Toddlers

I’m not yet lucky to have been blessed with a bawling, demanding, irrational bundle of overly-energetic joy. But this advice will stay with me until I have one:

Suspend all thought of embarrassment and do what you have to do to get things down. My daughter will only let the cat brush her teeth, so I have to hold a struggling cat under one arm while trying to brush them, but making it look like the cat was doing it.

Genius. The child, that is. Not the mother.

Clever BBC

“There’s a big humanitarian charity campaign for Gaza. But we’re not running the advert. Sorry, but we’re not. We’re just not running the advert for the DEC charity campaign for Gaza. No, there’s no way we’re going to run the advert for the DEC campaign for the people of Gaza. We have to remain impartial. So you won’t see an advert on the BBC for a charity campaign for the people of Gaza. Nope. Nothing like that. Not here on the BBC. Oh no.”

Disasters Emergency Committee

Chocolate Review: Connie (milk with ‘nibbed’ hazelnuts)

A timeless combination, chocolate and hazelnuts were invented for each other. This is as good, better even, than expected. The chocolate is of a very high quality and with no overpowering flavours it really shines. The hazelnut chunks sit in the bottom of the bar, giving the classic sweet nutty undertone and soft crunch to a very, very satisfying and moreish bar.

I confess I had to look up the word “nibbed”, which apparently means “roughly crushed”: as a result the bar loses a point or two for pretention.

Montezuma’s Connie

Chocolate Review: Space Hopper (milk and orange)

What do you expect? It’s the age-old combination of milk chocolate and orange oil. Frankly, it can’t possibly go wrong and it doesn’t.

A wonderful aroma on opening, the expected rich chocolate and a hint of orange fragrance and flavour as it melts on the tongue. More subtle and sophisticated than a Terry’s Chocolate Orange, this is a treat.

It’s much more of a binge-bar than the previous flavours. The others have taken time and consideration to enjoy. This one, I wolfed down.

Montezuma’s Space Hopper

For some reason, they seem to imply Terry’s Chocolate Orange is dark chocolate, and that milk chocolate fans are at an orangey disadvantage. They’re wrong. It isn’t, and traditionally never has been. The red-boxed versions are dark chocolate, but haven’t been around for long.

Chocolate Review: Bean Machine (dark and white, with coffee)

I wasn’t looking forward to this one little bit. I don’t like coffee. And combined with dark chocolate, how could it be anything other than unpleasantly bitter? White chocolate should temper that, though, andI  was reassured by the smell: not a very strong coffee hit at all.

Interestingly, the white chocolate is marbled through the dark chocolate bar. This seems utterly pointless: no one can taste a thin seam of white amid dark, so the overall effect is simply milk chocolate.

The coffee, thankfully, isn’t beans or powder, but a part of the chocolate itself. It isn’t particularly strong. But, it’s still coffee.  So I won’t be having this one again. I’m not sure I can even finish it.

Montezuma’s Bean Machine

Chocolate Review: Culture Shock (white, ginger and chilli)

Wow! Just wow.

Grown-up’s white chocolate, creamy, smooth, rich, sweet but not sickly, gives way to a fragrant splash of ginger, whose warmth rises until BANG! the chilli hits the back of your throat.

It’s surprisingly hot, without making you reach for water. The three flavours come in succession, none overpowering but each one leading nicely into the next. There’s no chance of  being unable to taste one of the flavours, as is a problem in some bars.

The chocolate is superb, as expected, with the chilli and ginger lingering on the palate for a flavourful, spicy and red-hot finish.

Out of this world.

Montezuma’s Culture Shock

One Of Nature’s Greatest Spectacles

Penny and I had the privilege to see one of the greatest free shows on Earth, yesterday: Brighton’s 40,000 starlings in a startling, heart-stopping and seemingly impossible display of aerial acrobats.

They were swooping around, above and beneath the pier at dusk, diving toward the water and soaring out to sea in an ever-changing black ribbon. Then they’d regroup into a mesmerising, undulating orb that twisted out into two groups, each side of the pier, before rising back up to become one again.

The view from the end of the ‘doughnut’ groyne was incredible, the birds just a few metres away from us.

We caught the last of the show from up on the pier, hundreds of black darts swooping beneath us to roost on the framework.

Two other flocks were performing for us: one over the West Pier, and another, huge flock around Sussex Heights and the tower above Churchill Square: using the two blocks like a figure-8 racing track.

Amazing.

Chocolate Review: Spice It Up (dark and ginger)

A strange one this. I wasn’t looking forward to it – I was worried the sharp hit of ginger would go straight to the back of my throat, and the bitter robust chocolate would follow.

Rather that being fully mixed in, the ginger pieces are embedded in the top of each cube. The only smell on opening was lovely chocolate.

My first block surprised me in it’s blandness. I couldn’t taste the ginger, it was just a faint aroma on the palate.

The second block was better – I put it ginger side down on my tongue, and immediately got the flavour. I think this is the secret – the chocolate can overwhelm it, so you want the spice to come through first. In fact, it’s rather clever that the ginger isn’t enveloped in chocolate for this reason.

It was a sweet, warm ginger rather than a sharp hit, and the bar left a few tasty flecks of ginger in my mouth to chew on.

After initial trepidation and disappointment, I was pleasantly surprised. Montezuma’s say this is their best selling speciality bar: it’s lovely.

Montezuma’s Spice It Up

Chocolate Review: Surf Nut (milk chocolate, macadamia nuts and coconut)

I was excited about this one: I love the creamy texture of macadamia nuts, and have always been a fan of sweet coconut. My only concern was whether flakes of coconut would spoil the smooth texture of the chocolate?

Initial impressions on opening were good:  strong, robust milk chocolate smell. The coconut came through at the back of the fragrance, not too sweet or overpowering, just a little hint of tropical sweetness.

This bar seemed to melt slightly better on the tongue than Vera. Not the smooth feel of ‘ordinary’ bars like Dairy Milk, but this is REAL chocolate – the lower fat content means a higher melting point and an ultimately more grown-up and satisfying chocolate hit. This is stronger and less sweet than newsagent bars, and utterly delicious.

The chunks of macadamia are smaller than expected – this is a good thing, giving more of a praline consistency but with a much more luxurious texture to the nut. The coconut isn’t too sweet, nor is there so much of it that it fills your mouth after the chocolate has melted away. A fine balance, with the right amount of plump flakes.

The bar crumbles nicely between the teeth, with the coconut flavour the last to hit.

This could be my new favourite chocolate bar.

Montezuma’s Surf Nut

Chocolate Review: Vera (dark chocolate and pistachio)

Penny gave me a huge pack of Montezumas’s chocolate for Christmas, with about a dozen different bars of Sussex-made organic, fair-trade chocolate.

So, I thought I’d eat around one per day for the next couple of weeks and offer a full and honest review here. I probably won’t enjoy it.

First up, Vera: made of dark chocolate and pistachio nuts.

It was quite a cold day, and chilly in the office, so that may have affected the texture. The chocolate smelt good, strong and rich. The block broke with a pleasing snap, but I had trouble trying to get it to melt in my mouth.

The flavour of the chocolate is dark but not too bitter, certainly possible to eat a full bar without it becoming overpowering and the quality of the cocoa shines through. I wouldn’t normally choose dark chocolate, but this was good. The mouth-feel wasn’t as velvety and smooth as I like, the chocolate formed separate granular clumps rather than a semi-liquid coating. But this would be expected as the bar was much less than room temperature.

The addition of pistachio nuts is interesting. They have a sharper and more subtle flavour than almonds or hazelnuts that wouldn’t have worked in sweet milk chocolate. Conversely, in stronger dark I felt they were more textural than anything – their delicate flavour being somewhat overwhelmed by the richness of the chocolate.

In all, Vera is an unusual bar that I felt was only partly successful. The temperature may have let it down, so I suppose I’ll have to have another bar to double-check.

Montezuma’s Vera