Drool-worthy?

Chocolate class is moving right along.  I conducted a chocolate tasting at our last Zombie Squad meeting and got my paper written in plenty of time.  Now I’m trying to find sources for my chocolate.  So far, this has been much harder than it sounds.  The companies who sell to businesses do not particularly want to be found by random consumers such as myself.  Lori at Beanermunky Chocolates has been a lot of help to me (and her chocolates look really yummy—go here and order some and tell me what you think!), so hopefully my next round of inquiries will go more smoothly. 

For another assignment, we have to create some signature recipes.  There are a bunch of rules about the process we have to follow and I won’t go into those here, but I thought I’d give you the descriptions of the chocolates I’m going to make:  

Almond Love:  Lightly sweet marzipan studded with tangy dried cherry pieces, hand-dipped in Felchlin's Maracaibo Clasificado Grand Cru dark chocolate

Panama City Beach Caramels:  Crunchy chopped almonds and fresh orange zest smothered in rich rum caramel, layered with Cacao Barry’s Lactée Superieure milk chocolate

Paper Fan:  Smooth white chocolate ganache truffle infused with green tea and sweet lychee fruit, hand-dipped in Cacao Barry’s Guayaquile dark chocolate    If you’re wondering why this sounds familiar, it’s because I made these at Christmas time.  If it ain’t broke, why fix it?!

Bahama:  Dense dark chocolate truffle flavored with spiced rum, with black salt and turbinado sugar crystals added for a sweet-and-salty crunch, hand-dipped in Chocovic’s Ocumare

Bright Spring Crème:  Creamy-sweet with lip-smacking strawberry and vibrant lime filling within a dome of Vintage Plantations’ Fair Trade semisweet chocolate

What do you think?  Which one would you eat first?  Or are you the sort of person who saves the best for last?

Distractions

I tried to stay busy this weekend, and I mostly succeeded.  I worked all day Saturday, then spent the evening being creepy in a local haunted house.  My friends who volunteered with me decided against going to a punk show afterwards, since we had a race to run on Sunday morning.

I'm the one in the mask...

The race was a Color Me Rad 5k.  This was my first color race and it was crazy fun.  In spite of the fact that my sneezes were blue for a few days afterward, I would absolutely do it again.  My friend and I walked a good portion of it (cold + clouds of colored gluten-free flour = asthma trouble), but it was still her very first 5k.  And the proceeds go to the Special Olympics—everybody wins!

Goofing around with our host

I hope you all had a wonderful (and slightly creepy) Halloween!  Leave a comment and let me know how you celebrated the holiday!

Boo!

Magic Hat Redux

This is why I endure winter.  Remind me of that in a couple months, okay?

Perhaps the magic only works outside?  Like when Frosty melted and his magic hat couldn’t help him until the cold re-formed his snow crystals?  I wore my magic hat again on Sunday when I went on a group hike with a bunch of new people.  I managed to chat with everyone in the group without feeling horribly awkward.  I don’t think I got overly weird at any point—just enough to make me seem interesting (hopefully).  I continued my record of impressing the boys and grossing out the girls with my willingness to eat liver, heart, tongue, and random game animals.  I found out that one of the other women has a cat remarkably similar to mine (though hers is older and has all 4 feet).  I answered questions about the area where I live, as one of the guys is hoping to move further out of town.  And I met someone who is signed up for the same meetup groups, is interested in Zombie Squad, and is willing to go listen to live jazz at a local bar.  My faith in the magic hat has been renewed.  AND I might have a new friend!  *grin*

4 happy hikers, 1 magic hat

Young at heart, huh?

Most of our Zombie Squad members are located far away from my area.  So our official chapter is here, but we don’t get to meet all the other people—we only bump into them on the forums.  One of our official ZS events this year is to host a room in the local YMCA Haunted House.  I sent personal invitations to all the members who have signed up on the chapter forum, because we really need more people to make our idea scary.  It’s only been a couple of days, but I’ve already had a few responses.  The response that made me the happiest?  A guy who might be able to make it and who is older than I am.  I’m excited because I probably won’t be the oldest person in the room this year.  I’m also excited because we so rarely meet these guys (seriously, we only know them by their screen names), but my biggest Yes! moment was when I checked the dude’s profile and saw that he is 6 years older than me.  So much for that “young at heart” attitude.  Sometimes, I just make myself laugh. {snort, headshake}  To borrow a term from one of my favorite bloggers—crazypants.  Just………..crazypants.

Faceplant

I had so much fun on the Fourth of July weekend, I fell over and broke my hand :o)  In honor of my brother's birthday, I broke my left hand this time! (Yep, he's a southpaw.  I broke my right hand in an exciting car accident a couple of years ago.)

I was jogging in the woods, hit a patch of loose sandy dirt, and lost my footing.  I tried to recover, but just slipped more and did a spectacular faceplant--dirt, scrapes, bruises and apparently bent my pinkie back until the bone snapped--a clean break, all the way across the bone, directly above the knuckle.  Luckily, I had a water bottle with a handle that worked well as a brace, so I hiked back to the car (2 miles) and was able to wrap it (hooray Zombie Squad first aid kit) and ice it (glad I had my little cooler).  Lucky for me the bones were lined up fine, so the ER nurse slapped a giant splint on me (from elbow past my fingertips), and sent me on my merry way.

The orthopedic doc gave me a tiny splint and wrapped everything up in various elastic bandages (the pinkie finger is connected to the ring finger, both fingers are connected to the splint, the fingers and splint are connected to the whole hand), said I could take the whole mess off whenever I showered, and ran off to the next patient.  The whole thing feels kind of unprotected and wobbly, and it makes me really nervous to take it off.  Fortunately, I prefer baths, so I don’t have to expose my poor broken hand daily.

Of course, one of the side effects of a broken hand is being reduced to one-handed, hunt-and-peck typing, which is why I’ve suddenly decided to start blogging.  Because I’m a special kind of crazy...