You Say Bark, I Say Slab - Some Like it Ruff

After reading my post on bark (releasing the hounds of habit), my good buddy Don sent me the following:

Man Charged With Striking Girlfriend, Forcing Her To Bark

A Dunn man was arrested after he allegedly hit his girlfriend with a whip and made her bark like a dog on all fours. Brian William Cook, 35, was arrested at his home after his live-in girlfriend reported he began arguing with her and slapped her when she would not call him “sir.” He then allegedly grabbed her by the hair and hit her with a “bondage stick.” The woman told police he made her get on her knees and ordered her to bark like a dog. Cooke was charged with assault on a female. He was held at the Harnett County Jail without bond.

First of all, let me say that this was not what I had in mind.

Secondly, both Don and I think that if this was really a live-in girlfriend, she probably saw the "bondage stick" before and might just like it a little ruff.

(Thanks, Don - there just can't be too many bad puns in the world!)

Since we're still talking bark, I've learned that some chocolate makers call it bark, at Hotel Chocolat they call it slabs. I think slabs is more accurate. If it was all bumpy (nuts and fruit on top), I think bark would be better. These thick smooth things look more like slabs to me. But, hey, as long as it's made of chocolate, who even cares what they call it!

This is an assortment of 10 of Hotel Chocolat's mini slabs:

Hotel Chocolat is a UK company. Can you see the subtle British flag in the packaging? (look at all the bars as a whole.) How cool is that?

I just think the packaging is gorgeous. Each bar comes in a different colored envelope/box with a beautiful metallic wrapper.

Here's a little about them from their website:

All good stories need a bad guy, an antagonist who sparks the action. For us that bad guy was the mediocre quality of chocolate available in UK stores. So, 15 years ago, co-founders Angus Thirlwell and Peter Harris embarked on a journey to do something about it.

Starting as a mail order catalog business, we began making our brand of exclusive chocolates available to UK consumers for the first time. An award-winning website soon followed and in 2004 the first of many Hotel Chocolat retail stores appeared across the UK. The company and their chocolate have a loyal following all over the world, and have established a presence in the United States to better serve the American chocolate connoisseur.

The combination of authentic, premium ingredients with plenty of imagination and flair is something we’re passionately committed to. And it’s a position that we have strengthened by growing our own cocoa at our historic plantation, Rabot Estate in St Lucia. This exciting step allows us to extend our expertise all the way from the bean to the bar – making a unique connection between you the consumer and the cocoa plantation.

And guess what? Holy smokes!!!! This is some damn good chocolate!!!

And you can order it at http://www.hotelchocolat.com/


We're going to review just two of the slabs to start:

As usual, I thought I wouldn't like this one - Chilli & Orange Dark Chocolate with 74% cocoa - and was wrong (again).

Their description - chilli (yeah, that's how they spell it) has been teamed with cocoa since the pre-Aztec era in South America. The addition of zingy orange adds a new dimension which really works.

I agree - this bar rocks! The chili is VERY subtle and the orange balances it out. The chocolate is so good that even at 74% it's smooth and delicious. BAM!! Well done! It makes you see how chili can really work with chocolate.

This next bar is sin in a wrapper. (All the slabs come either one really thick slab or two thinner slabs to a pack.) This one is Smooth Praline Fusion:

Isn't it beautiful? Their description: Mellow milk chocolate praline meets creamy hazelnut praline in a gorgeous swirl that will melt away in the mouth like butter on hot toast.

Damn skippy! That's exactly what happens and it is AWESOME!! Once you start eating this you will never want to stop - so sweet, creamy and delicious - it should be illegal.

The only improvement in my mind would be to mix the two a little more. Maybe to have the whole bar swirled. The hazelnut is so sweet and creaming you need a little of the chocolate to balance it. But, hey - that's minor. This bar is simply amazing.

More slabs to come!! But let's keep the bondage sticks to a minimum.

Who Let the Dogs Out?

Chocolate Bark is basically a flat slab of chocolate into which nuts and dried fruit and other things are placed. I've reviewed Bissenger's awesome pumpkin bark which is a giant slab of chocolate with delicious pumpkin swirled in. I also reviewed berkshire bark's Pretzelogical Bark which I didn't care for. But berkshire makes other barks:


http://www.berkshirebark.com/


and the big thing is the ingredients are all natural - no preservatives.


Here's Mocha Buzz:

Mocha Buzz has Belgian milk chocolate, roasted almonds, cocoa nibs, crushed coffee beans and caramel. If you like coffee - you'll love this. I don't like coffee and I loved this! The chocolate really is excellent and it's packed with almonds. The caramel must have been really light because I didn't notice it. The bitterness of the nibs and the coffee beans balance it all out. Outstanding!!

Here's another coffee influenced bark - Jumpin' Java:

This one has Belgian dark chocolate, roasted almonds, Espresso toffee, crushed coffee beans and caramelized cocoa nibs. Again coffee lovers would adore this - but so did I! I was shocked!! It must be the toffee and the almonds that offset the bitterness of the coffee beans. This was a damn fine bark!

You don't see much done with white chocolate (really not chocolate at all, but you know I'm no snob!). This one is called White Lightning:

It is made of Callebaut white chocolate, roasted cashews, fresh lemon zest, ginger and sea salt. This is a good bark, but it doesn't have the depth the others do. Cashews are a sweet nut and with the white chocolate - well, it was too bland and sweet for me, especially compared to the others. Not bad in any way, just not as good.

Here's Tropical Heat:

This one is Callebaut semi-sweet chocolate, macadamia nuts, mango, papaya, pineapple, coconut, Ancho chili powder and cayenne pepper. I thought I would really like this bark. I found the chili powder and the cayenne pepper too strong - overpowering the fruits. Maybe a milk chocolate would have helped restored the sweet balance. I am so bummed - I bet I would have worshiped this bark if it didn't have the chili powder and the pepper. Wah!!!! This was my least favorite.

And finally, there is Midnight Harvest:

This one has Belgian dark chocolate, roasted almonds, roasted hazelnuts, dried cranberries, fresh orange zest. Outstanding!! A great fall bark - packed with nuts and fruit.

These are so much better than your average candy bar - you can really taste the quality of the ingredients. And the flavor mixes are creative and interesting without being weird (well, except for Tropical Heat - I just don't like my chocolate to be so peppery). If you're a chocolate lover, you owe it to yourself to try and track these barks down.

Once again - the things I thought I wouldn't like (the coffee barks), I did and the things I thought I would like (the white chocolate and the fruity tropical heat), I didn't. Keep trying new things - you don't really know what you will (or won't) like until you try it!! And this goes for people, music, places, activities etc. etc. etc. - not just chocolate. I keep saying it because it's so true for me - the hardest thing to keep open in this life is your mind.

Release the hounds of habit!! Try a new bark. (Bwah, ha, ha!)

Pretzels, Rice and England

You know life is good if we can all come together in pursuit of the best peanut butter and chocolate combinations. And let's thank the founders of this country for breaking away from England! Scones don't exactly rock my world. Although I do love shortbread......and all that pomp and circumstance! And Monty Python!

But I love freedom more! God Bless America!!! And God Save the Peanut!

Let's talk first about some more peanut butter and pretzel combos. The first is berkshire bark's pretzelogical bark described by the company as: Belgian dark and milk chocolate, pretzels, sea salt caramel, natural peanut butter.

This is the top of the bark, the next picture shows the bark flipped over and dissected. (But this was done with love - don't go all PETC on me.) That's People for the Ethical Treatment of Chocolate for those of you who didn't get that joke.

Looks great, right? The description sounds awesome! But something was wrong here - those big blobs - peanut butter? caramel? were as hard as rocks. This was no good. I'm sad about that.

Next up, a very familiar bar, I'm sure:

This is Hershey's Take 5. The wrapper says it's made with chocolate (I guess it's not Mockolate), pretzels, caramel, peanuts, and peanut butter. My girlfriend Missy loves these things. I think there is too much pretzel. It's okay, but why have this when you can have a Reese's? I like the use of the caramel here, so I like this combination the best off all the pretzel/peanut butter offerings reviewed so far. But I don't see that pretzel really brings anything to the party.

Let's move on to crisp rice or rice crisps or whatever the hell this stuff is. Hell, Hershey doesn't even know what it is - thus the name of this bar:

Whatchamacallit? I'm going out on a limb here and I'm going to call it crap. For 230 calories I want more than a squashed rice crispy treat - without the marshmallow. This bar is described as "made with chocolate, peanut flavored crisps and caramel." The caramel is the only thing that gives this any life. I find it bland and disappointing.

It looks as exciting as it tastes. ZZZZZZ........................

I'm not much on the Nestle Crunch bar either. Crisped rice just kind of seems like a cop out. Cheap filler. But I liked it in Jer's stuff. Hmmmm........ I'm sure we'll talk of this again.

If you like crispy and light and want something peanut buttery, a MUCH better choice is:

You can have one pack containing two wafer bars for only 100 calories. These are like Kit Kats with peanut butter but a little lighter. No caramel as in the Crap bar. But more peanut buttery. And I'm all about the peanut butter!!

I saved one of my favorite peanut butter bars for last:

From our friends at Lake Champlain chocolates. This bar is here because it contains: peanuts, peanut butter, CRISP RICE and milk chocolate.

Isn't it beautiful? Doesn't just looking at that make your mouth water? The Five Star bars are all amazing - the are small but really thick. And this one is packed with peanut butter. It's a blander peanut butter than Reese's but is still terrific. And the peanuts inside are delish.

So, dear readers, what have we learned so far in our exploration of this awesome combination of peanut butter and chocolate?

New isn't always best, but just because something has been around for a while doesn't mean it can't be improved on.

Expensive doesn't always mean it's the best, but sometimes it does (the Five Star bar is great and it's not cheap).

When it comes to chocolate, no rules apply.

Chocolate is like life - you have to jump in and taste it! I love Tootsie Rolls (talk about Mockolate), but I also love Guylian chocolate seashells. How do you know what you'll like the best? Try them!! How do you know who you are? Live!

You can learn from others and they can help you along the way, but if anyone tells you they have all the answers for you, run. You'll like things based on the flavors you grew up with and a million other experiences. Obviously a lot of people think the Whatchamacallit is a great candy bar or Hershey's would have quit making it. All you owe it to yourself to do is keep trying new things and keep learning and growing. You'll find the best life (and the best chocolate) for you.

And don't forget to celebrate your freedom this 4th of July by taking a few minutes to think of all the patriots through the years who have given their lives to keep us free.

God bless chocolate, peanut butter, and the United States of America!!!