{"id":1426,"date":"2012-03-27T08:00:58","date_gmt":"2012-03-27T13:00:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/christineamsden.com\/wordpress\/?p=1426"},"modified":"2012-03-26T17:15:34","modified_gmt":"2012-03-26T22:15:34","slug":"a-chocolate-snobs-easter-shopping","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/christineamsden.com\/wordpress\/?p=1426","title":{"rendered":"A Chocolate Snob&#8217;s Easter Shopping"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I give up! Really, I have no choice, and should have given up, on principle, years ago, but I fell in love with that smooth milk chocolate and refused to believe the experience was over. Alas, it is, and has been ever since Hershey&#8217;s bought Dove. The change in quality was marked and instantaneous, and it&#8217;s not going back. Dove is just another Hershey&#8217;s bar now, and I am in search of a new bunny.<\/p>\n<p>This year, I decided to try Lindt chocolate bunnies. They&#8217;re actually a very cute little size, big enough to make me feel like I&#8217;m really getting to indulge my inner chocolate monster, but small enough not to give me a tummy ache. (The monster never seems to get a tummy ache, just me.) <\/p>\n<p>Lindt is one of my new brands of choice. It&#8217;s not as smooth as the old Dove, but it&#8217;s rich and well textured. In fact, I recommend Lindt chocolate for s&#8217;mores. (For those who haven&#8217;t noticed, Hershey&#8217;s no longer melts when pressed against a hot, gooey marshmallow.)<\/p>\n<p>Giradelli is another good brand, and the one I usually use for baking. (Nestle chocolate chips not properly melting when constant 350 degree heat is applied to them for 10-12 minutes straight. Seriously?) They also have some good candies. They don&#8217;t make bunnies (although you can buy a plush bunny from them in a basket with lots of their chocolates), but I did pick up a bag of milk chocolate and coconut eggs from them. WOW! Wait, it&#8217;s not Easter yet&#8230;um, well, you see, I had to try them to make sure they were okay. And just because I ate half the bag and now have to get another one&#8230;maybe I should wait until the day before Easter to buy another bag. \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n<p>Godiva is another popular name in quality chocolate, but I&#8217;m afraid I find them a bit overrated. And overpriced. Lindt&#8217;s 3.5-oz chocolate bunny is $4.50 (I got it on sale for $3.50). The Godiva 9-oz bunny is $25, almost twice the price per ounce. Now, I haven&#8217;t tried their bunny, but I&#8217;ve certainly tried their chocolates, and they taste good. The trouble comes with value, because I don&#8217;t think they taste better than some of my more moderately priced indulgences. <\/p>\n<p>So this year it&#8217;s Lindt bunnies, Giradelli eggs, Lindt chocolate carrots, coloring books, and toys. (Hey, even I know you can have too much of a good thing. My monster, on the other hand&#8230;)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I give up! Really, I have no choice, and should have given up, on principle, years ago, but I fell in love with that smooth milk chocolate and refused to believe the experience was over. Alas, it is, and has been ever since Hershey&#8217;s bought Dove. The change in quality was marked and instantaneous, and [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1426","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-chitchat"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/christineamsden.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1426","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/christineamsden.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/christineamsden.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christineamsden.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christineamsden.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1426"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/christineamsden.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1426\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1427,"href":"https:\/\/christineamsden.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1426\/revisions\/1427"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/christineamsden.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1426"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christineamsden.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1426"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christineamsden.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1426"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}