Chocolate "With" Stuff

DCD came out with a new mix for fall: Gingerbread Mix with chocolate chips in it and a little packet of vanilla sugar in which one rolls the cookies before baking. Mind you, they introduced this product at our conference in August, and to say I considered that particular moment anticlimactic doesn't come close. I don't get excited about gingerbread. I once made a gingerbread house (notice I said once) and discovered that the reason we make candy-covered mini dwellings from gingerbread (as opposed to shortbread, sugar cookies, or something chocolate) is that the house has better-than-average odds at NOT being consumed. Gingerbread is yukky.

...Or so I thought.

Fast forward to Monday night last, when I decided to venture into gingerbread territory with my little box o' mix and the other required ingredients (including molasses, which I think partly accounts for my low heretofore low opinion of gingerbread). I mixed the dough as instructed, and as is my custom, tasted a wee bit. Not impressed. Even when I tasted a bit with a chocolate chip in it, I think I still said something like "meh." Having come this far, though, I soldiered on. I scooped the dough into balls and rolled them in the vanilla sugar. I put them in the oven to bake and remembered that I do appreciate the smell of gingerbread, just not its deceptively bitter taste and cardboard texture.

I took them out of the oven amid much fanfare (kids don't usually seem to care what kind of cookies are baking; they'll gather 'round the kitchen regardless) and waited for them to cool a little bit before I tasted them. I cut one into quarters to check out the inside, then popped a quarter of a cookie in my mouth.

Wow. These little suckers are actually good! I'll admit that I hoped they'd be good, I just didn't go so far as to expect it. I don't know why; I should know by now that DCD just makes yummy stuff. The kids liked them too, and even my non-gingerbread-fan husband (whose arm I had to twist before he'd even try one) said they were good - "not something I'd go out of my way to get, but good." Can you believe it? I liked them even more the next day (after the flavors had all made friends with each other), and just about came unglued when I dipped one into some Spiced Chai Dip. Oooooh.

Who knew? Chocolate and gingerbread actually taste good together. This got me thinking about why they taste good together and what other things go well with chocolate. I started compiling a mental list, and decided I may as well make it a literal one:

• Caramel and pecans (I usually refer to this combination as "the Holy Trinity," hence its prominent placement on the list)
• "Just plain" caramel
• Peanut butter
• Strawberries
• All kinds of nuts: almonds, cashews, walnuts, macadamias, hazelnuts, pistachios...
• Bananas
• Marshmallows
• Pretzels
• Raspberries
• Coffee (Oooh! Coffee!)
• Red wine
• Milk
• Gingerbread (but it has to be soft and rolled in vanilla sugar!)
• Popcorn
• Graham crackers
• Vanilla Wafers, shortbread cookies, etc.
• Cinnamon
• Blueberries
• Cranberries

I know the list goes on and on...no wonder I love chocolate. It's so versatile! It's like that pair of very comfy shoes that go with everything you own - even the gingerbread outfit you never wear. What else? Leave comments and tell me what else YOU love with chocolate!

And a little side note: to date, I've lost 33 pounds - and I still eat a little bit of chocolate every day...

Chocolate? Moderation? Really?

I love chocolate. This comes as no surprise to most of you, in fact, you may have groaned and silently said, "Duh..." upon reading it. I suspect many of you share my feelings, which is why you read this blog. I often ask at my parties how many attendees have "a relationship" with Dove chocolate, and most hands go up - mine included. My relationship with chocolate goes beyond a simple epicurean (or admittedly spiritual) interest; it now comprises part of my livelihood. How, then, can I embark upon a weight loss venture and still maintain a relationship with chocolate? 

The answer? Moderation.

We hear this everywhere, but it is good advice, it does work, and it can be done! I have, to date, lost 26 pounds (...in about 7 weeks. I never hoped for such results!) and I eat chocolate every day. No, really! This doesn't mean I inhale an entire pan of brownies or get cozy with a pint of ice cream while I'm watching a movie, but I do enjoy a little chocolate on a daily basis - and not just the sugar free stuff (which sustained me through the first two weeks of this journey). I eat regular full-sugar chocolate. Last night I had some hot chocolate: about 6 oz. of warm milk with 2 tablespoons of Dove Dark Sipping Chocolate. Some days I eat one section of a Chef-Series Dark Chocolate bar, and occasionally I have a Sea-Salted Caramel. I discovered the other day that our Chocolate Covered Graham Crackers are only 100 calories each, and those are incredibly rich and satisfying.

I have shared this with people, and they have responded with, "Oh, I could never do that. I can't eat just one of anything!" Really? OK, I would have said that of myself three months ago, but I've figured out some things. Wanna know how I do it? Here are my tips for enjoying chocolate in moderation:

• Get the good stuff. One piece of really good chocolate (like Dove!) will satisfy you infinitely better than a whole bag of that sad faux chocolate they sell around holidays - or even the bar you're used to picking up in the checkout line. Seriously.
• Have things that are individually wrapped or pre-portioned. Make some yummy Truffle Fudge Brownies when you're really full, then cut them up into wee bites (about 1 inch works well) and wrap them up. Freeze them and take one out once in a while.
• Recognize that some chocolate is actually GOOD FOR YOU. Chocolate is high in antioxidants and also contains iron and calcium. Take it off the "forbidden fruit" list, and you'll be surprised how easily you can "have just one." 
• Speaking of fruit, eat chocolate with fruit, especially other antioxidant rich ones like strawberries, blueberries, cranberries, cherries, and raspberries. I love dipping strawberries in dark chocolate - and one ounce of chocolate will easily coat about 8 strawberries. For extra convenience, get fruit that's already covered in chocolate! ( I know where you can get some...)
• SAVOR. I break off one section of a Chef-Series bar and put the rest in a baggie. I eat it slowly, taking bites and letting it melt in my mouth slowly. One half-ounce section literally gives me about 5 minutes of chocolate euphoria.

My best tip for enjoying chocolate in moderation? Get ready, because this one's "out there" : become a Chocolatier. Stay with me; this will make sense in a minute. Upon hearing about my business, people often say, "Oh, if I did what you do, I'd weigh a ton. I'd eat all my profits!" In my experience, the opposite is true. I think I can successfully incorporate small amounts of chocolate into my diet because I work with it and share it with people. I have by no means become immune to the seductive wiles of chocolate - its enticing aroma, creamy texture, and complex flavors - on the contrary, I appreciate it on many more levels than ever. Think eating chocolate makes you feel wonderful? Try giving it to someone who's had a long day, watch his or her face, and your own spirits will rise to new heights.

The above are tips, not guarantees. I'm certainly not promising that if someone becomes a Chocolatier, he or she will magically lose weight, no more than I would promise that he or she would instantly make a million dollars. Maintaining a healthy lifestyle, like succeeding in business, requires awareness, attention, discipline, and effort. I'm totally not a health and fitness guru, but it seems to me that building a healthy body and building a strong business can go hand in hand, especially if you incorporate your passions into both. I'm working on it - you can, too!  I invite you to join me - together we can accomplish anything!

Un-Chocolate

Perhaps by now you've read about my South Beach Diet experience. I have, at this point, made it a whopping 3.5 weeks into SBD with a weight loss of 16 pounds (hold for applause). Sometime last week at the grocery store, I spotted some of the "South Beach Living" products in the cereal aisle, with the granola bars and other not-so-healthy stuff disguised as healthy stuff. I picked up a box or two of the High Protein Cereal Bars and read their ingredient labels. The S'mores variety contained sucralose (a.k.a. Splenda), and you know how I feel about artificial sweeteners, so I put that one back. I picked up the Chocolate ones. I didn't spot any evil sugar subbies on that list, so I thought I'd give them a try. OK, so I just didn't look hard enough, and when I got home I realized their ingredient list also sports some sucralose, only hidden in the middle among all the other words I can't pronounce. This should have been my first clue that these things are not ideal for human consumption.

I still decided that maybe I'm a little too rigid in my abstinence from noncaloric sweeteners, so I packed one along when I went to pick up my daughter one day. I desperately needed a snack and didn't have time to put almonds in a baggie, so off I went with this "Chocolate" cereal bar. Mind you, the box housing the bars bears the words artificial flavor in wee tiny print immediately following "Chocolate." This should been my second clue.

I'll spare you all the drama of the unwrapping and eating and get straight to the description: chunky sawdust covered with a brown nearly sweetlike substance that comes about as close to chocolate as mustard does. Yeah, I ate the whole thing because I didn't want to faint while driving, but I ate it with the same enthusiasm I normally reserve for something like tearing a paper towel from its roll. Sadly, I have come to accept that most snack foods of this ilk taste somewhat like sawdust (I think it must be the "protein nuggets" or some such ingredient), so I think I was most offended by this cereal bar's sad attempt at tasting like chocolate. Yes, offended. Not that I gagged or anything - it's by far not celery or anything evil like that - but still, I couldn't help but feel like I'd been had. This bar sullies the good name of Chocolate, and should therefore not get to bear it anywhere on its packaging. Chocolate is sacred and should be held in higher esteem than that.

I may have gotten spoiled or I may just not have gotten desperate enough before I tried this "Chocolate Artificial Flavor" bar, but I learned something. Chocolate is definitely chocolate, and this concoction definitely is NOT (duh, right?). Can you imagine if a person (say from a distant land or Venus or Tatooine or somewhere) picked up one of these bars and thought that's what chocolate is supposed to taste like? Boo, foul impostor! From now on, I believe I'll go with one of the flavors of High Protein Sawdust Bar that doesn't even try or pretend to be chocolate.

A Chocolate "Duh" Moment

At 6:00 this morning, I found myself lying in bed (awakened by a wee person, of course) thinking about chocolate. What else am I gonna think about at 6:00 a.m.? Naturally, my thoughts wandered to this whole South Beach Diet business and other ways to incorporate my favorite treat into the bleak carbless landscape of the first two weeks. Suddenly, it hit me like a ton of cacao beans: I have sugar free dark chocolate! Not just any sugar free dark chocolate, though - DCD sugar free dark chocolate, which I have actually tasted and found quite satisfactory. Normally, mind you, I would probably not purchase such a thing, but I got it for free (one of the perks of my job - I get free stuff!) a few months ago and have reserved it for limited sampling at parties.

If not for the toddler I was attempting to get back to sleep, my excitement would have catapulted me out of bed at that very moment to check the calorie & carb count of said discs of promised heaven. As it happened, though, I had to wait. I waited through my sad little breakfast of reheated spinach quiche cups, feeding the babies, and all the other routine morning stuff. At last I had a moment to dig the box out of the pantry (where I keep my sample stash) and check the specs. Calories: 170 in 7 pieces. This equates to a little less than 25 per piece. Since Phase 1 of the South Beach Diet allows 75 calories worth of "sugar free" treats daily, I could feasibly have three per day! WooooHoooo!

Now, since I haven't tried one of these in a while, I felt it necessary to taste a bit at that moment (no, 9:15 a.m. is NOT too early for chocolate of any kind) because 1) I needed to make sure my joy wasn't misguided and 2) I desperately needed some chocolate!

I broke a disc in half, then in half again, and put the little 1/4 pie-shaped piece in my mouth. I let it start to dissolve on my tongue, and instantly began to melt along with it. Heaven! Absolute Heaven! Having gone for a whole THREE DAYS without sweetened chocolate, I cannot imagine any more delightful experience than this one. I know I heard choirs of angels singing (of course, that may have been some alphabet song on Sesame Street) as I stood in the kitchen savoring this moment and feeling as though all will be well.

Ya know what's cool, though? I don't need three of these a day. One quarter of one satisfied me quite well. Thus is the beauty of DCD dark chocolate - when you savor "the good stuff," you don't need as much. This will become my foundation for incorporating chocolate into a healthy lifestyle - and I just might make it through these two weeks.

A New Little Treat!

OK, so two days after returning from this fantastic chocolate conference experience, I started on the South Beach Diet. (Right now you're saying, "Are you daft, woman?" And I would have to answer, "Quite possibly.") Now, if you're not familiar with the South Beach Diet, Phase 1 (the first two weeks) requires that you delete all sugars and starches from your diet. Of course, to me, this translates to "NO CHOCOLATE." I'll admit, I have a hard time going without bread and rice and pasta, but I'd trade all of those for my daily dose of cacao.

Obviously, I'll have to get creative.

My first attempt: I sprinkled some Cocoa Framboise Dusting Powder into a little bit of what was supposed to be plain nonfat yogurt and turned out to be sweetened with Splenda. I did this rather on the spur of the moment, because I had really intended to have UNsweetened plain yogurt mixed with dill as a veggie dip. Anyway, the result was not stellar, because I despise artificial sweeteners and swear I could still taste the Splenda an hour later.

Attempt #2: I had some coffee leftover from this morning, kind of hanging out cold in the pot. I poured about 3/4 of a cup into a glass and mixed in about 1/2 teaspoon of Aztec Spice Dusting Powder. I stirred vigorously, added ice, and filled the glass the rest of the way with skim milk. OK, so maybe my expectations weren't all that high due to the absence of sugar - or maybe I was desperate - or both, but I was delighted with this little creation! I think the cinnamon really brings out the chocolate flavor and makes it seem sweet even when it isn't. Now, if a person weren't opposed to the little yellow and blue packets as much as I am, perhaps this beverage would become even more enjoyable. This experience has taught me that chocolate need not be sweet to wield its powers of peacefulness.

I think I'll call it Aztec Desperation. I'm sure culinary history (and carbless dieters everywhere) will thank me for this contribution!

Chocolate Overload? Can it be?

Just last night, I returned from our National Conference in New Jersey. All I can say is...WOW. I ate more chocolate in one three day period than I ever have, but most importantly, I met scores of amazing women who love chocolate as much as I do and who share my passion for channeling that love into making the world a better place. I cannot tell you what joy I experienced in rediscovering the value of working with a company that supports women in the way that DCD does. OK, yes, this is a corporate entity with private shareholders and they care about profit margins and dollars - can't fault 'em for that - but the entire focus of this weekend's conference fell more in the realm of "make your dreams come true." Most of the speakers concentrated on what this business has done for them personally, i.e., skill development, newfound friendships, renewed self confidence, etc. I honestly believe that I work with a company that cares about PEOPLE, not just the almighty dollar. I'll share more about that later, but I'm dying to tell you about the CHOCOLATE, so it will have to wait!


The people on the R & D team at DCD have made me one happy Chocolatier this weekend by announcing that they have added my favorite combination of ingredients to our product line: Double Chocolate Caramel Nut Clusters! To me, chocolate + caramel + pecans = "The Holy Trinity." (Anyone from the Home Office who might read this is thinking at this point, "Good thing we didn't consult her for the name of the product"...can you imagine? Might as well call them "Sweet Irreverence Bits" or something equally distasteful...but I digress.) Needless to say, HOORAH. And guess what else? I tasted these personally, and they ROCK. They totally could have called them something with "holy" in the moniker.

One of the biggest surprises: Merlot Fudge Sauce. Now, I have heard for a long time that red wine goes well with chocolate, but had NO IDEA, really, until I tasted this. I can't adequately describe it, except to say that I've never had better fudge sauce. It has a complexity of flavors that defies logic and makes you feel as though all is well with the world!

I've come to the conclusion that I can't possibly fit everything about our new product line into one post, so I'll have to save some for later. I read recently in The Road Less Traveled that delayed gratification is a good thing, so I'll just consider this an exercise in self development!

Peace, love, and chocolate.

O, Happy July!

Just got word from the Mother Ship (the DCD Home Office) that we'll be giving hosts DOUBLE rewards in July!! How awesome is that? We have a generous host reward program anyway, but DOUBLE is even better!

I did a little simple math (because I don't do much beyond "simple" math) and figured this out from a profit standpoint: Let's say someone - we'll call her Joan, just for fun - has a Chocolate Tasting Party, spending $10-$12 on fondue dippies, some Cool Whip, and a little milk and cream. Joan invites about 25 people, and 12 are able to make it, so we all have fun and eat chocolate, and everybody makes the "mousse face," and we're all thrilled to have a night out. Joan's party total is $364, so she would normally get $50 in free products and one half-price item - BUT WAIT! It's July, so she gets $100 in free products and two half-price items! Here's where the math comes in - her two half price items total $98, half of which would be $49, so she has received $149 in rewards, which is a profit of about $137 - just for having a party and some chocolate!

Ooooh...now let's look at it from yet another perspective...let's say Joan is so excited about her Chocolate Tasting Party and has had such fun talking about all of our yummies that she decides to launch her own Dove Chocolate Discoveries™ business as a Chocolatier. Now, because it's July and there's a special program that allows hosts to apply their credits to the purchase of a New Business Kit, she could apply $100 to the $149 price of her kit, so she'd start a new business for only $49 (+ tax and shipping - can't forget that part) - and there's more! DCD also has a special bonus for new Chocolatiers in July: $100 cash on account (just for joining us in July!) to spend on supplies and samples! Sooo ... Joan has profited even more on her initial monetary investment of $10 - $12. According to my math, that's a pretty good deal - right up there with 12 for $1 Kool-Aid!

Now...while there's no guarantee that YOUR party would have that amount in sales, there's also no guarantee that it wouldn't have MORE - so you could feasibly score the top of our host benefits scale, which would give you $400 in FREEBIES, and 8 half-price items. Ooooh...you could nearly get one of everything in the catalog...or have ALL your holiday shopping done months ahead of time! The mind reels with the possibilities!

Yes, I know I'm getting carried away. I do that when I start talking chocolate and parties and happy hosting scenarios!

Otherwise...it's the day before the Fourth of July, and I'm gearing up for a relaxing weekend. I just might make some more Dove Chocolate Ice Cream (my last batch was pretty darn yummy...but I'm going to perfect the recipe before I post it here!) and sip on some Coconut Chocolate Chip Smoothies. I LOVE those.

I'm also getting ready for my first Hostess Appreciation Event: the first annual "Jump Start July/Hostesses ROCK" party! What to serve? Definitely fondue, and definitely mousse...but maybe also some truffles and chocolate-dipped strawberries? Mmmmm...maybe I should do a practice menu for lunch today...

Have a VERY happy and safe Fourth of July, everyone!

The Icing on the Cake

So...a few weeks ago (Memorial Day, maybe?) I had made a sheet cake out of my DCD Cupcake Kit to take to a party. I covered it with ganache, so I didn't use the frosting. Well, since this packet of frosting mix was just lying around doing nothing, I used it to top a yellow cake for my hubby on Father's Day. MAY I JUST SAY...wow. Holy wow. Holy flying chocolate wow. This is the BEST chocolate frosting I've ever had. It's really almost like a creamy chocolate bar right on top of your cake. Sure, the cake was OK (I made it from a mix, since my previous attempts at yellow cake from scratch have bombed monumentally), but the frosting totally sent it over the top.

I like it when I discover new chocolate things. . . this week's experiment: chocolate mousse ice cream. I've taken one of our Mousse Mix packets and mixed it with 1 cup of heavy cream, 1 cup of milk, and (carefully and only slightly effectively) mixed in 2 bars of our Chef-Series Dark Chocolate. It's "chillin'" in the fridge waiting to be spun into a frozen frenzy in my little Cuisinart ice cream maker. I'll let you know how it goes, but the mixture tastes awesome (you HAVE to taste it, you know), so it should rock.

Oooooh! Just got fun news from our Home Office yesterday. Anyone who becomes a Chocolatier between now and June 30th gets an extra $100 in Cash on Account (to be used for supplies, etc.) for free! That's a REALLY great deal. That's in addition to our other signing bonus for June - AND it also applies to hostesses who have a party and apply their host credits toward the purchase of a kit. LOVE it when they do stuff like that!

Other neat June/July things: special shipping prices, and a special "Mousse on the Loose" kit: 6 packets of Mousse Mix and 1.5 lbs of chocolate for $26. Awesome deal!

Have the sweetest of days, all. Eat chocolate!