Great Balls of Chocolate

I was at Soma again this week, my favourite chocolatier, located in Toronto's historic and overly trendy Distillery District.

For a long time there, my favourite chocolate of all was their bar of Madagascar. I still buy the truffles on occasion, but the beans are all gone and they can't tell me when they will next receive a shipment. So a couple of months back I tried the Conacado, which immediately became my new favourite. This week I found out that that has gone too!

So I bought a bar of Hispaniola, described as a "dark 70% chocolate made with organic Fairtrade certified cacao from the Dominican Republic. Earthy with notes of dried fruit, cranberries and tobacco."

Mmmmm, I"m looking forward to cracking it open. In the meantime I googled "Soma" and it turns out that the word is associated with a ritual drink early Persian cultures, known for its psychidelic attributes. But the origins were distinctly not chocolate-based. In Aldous Huxley's dystopian Brave New World, Soma is a drug used by the government to keep the populace drugged and controlled through instantaneous pleasure-giving qualities. Yep... sounds like chocolate to me! And if you haven't yet tried the "drink of the gods" as served by Soma, you really must. It surprises me every time I have it. Warm, thick, spicy, head-clearing and rush-inducing. I bought a bag of the drink mix to make at home. I'll do that when the cooler weather hits.

And if chocolate Lindt balls appeal to you.... imagine golf-sized ones! Here is a picture of my usual blue-foil wrapped dark Lindt ball... and the golf ball sized one. A golf-sized ball of chocolate... need I say more?