I am one of those people who can easily turn down a pie or muffins.  Nothing stands any kind of a chance though if it’s chocolate; resistance is futile.  The hubs has a HUGE sweet tooth but, as I have stated previously, he has the metabolism of a squirrel on crack.  When we first got married I registered for a cake dome because I wanted to have a freshly baked cake for us to enjoy every week.  I do not know how other people do it but we apparently lack even the most basic form of restraint.  I caught my beloved with black teeth gobbling down my cake by the light of the refrigerator in the middle of the night.  (He was foraging for milk to accompany it.)  The one type of chocolate I have always been able to happily resist has been the “fancy” ones.  I just do not like very dark chocolate and I find it a personal effrontery to mix fruit with it.  The ONE exception to that is chocolate covered cherries.  I ADORE them.  So for most of my life I have assumed my palette was not sophisticated enough to properly enjoy the expensive ones.  And then my step mother-in-law gave us these at Christmas.  I had never heard of Louis Sherry so I googled him.  I assumed he was French but he was born in Vermont to parents of French-Canadian descent.  In 1881 he introduced the French chocolate making tradition to New York and quickly established a reputation for excellence.  I love that the chocolates came in a replica of the original tin which is now more than 100 years old.  I was also thrilled to read they are using ethically sourced ingredients from Ecuador, Madagascar, and the Caribbean coast of Venezuela, according to their insert.  The three of us gathered round and broke the seal on it skeptically.  Nestled inside were twenty-four of the most exquisitely detailed chocolates I had ever seen in my life.  And they weren’t all dark!  Mercifully, it came with a guide letting you know what was filled with what.  My Marian child reached for the Fleur de Sel caramel, shaped like a beautiful clam shell.  I went next and had one filled with Jamaican rum.  Ya mon!  By now the hubs was so frothed up he said to just give him one.  The Mexican vanilla was great, the milk chocolate trefoil was divine, and I loved the coffee costa d’oro.  Proclaiming myself the keeper of our fine chocolates, I pronounced we all must stop and have some decorum.  Everybody started calling dibs on their favorites (I called the rum and the coffee, our little one said she wanted the sea shells and the heart shaped raspberry cremes, and the hubs declared he just wanted whatever we didn’t.)  I am quite proud we made it through Epiphany before they were all gone.  Now we just open the box and stare at the empty contents, hoping more will appear as if by magic.  The famous American cartoonist Charles M. Schulz once said, “All you need is love.  But a little chocolate now and then doesn’t hurt.”  I am lucky enough to have gotten both.  J’aime le chocolat.