In my household, we don’t stand on romantic ceremony – I pick my own Valentine’s Day chocolates. So I have no one but myself to blame if I don’t get it right.

This year, I was too distracted to mail-order something in time. I am usually happy to take a rain check on a holiday – if George Washington can move his birthday around, why can’t I? So I was going to order something later.

But they had a big display of these Knipschildt chocolates at Whole Foods. I find it very hard to resist their boxes, covered with rough, colorful hand-made paper. I try to remind myself that I don’t eat the paper, but it doesn’t always work.

So I ended up with this lovely Valentine’s heart. Unfortunately, while the paper didn’t disappoint me, the chocolates did. They are beautiful to look at as well, but after the intense flavors of my recent experiences with Theo and Chuao, these just didn’t measure up.

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Today’s chocoholics are more demanding than ever before. There was a time, perhaps half a century ago, when “chocolate” meant “chocolate.” As our parents and/or grandparents skipped home from school, they contented themselves with plain Hershey or Snickers Bars. They didn’t give any thought to the quality of their chocolate, its regional origin, or its physical attractiveness. They didn’t care about cacao percentages or exotic flavorings. Unless they happened to be in the culinary field, neither did their parents. In that simpler era, all that most people considered was whether or not their chocolate tasted sweet, good, and at least slightly chocolaty.

It doesn’t take a cocoa connoisseur to see those days are far behind us. With dark chocolate now labeled a “health food,” it seems like new purveyors of handcrafted artisan chocolate materialize every day. In an effort to keep up with trends, retain old customers and attract new ones, old-standby chocolate makers such as Hershey have released lines of upmarket chocolates, often quite successfully.

On a recent trip to CVS, I noticed that old standby chocolatiers Whitman’s/Russell Stover, best known for their holiday chocolate collections, have gotten in on the act. While perusing the already center stage Valentine’s Day candies, I picked up Whitman’s “Soho” collection. I’d seen a similar collection the year before. I’d passed it by, less than eager to spend $5.00 on a 6-piece selection of drugstore chocolates, but my curiosity won out this time.

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This time of year, when I think of candy recipes, there is really only one that’s worthy of contemplation: bark. Though I adore a good piece of bark, I rarely find myself consuming it before November and after January.

But how many times can you eat the same old peppermint bark? Well, if you’re like me, you can eat it a lot – but that doesn’t mean I don’t want something new! So in honor of this festive candy, here is a bark recipe steeped in Italian culinary tastes for those of you who desire a hiatus from the classic.

I call this recipe Spumoni Mastiff Bark. Get it? Neapolitan Mastiffs are a type of Italian dog that are known for their daunting size, Neapolitan and Spumoni are both ice cream flavors, and plus, dogs bark…. Well, maybe the name isn’t that funny/clever, but that doesn’t mean this recipe isn’t tasty!

This recipe consists of a dark chocolate cherry almond layer coupled with a white chocolate cranberry pistachio layer. Though it may seem complex, don’t let this discourage you! Bark is one of the easiest candies to make.

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I was recently given the opportunity to try a box of Ococoa’s Butter Cup Collection. I thought I knew chocolate. I thought I knew what flavors go well with chocolate (peanut butter, mint, and Sunkist, to name a few). I thought I knew what to expect from a box of chocolates. Then came Ococoa.

I get a lot of mail and have been receiving two to three packages per week for the last few months. When a box arrived last week, I assumed it was a homeschooling product I was expecting and didn’t bother to look at the return address. I got a knife, sliced the tape on the box, opened the flaps, and said, “I smell chocolate….”

That is a very pleasant, very enticing way to open a package.

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When I see a $7 candy bar that weighs 2.5 ounces (70g), I nearly always keep walking. Seven dollars?! I could buy a… well, a large mocha frappuccino and a couple Rolos for that. But what if it’s in a really cool square box with a red, black and green retro design? And what if it’s an all-natural “artisan” bar filled with one of my favorite nuts of all time – the pistachio? And, what’s that? It’s on sale for $3.99? Okay, now we’re talking.

So I’ve got my little Bistro Bar treasure here at home, and I notice something odd right away. The Chocolat Moderne website says that my variety has white chocolate. But the box in front of me reads: “Parlez Pistache – dark chocolate bar filled with pistachio praline.” Wow, I hope the box is right, because I’m not a big white chocolate fan, and I also imagine that pistachio will taste much better with dark chocolate. But enough imagining. Let’s check it out.

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