Not Victoria's Secret. Photo: Vicki Polon

       I’m not someone who needs a chocolate hit before bed to feel the day has been worth living. It’s not my crave nor sanctuary, stand-in for love or sex, and Heath Bars scratch a chocolate tickle just fine. So what was I doing at the 14th Annual Chocolate Show at the Metropolitan Pavilion on West 18th Street?  Well, my day in the country plan went south and I’d finished the Sunday crossword puzzle. Why not check it out, since a friend had given me a free ticket.  I wasn’t worried about stuffing face and losing control, since, full confession, I prefer the unsweet. To be brutally honest, I love salt. I doubted I would hear the angels sing.

        I quickly learned I am a distinct minority when it comes to the church of chocolate.

       The faithful were lined up down the block to get in and pay their $35, and once inside, it was one huge wall-to-wall happy face. Except mine. My biggest thrill initially was coming upon Spice and Tease, a booth laid out like in a Moroccan souk, run by a Lyon-based pair of brothers who make unique and wonderful spice and tea mixes. But that didn’t explain the unfathomable power of chocolate and I meandered back to the task at hand.
There were chocolate dessert-making demos, booksellers selling anything-chocolate cookbooks and authors signing them, a mannequin clad in a chocolate confection of a bra, and a “kids zone” for fun with sprinkles, icing, and, well, you know.

        Avoiding the thickest clots of people sampling and buying chocolate in all its guises - chocolate tea, chocolate wine, cocoa butter soap, truffles, cocoa mixes, chocolate-coated pretzels – I chose my picks carefully, since my appetite was limited. Still, I was open to revelation.

Joe Angello and Mott Green champion single origin chocolate. Photo: Vicki Polon

       I stopped at the Grenada Chocolate Company to say hello from my friend who gave me the ticket, and, of course, sampled their wares. Of the 4 bars laid out, ranging from 60 to 100% cocoa, the latter containing no sugar and used mostly for cooking, the 82% was dreamy – a perfect “crack” when bitten, smooth, almost tart and mouth-watering - a hint of vanilla bean. The Grenada-based operation, from “tree to bar,” as grower and founder of the company’s chocolate manufacturing co-op Mott Green explained, sells its bars and cocoa exclusively in the states through distributor Joe Angello of Philmont, NY. He told me the best cocoa beans are from Grenada, Madagascar and Tobago, though Hawaii is making a play to enter the market. I tore myself away.

        Was I so easily moved?  Continuing my forward march, I had a few unremarkable bites from some big name chocolatiers and ignored most of the trays of truffles passing in front of my face.  I found myself drawn to Roni-Sue’s “beer crunch” booth.  Her beans are grown and fermented in Belize (beans only grow within ten degrees of the equator) and she assembles her confections at her “shoppe” at the Essex Street Market in downtown Manhattan. I don’t like beer, you already know I’m no choc-head, but I know what I like. Her treats spoke to me. They said, “Eat me.”  I was a goner. Was it the pretzel-beer nut coating on the outside, the added salt on the inside? The 56% cocoa, the purity (no soy lecithin as in most chocolate), the butter crunch, black chocolate stout ale giving it that malty tang? Yes, yes, yes. And Roni-Sue Kave’s locavore credentials appealed to me - beer from the Brooklyn Brewery and pretzels from Martin’s, the Mennonites who sell at the Union Square Greenmarket.

        While I clearly only tasted a handful of the samples on display, I can’t say I’ve had a conversion. But I’m more willing to listen to all you missionaries. With an open mouth, that is.