Elves Made Me

Today was really a beautiful day.

The sun alone was blinding, but the mild weather was an added bonus. The air almost smelled like spring. This was a total tease, of course, because I know we will be hit with a good deal of frigid weather before the real thing comes around. But I will take a little faux spring when it comes to me. It's February for crying out loud. I will take anything that doesn't require two sweaters and a puffy coat. A girl needs her sun.*

Speaking of needs, I've discovered that I have a new favourite treat. Yes, I know, this is ME we're talking about - she of many favourite treats. But I really mean it.

When my Better Half and I were out gallivanting last weekend, we stopped into the Soma chocolate factory in the Distillery District. Wow. This is a dangerous place to be for people like us; people who are trying to conserve money and lose some winter weight, and who should not be salivating in line at a chocolate laboratory. The situation was almost laughable - we were so excited that I think we scared some of the other shoppers. But there we were, salivating at the rows of chocolate, and gazing at their hot cocoa with cayenne. We learned that Soma makes some of their own chocolate straight from the bean, which impresses me a lot more now that I am not being distracted by their wares. Sure, I was impressed at the time, but I was far more concerned with jumping the sweet toffee truffle that was taunting me from behind the glass.

Enter my new favourite treat. Toffee, at least the stuff at Soma's, makes my knees get all wobbly. I have eaten toffee before, but never anything with so much flavour and crunchy/chewiness as this.** Above that, it was covered in some DAMN fine chocolate. I thought I had died and gone to sugary heaven. We bought a small bag of it to bring home and I have been slowly decimating the supply. It's really quite amazing that there is anything left. Oh. The. Control.

Oh man. I wrote too soon. It's possible that I just finished the whole bag. Damn. How do I explain this one....***

Tomorrow my dear friend Rachel comes to visit. We always have a great time together, and we just found out that she will be moving back to town for good to do her Masters. So basically, once she moves back, you can expect a great deal more posts about food and wine. They might go a little something like this:

Rach and I got together to make a big Indian curry and to drink a lot of wine. Again. We invited our friend Heather because she appreciates evenings like this. Heather said she would finish her glass of wine and then bike over. An hour or two later, we were starting to get worried. Heather lived about a ten minute bike ride away. Was she alright? We called her cell phone.

Heather: HELLOOOOO?

Me: Hey, Heather, where are you? The curry is getting cold. Is everything alright?

Heather: CLIMBING. HILL. BIG. HILL. ON BIKE. CLIMBING.

Me: Uh.. Heather? Are you drunk? I thought you were just having a glass of wine?

Heather: DRANK THE BOTTLE.

Me: Wow. No wonder you are having difficulty on a bike.

Heather: PORT. THE WINE WAS CALLED PORT.

Me: You drank a bottle of PORT?????

Heather: BIG. HILL. CLIMBING.


True story.



*Cue Indian music. Did I tell you that I'm going to India? I'll shut up now.

**And the SALT! Did you know that toffee was salty? Because oh my god it is.

***BH, sweetie, I seem to have finished the toffee. I don't really know how it happened. One minute it was there, and the next minute it was gone. Do you think it could have been elves? Normally I don't believe in them, but right now they seem like the ultimate scapegoat. ELVES. Honey, elves made me eat the chocolate. I know. I'm upset too.