go on and bore you with studies and statistics and reference Dr. Weil's anti-inflammatory pyramid or the American Heart Association and all their claims about how certain flavonoids in chocolate are good for your heart and your arteries. I could do that. Or I could just tell you to eat the chocolate because it’s good! Good enough to apparently have a national holiday for it.
Which brings me to the next thing I have to say. Why is this not an international holiday? Like Americans make good chocolate? Following suit with the rest of our bastardized food supply, American chocolate is mostly crap. So get out there and find the best crap you can get your hands on, and enjoy the crap out of it. Enjoy every morsel of partially hydrogenated oils, mono and diglycerides, soy and corn, stabilizers and fillers that will most likely wind up in your chocolate. If I wanted corn or soy in my chocolate I’d eat chocolate covered corn, or chocolate covered soybeans (actually not so bad), thank you very much! You want good chocolate? Check out chocolate that comes from just about every other part of the world OUTSIDE of ours.
Indulging in a really good quality chocolate means all you need is a little to satisfy you. And before you start quoting commercials, yes I do understand that Snickers satisfies, especially the King size bar...I will have you know that you can save about 300 calories and your dignity with just a 1.5 ounce square of REALLY good dark chocolate. And call yourself a gourmet. A chocolate snob. A foodie. Call yourself whatever you want, just stop eating crap chocolate.
When you do find that intensely dark, luscious, mouthwatering chocolate that demands your attention and ignites all your senses to force you into an audible “O.M.G.,” well then the next obvious question is – What do I drink with this to enhance and intensify all these flavors? At least that’s my question. Assuming you’ve selected a dark chocolate (preferably 70% or more cacao), go for the sweet to balance out the bitterness from the chocolate – Shiraz, Zin, and if you think you can take the intensely sweet, go straight for the port. If you haven’t selected dark chocolate, I have no words for you. You might as well stop reading my blog. Seriously. Stop reading. We have no use for each other.
Why are you still sitting there? Go! Go pour yourself a glass of red liquid grapes and get out the stepladder to dig out the good chocolate you're hiding from the kids (you know you are). Give National Chocolate Day the acknowledgement it deserves! And you'll need to catch up because I'm already on my second glass.
Cheers,
Your Tipsy Dietitian