Salon du Chocolat

Le 3 novembre
The Salon du Chocolat is this huge chocolate show held at a convention center type place here in Paris. I'm not even a fan of chocolate, and luckily for me there was more than just chocolate, but even without that, it would still have been really fun. Favorite part, the candy/cookie/cake shaped jewelry. Huge stereotype coming at you...I am a girl and therefore LOVES jewelry--nearly all types, all shapes, all sizes. Who knew earrings made in the shapes of various different kinds of foods would be so cute. Second favorite part, the actual edible chocolate that looked like nearly anything and everything you can imagine. My favorites were the chocolates painted to look asparagus and mushrooms. They were beyond convincing. If it had been closer to my time of departure, I would definitely have purchased way too much of all of it. I think my most favorite favorite part was that there was more than just chocolate there. The majority was indeed chocolate, but the best smelling booth was by far the indian spices booth. It was incredible. Piles upon enormous piles of any and every spice you could ever want. There was also all kinds of food vendors, french and foreign. More treats than you could ever imagine. And everyone else in the group LOVED all the free samples. Nearly every booth was giving out tiny tastes. Pretty great.

Carine loves nearly anything chocolate and our family here has caught on so the topic comes up quite a bit. From these conversations and some with a few other people, I have gathered that the French are very proud of their chocolate. I have to admit it is about a million and a half times better than anything you can find in the states. Apparently they have much higher restrictions on how much wax can be added, as well as how many bug parts can make it into the chocolate. Chocolate in the states is much less restrictive on both of those things and the quality of chocolate we see shows that. It was really fun to be able to participate in an event that clearly the French are so proud of. It seemed that these booths housed the best of the best as well as the most creative concoctions.

I also purchased one of the best macarons I've eaten at the Salon du Chocolat. Snickers flavored. Funny story: I gave my order for the macaron and some little 9ish year old kid behind me says, "pas Snickers!" and made a sound like that was the most disgusting thing he'd ever heard of. I turned around and said, "No, not pas Snickers." He just stared and probably thought I was stupid, but I wasn't. It was deliciously fantastic.

Oh the things you can smell, touch, taste, and see at the Salon du Chocolat...probably at nearly any Salon actually.