Chocolate Heaven

Pete (of Pete's Wicked Ales) has been in the chocolate business lately; we met him and his beloved chocolates at the Holiday Ale Festival this past year. Wow. His espresso-caramel-chocolate was amazingly creamy and rich, but it was the dried strawberries in dark chocolate that really impressed me.

I have been thinking about them ever since.

And then there was Charlie and the Chocolate Factory the other night. (Sidenote: It was amazing; Kyle, Brian & Marsha would particularly love this movie). All of that chocolate on screen combined with the promise by Pix Patisserie, a local decadent dessert shop that is giving a free box of chocolates to anyone who brings in their ticket stub by July 31st, has my head spinning. After working all day in the yard, I took my 'golden' movie ticket stub to Pix last night. A smiling girl met me at the counter and happily led me to the display case filled with decadent chocolates and said I could pick three. Wow. Or she said she could pick for me, if I'd like. I told her that I'd love her to pick for me and that I'm partial to dark chocolate, caramel & ganache, but that they could really be anything. The first one she picked was:

Caramel Poire ~ Pear and milk chocolate caramel with a touch of pear brandy share the bittersweet chocolate shell. Finished with gold leaf.

As she placed the shiny beautiful chocolate in the chinese takeout box lined in red paper, she asked if I liked peanuts and Reeses. I nodded and she reached for the next:

Chocolate Dipped Nougatine ~ Crunchy caramelized almonds rolled flat and dipped in 75% extra-bitter chocolate.

(I think this is it; it is the closest of the descriptions but it's possible that they don't have it on the website). The last question she asked me was if I liked espresso to which my head starting nodding like one of those hood-mount bobble head dolls on a backroad in Arizona. She put the last one in the box:

Espresso ~ Not for the weak. This dark chocolate espresso ganache packs a punch!

She walked back to the main counter and sealed the box with a logo sticker and handed it to me; no hassle about not getting anything else, although I think she knew that I'd be back. I left and walked around the corner to my car that was parked down the block. Five steps out the door, I popped opened the box. All I remembered was one was ganache, one was nutty & one was caramel. The first in my mouth was the creamiest most decadent ganache I've ever tasted, covered in a thin crisp dark chocolate shell. Amazing. Amazing. Amazing. I've neer tasted anything like it. Almost immediately I ate the next one: finely textured nuts that was dry yet moist, if that's even possible. I can see the Reese's, but without all the added sugar. I couldn't wait, I had to try the caramel one that was calling my name from the bottom of the box. I bit in half and as soon as my teeth pierced the chocolate shell, all of this buttery caramel gushed out. Wow. Imagine a Caramello but with creamier softer caramel. And then as an afterthought, you taste the pear. A subtle taste that makes you feel that you dreamt the whole chocolate experience. All in all... simply wonderful. I ate all three before I even got to my car and would go see the movie 10 times over just to taste that chocolate some more.