A Dream Made in Heaven - via chocolate!

Just like any other personal blog, I guess that I've been ambushed (by none other than my marvellous self) into a corner and will be given no other choice than to spill the beans regarding my dream-like affection for a brown-coloured (not the one that usually springs to mind, I hasten to add) bean, otherwise known as the beloved cocoa bean which has been cherished by sweet teeth for generations - and undoubtedly, my chocolate-adoring self, too.

So, as you are unsurprisingly wondering, why does my heart pound with edge-of-your-seat excitement whenever I take a heavenly-as-an-angel bite from a bar (typically as wide as my celery-shaped arms) of devilishly dark, soothingly creamy chocolate which brings my taste buds to glorious life - in other words, cocoa is a swinging, hot-like-a-Miami-beach nightclub for my tongue!

Every mouthful of decent, often on-special chocolate never lets me down on mood-satisfying pleasure and my heart drops a little with a sprinkle of disappointment when all of the crumbs have been scooped into my mouth (or, if I've flown into a 'I don't care' tantrum, I hastily drop the crumbs onto the carpet, often to the decade-old hoover's peril); as always with the greatest gifts in life, pleasure brought on by sugar rushes are not meant to last forever, is it? Perhaps I ought to take it as a wishful sign of good luck, considering that my sleeping patterns have an unfortunate tendency (poor little me, don't I just love a great moan?) to change as rapidly as a typical, pouring-buckets summer; the hair-raising thought of tossing and turning in my Betty Boop bed and being glued to a Michael Fassbender interview featured in a fashion magazine at two in the morning is more than enough to draw me away from the mouth-watering sight of a bag of caffeine-rich Maltesers.

Perhaps genetics play a vital role in my forever-growing passion for feel-good, energy-rich chocolate; if a single Mars bar is carefully placed inside a cupboard, it hardly takes any time at all until my brother leaps from the leather sofa to the laptop in a frantic search for the latest Chelsea results then to the kitchen where his destiny awaits, in the form of a black-packaged bar. Sure, a sandy blonde haired George of the Jungle may reside in the David Luiz-plastered bedroom next to mine, but no stranger could doubt his fondness for chocolate, as also myself; yet, in certain ways, a lie is unlikely to escape my lips and deny that I've taken my slight addiction (I've just said it! The A word!) to a whole new level.

Come on, ask me about the waist-expanding treats with which I've tempted my family as of late - or rather, I'll do the asking for you. Was a rich-scented batch of date muffins wafted into the warm air just a few days ago, creating a nervous army of goosebumps setting camp upon my pale lily skin? My head - filled up with as many thoughts about Dior dresses alongside chocolate as bottles brimming with cherry Pepsi goodness (well, mentally so, anyway) - shakes with an enormous vigour, whilst memories of devouring a white chocolate brownie - otherwise widely known as a 'Blondie' (minus the tribute to the pop icon) - flood my mind; chocolate-based treats are the sole recipes that I've felt remarkably eager to make recently, particularly as the idea of getting a bite-sized slice of a chocolate-flavour treat at lunchtime is too irresistable.

Let's face it: in comparison, unless a dash of cocoa had been added to the recipe, an ordinary biscuit, albeit a deliciously flavoured one, hardly makes your heart sing with delight unlike a tray of chocolate brownies almost as dark as your unleashed, devilish side. Once you take your very first bite, there can absolutely be no means of going back; as I like to say (or otherwise just created in my thoughts), once turned, always a chocolate lover. Until you give up your most cherished article for six weeks at Lent, like I somehow managed to do earlier this year.

My lucky stars must have suddenly appeared behind the endless ash clouds (or clouds which have been polluted beyond returning to their natural purity; an increasingly problem in my petrol-ridden town) as I fought tooth and nail against my increasing desires to tuck into a creamy, sugary Cadbury's square for six, dragged-out weeks; however, against all odds placed on my imaginary betting website, I survived the hard-to-endure course and beat my previous convictions regarding my one true love, chocolate. The results meant so much more for me than I ever thought humanely possible; my face beamed far brighter than a layer of mineral face colour could highlight my English rose complexion as I was ecstatic that I had surprised not only my lifeless-as-a-shadow taste buds in giving up a much-loved treat, but also myself. Some people climb mountains, others sell million-selling records worldwide; I give up chocolate. I suppose that's the way the world works, really!

Yet, despite my confidence-souring euphoria regarding handing over all Galaxy cookie crumble bars and polka dot-sized chocolate buttons, nail-biting agony had pushed me to a point where I could no longer stand the thought of living another, arduous day without chocolate; the thick shell of a chocolate egg was instantly smashed and, as you correctly guessed, was hungrily devoured, the warmth from the gentle heat kindling the long burnt-to-coal fire inside my body.

But I don't regret saying a tearful farewell to my trustworthy friend, theobroma cacao, for a single heartbeat because it only taught me a valuable lesson about appreciating the things which place a permanent smile on my lips everyday; without giving it up, I doubt that I would have grown to enjoy it as much as I do now as my heart and (flavour-appreciating) tastebuds have lived without it, eventually coming to the conclusion that it does strive on a dash of pleasure every so often. Well, as often as the bars are packed into a cupboard!

And the final question - do I like mine as white as an angel's wing, creamy smooth with a dash of milky goodness or devilishly dark? Having strictly been devoted to milk chocolate from a young age - despite baking the blondies a while ago, I'm still quite reluctant to eat the over-sugary white chocolate on its own - I've gradually walked over to the 'dark' side and have recently been fully converted to darker, richer-flavoured chocolate which fully satisfies my yearning for 'real' chocolate, in a form nearest to its natural one.

Some write books for a living, others can't get enough of chocolate; I love nothing more than writing to my heart's content, alongside melting a couple of squares of oh-so-good chocolate at the end of a cold autumn day. What is yours?