Mmmmm. Chocolate.

Last night, I went to a chocolate tasting. Imagine an entire dining room table decked out with plates of chocolate and pastries. Then, add to that a regular stream of red wine. Oh, the decadence!

Liz’s friend Matt purchased all kinds of chocolate goodness from Vanille Patisserie, and hosted us at his place in Bucktown. Additionally, one of his friends is a former pastry chef, and she brought us six kinds of dark chocolate from her personal collection. We tasted each one, moving from your average, waxy chocolate chips, through to a smooth, 71% cocoa chocolate. Her expert narration accompanied the tasting, and it felt like a bona fide wine tasting, but with chocolaty goodness instead (although there was plenty of red wine, believe me).

Now, I will be the first to admit that my palate is not refined. I love food. In fact, I love all kinds of food, from Five Faces cheap gyros, to escargot and eel eggs. I just enjoy the varied tastes and textures, but I’m not exactly discriminating. I’m not sure I could tell an expensive chocolate from a cheap one, and, in many cases, it’s possible I might like the cheap one best (since it’s probably closest to the kinds of chocolate I ate as a kid). But having the chance to line up various varieties and really savor them, really compare them, I started to think that maybe, just maybe, I've gotten into the habit of eating too fast and not really tasting things.

Surprisingly, after declaring my distaste for dark chocolate, and love for all things sugary, I enjoyed the more bitter flavors. None of the chocolates in the tasting portion were milk chocolates, but the only one I truly disliked was very acidic-tasting Valrhona. It was fun to taste the nuances from one variety to the next, and I realized that I much prefer chocolates that don’t have the waxy paraffin texture of so many cheap chocolates.

Of course, I still gravitated to the milk chocolaty goodness of the Vanille Patisserie selection, and the tasty macaroons—mmm! But I enjoyed discovering that there actually are some dark (a.k.a. heart healthy) chocolates that I like. While the wine and chocolate mix left me with a strange, sugary, buzzy feeling, I have to say: Bravo, Matt! What a fabulous event!