{"id":3938,"date":"2007-02-23T00:00:00","date_gmt":"1970-01-01T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lesliedinaberg.com\/wordpress\/?p=3938"},"modified":"2016-01-11T17:34:20","modified_gmt":"2016-01-12T01:34:20","slug":"confessions-of-a-choc-slut","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lesliedinaberg.com\/wordpress\/?p=3938","title":{"rendered":"Confessions of a Choc-Slut"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"chocolate<\/a>I have a confession to make: I’m not just a garden-variety chocoholic. I don’t just “like” chocolate, I am truly, madly, deeply, absolutely, completely and totally addicted to it. And I don’t have particularly high standards when it comes to chocolate. See’s Candy<\/a> is great, but chocolate chips will do in a pinch, and so will that last finger-full of canned frosting.<\/p>\n

I admit it. My name is Leslie, and I am a choco-slut.<\/p>\n

Seriously, I can’t get enough of it. When I’m having a bad day (or, let’s face it, a good day, or an average day, or just a day), I put a piece of chocolate in my mouth, close my eyes and melt as the delicious flavor of cocoa spreads warmly over my mouth, caressing my tongue with its deep, rich essence.<\/p>\n

Plus, chocolate is a lot cheaper than therapy<\/a> and I don’t need to make an appointment. And I finally have science on my side. A recent study at Johns Hopkins University found that a little chocolate every day can cut the risk of heart attack.<\/p>\n

You can imagine my excitement when I heard there was going to be a chocolate festival in Ventura. Scrumptiously delicious visions of chocolate rivers, waterfalls, dancing Oompa Loompas and magic glass elevators danced in my mind, as we drove to our destination. The festival’s website said we could help build a giant castle out of chocolate bars. I could just picture Count Chocula overseeing the towers by wielding a fudge-filled scepter over us minions.<\/p>\n

By the time we arrived I was drooling with anticipation.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, there’s no way to sugarcoat this: the festival was a bittersweet bust.<\/p>\n

Maybe my expectations were just too high. After all, I’ve been known to dance around the aisles of Vons when I spot the first itsy bitsy seasonally-attired Hershey Bars of each holiday season–and I can’t for the life of me figure out why they don’t do them up in red, white and blue for the Fourth of July, Memorial Day and Veteran’s Day.<\/p>\n

A little chocolate usually goes a long way with me. And like I said before, the choco-slut in me isn’t all that particular.<\/p>\n

But in the case of this particular festival, it was a little chocolate and a whole lot of tchotchkes.<\/p>\n

For every Churro dipped in chocolate (which wasn’t as good as it sounds) there were at least three vendors pushing decorative loaves of soap and two selling animal-themed wind chimes. For every super-anti-oxidant dark chocolate menopause cure (which tasted exactly like it sounds), there were at least three Balinese clothing importers and two old ladies selling knitted purses.<\/p>\n

Nothing says chocolate like bankruptcy lawyers, life insurance salesmen, and Jacuzzi vendors. At least give me some chocolate with my junk mail, guys.<\/p>\n

Sure, there were thick slabs of generously frosted cake, chocolate chip cookies up the wazoo, and thousands of tons of varieties of fudge by the pound–but there were no chocolate castles, no chocolate rivers, no chocolate waterfalls and no friggin Oompa Loompas.<\/p>\n

Quite frankly, I felt a bit betrayed.<\/p>\n

I walked through three pavilions and I still had money in my wallet and a shirt that was relatively free of chocolate stains. Talk about a disappointment!<\/p>\n

Then I came across a scroll, with the “The Rules for Chocolate” on it. The author is unknown, but I feel quite certain she (and these were most certainly written by a woman) wouldn’t mind if I shared them with you:<\/p>\n

-If you’ve got melted chocolate all over your hands, you’re eating it too slowly.<\/p>\n

-Clearly, chocolate is a vegetable. Chocolate is derived from cacao beans. A bean is a vegetable. Sugar is derived from either sugar cane or sugar beets. Both are plants, which places them in the vegetable category. Therefore, chocolate is a vegetable.<\/p>\n

-Chocolate-covered raisins, cherries, oranges, and strawberries all count as fruit. Eat as many as you want. Fruits are an important part of the Food Pyramid.<\/p>\n

– Eat a chocolate bar before each meal. It’ll take the edge off your appetite and you’ll eat less.<\/p>\n

-If calories are an issue, store your chocolate on top of the fridge. Calories are afraid of heights, and they will jump out of the chocolate to protect themselves.<\/p>\n

-Chocolate has many preservatives. Preservatives make you look younger, therefore, chocolate is therapeutic.<\/p>\n

-Put “eat chocolate” at the top of your list of things to do today. That way, at least you’ll get one thing done.<\/p>\n

-A nice box of chocolates can provide your total daily intake of calories in one place. Isn’t that handy?<\/p>\n

And finally,<\/p>\n

-If you can’t eat all your chocolate, it will keep in the freezer. But if you can’t eat all your chocolate, what’s wrong with you? Send it to me.<\/p>\n

Originally appeared in the\u00a0Santa Barbara Daily Sound<\/a><\/h6>\n

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