What's This?? National Chocolate Ice Cream Day???

Oh, joy of joys! Oh rapture! This Sunday is National Chocolate Ice Cream Day!

The boys and I are on vacation and, no doubt, will celebrate this holiday and perhaps the eve of this holiday with scoops of Blue Bunny® Chocolate Champion Ice Cream. For those of you who have never been lucky enough to get your hands on this dreamy and creamy chocolate-lover’s paradise…..run to your favorite grocer and grab a container of this flavor ….go on….I’ll wait…..

…..ok…..back now? That didn’t take long!

An award-winning (trust me, I wouldn’t lie about this!) taste of velvety smooth, rich chocolate ice cream and nothing else. It truly is the best chocolate ice cream I have ever had.

Happy National Chocolate Ice Cream Day!

Tune in next Tuesday for the first blog entry of our vacation adventure.

Until then, I remain….1SweetMama

February 19 is National Chocolate Mint Day!

Today’s blog is short and oh-so-deliciously sweet. I am busy writing my entry for Friday about all the great ice cream discoveries I made while on vacation in warm and sunny Florida this past week.

Here are some things you can dazzle your friends with at your next party:

Mint (from the Latin word, menthe) originated in Europe and the Mediterranean and its many varieties are now cultivated all over the world. Mint has long been regarded as the symbol of hospitality. Romans would scatter mint around the settings of feasts and banquets as a welcoming sign to guests….I guess kind of like many of us, today, perform the practice of popping a piece of mint chewing gum in our mouths before we know we will be sharing some kind of personal space with someone, either casually or intimately.

Chocolate, on the other hand, has its origins in central Mexico. In fact, chocolate residue has been found in several jars from the site of Puerto Escondido in Honduras, from around 1100 BC and it is the earliest evidence to date of the use of cacao. This evidence that was found indicates that the earliest use of cacao seems to have been used as an alcoholic beverage. There are many interpretations as to the origins of the word “chocolate” but I like best the description that gives it Mayan origins. “Chocolate” comes from the Nahuatl word xocolātl derived from xocolli, bitter, and atl, water. Xocolatl was a chocolate drink consumed by the Aztecs, associated with the Mayan god of Fertility.

So, in both histories of mint and chocolate, I interpret that both are used to welcome closeness with others, whether it is hospitably or intimately…

So, tonight……pull your friends, family, and lovers close and enjoy “mint-chocolate-anything”: ice cream, peppermint patties, hot chocolate flavored with mint. Whatever moves you. I, myself, may just treat the kids to a carton of Blue Bunny® Premium Mint Chocolate Chip ice cream…..with an extra shot of chocolate syrup.

Do I Smell chocolate?? February is National Chocolate Month!

(Photo by eszter, www.flickr.com)

To say that I love chocolate is a bit of an understatement. I just recently commented to a co-worker that I could wake up in the morning and go to bed at night and eat nothing but sweets in-between. Aside from any kind of ice cream and white cake with lots of frosting, I could ONLY eat chocolate. I get my sweet tooth from my dad who not surprisingly, is now being monitored for on-set diabetes. I have to be very careful in my sweets selection and I have tried to make “smarter” choices when it comes to sweets. Angel food cake as opposed to pound cake. Light ice creams instead of Premium (most of the time). Dark chocolate to milk chocolate. But….if I find that I have simply pushed the limit to my chocolate consumption, I have found some other very interesting ways to satisfy my craving for chocolate.

First – one of my favorite movies is “Chocolat”. This movie takes place in post-war France and stars Juliette Binoche and Johnny Depp, among a host of other great actors. The movie’s premise is that a woman and her daughter open a chocolate shop in a small French village that shakes up the rigid morality of the community (how dare she open a candy store during Lent??). One of the characters in the story, Yvette Marceau, describes an innocent piece of chocolate by saying, “...And it melts, God forgive me, it melts ever so slowly on your tongue, and tortures you with pleasure.” What the movie lacks in caloric intake it makes up for in satisfying other cravings – like feasting your eyes on Johnny Depp for two hours. Yowsa.

The second is a “bubble” bath bar (“Ma Bar Bubble Bar”) from a great handmade, organic soap company called “Lush”. I was clued in to this wonderful store by a fabulous fashion and couture-conscious friend of mine, Priscilla, in Chicago. This product makes me want to bathe all the time. All the clean…none of the calories. You can find it on their website here.

And in the late spring, I often like to top off my landscaped flower gardens with the smell of chocolate with cocoa mulch. This insanely delicious smelling mulch is actually ground up cocoa bean shells and it is used to keep ants out of your gardens. Makes working in the garden like an afternoon of aromatherapy for chocoholics. Here is one little caveat, though: Be careful not to let your pets close to the stuff….it has been suggested that this product contains theobromine, a chemical that can be dangerous to animals, when ingested and because the mulch smells so irresistible, pets will want to eat it.

And if you just cannot resist eating the stuff– as I know I will not be able to do tomorrow when I hope to be presented with a big, heart-shaped box of expensive chocolates – go for the dark kind as it boasts the most health benefits. And maybe a little red wine to wash it all down.

Ahh…now that is livin’ the sweet life!

Happy Valentine’s Day to all of you! May your day be sweeter than you expected.

I Cry "Fon-Due-Over"!

Did you know that we missed National Chocolate Fondue Day?? For the love of all things sweet, smooth and chocolaty…how could we have missed that??

So I grant all of us a do-over….or, rather…a “Fon-due-Over”. It has only been a day. Kinda like the 5 second rule for when you drop the cupcake on the floor, frosting-side down and you can pick it up and eat it within 5 seconds and it is still good. I think that if no one actually sees it fall and your picking it up…you are allowed 10 seconds in order to use your fingers to scrape up the remaining frosting on the floor and eat that, too.

I digress.

Some of the sweetest (I apologize for the pun) memories of my youth include evenings when my folks had friends and family over to the house and mom had a melt-y pot of cheese or chocolate fondue bubbling in her “burnt orange” hued fondue pot. There were 4 or 6 little forks that you speared chunks of yummy pieces of food and dunked them into the goo. My favorite nights were when chocolate was the featured “fondue goo”.

There were usually bowls of marshmallows, strawberries, angel food cake, graham crackers and I might even remember a Twinkie® or two. Ahh, those were the days…my dad sporting a shiny disco shirt and me with the metabolism of an active, healthy 9 year old. Mom would lay out the spread and party guests would go at it. I can still remember how excited I got when I saw her pull that fondue pot out of the kitchen cabinet. I knew somethin’ special was gonna happen.

Of course, no one ever heard of “double dipping” at that time. It was like “free fondue love”. No one cared about being socially correct. It was all about sweet fondue-riffic indulgence, baby!

Ahh….those were the days. Today, I do not even own a fondue pot but I know they have made a popular comeback.

Maybe I need to run right out and purchase one so my boys can experience the same joy I did when the fondue pot became the centerpiece of the kitchen table.

‘Cause you know somethin’ special is gonna happen!

Go ahead…..serve up some yummy fondue this weekend and, since February IS National Chocolate Month, make it chocolate fondue. Here are some really great recipes for chocolate fondues from GourmetSleuth.com.

Or add a little bit of ice cream fun by hosting a Blue Bunny® Rocky Road Fondue Party. The recipe and video can be found on the Blue Bunny website.

Enjoy a little warm and melt-y chocolate fun on our “Fon-due Over” weekend!

February Foodie Love

February is a very exciting month for celebrating food.

Maybe it is because half the nation is still maintaining some kind of hibernation mode and all we seem to want to do these days is find justifiable reasons for us to eat. Did you know that February is National Cherry Month? Also – let us not forget that February is also National (a-hem, guys? You have 11 days until Valentines’ Day!!) Chocolate Month.

Because I love food and February is the month for love, I have decided to dedicate all of my blogs this month to my love of all these decadent foods and the days that are devoted to them.

Be looking for some exciting and insightful blogs to come your way in the next four weeks celebrating my love for these, and other, food items that are given a day of recognition this month.

Today’s blog is very brief as I am busy conducting some very important research into these “tasteful” topics!

Stay tuned, fellow foodies, for a month of sweet surprises!