two words that should ALWAYS go together: Chocolate Giveaway

I have a bit of a confession to make:  I'm a chocoholic.  I actually claim to have a dessert compartment somewhere in my insides because it does not matter how much 'real' food I will eat at meals - I always have room for sweets.  Its a gift really.

Well, I got an excited call from my sister, Kayla, last week because she was anxious to let me know that she had an 'in' with a chocolatier that was interested in participating in a blog giveaway.  And then my mouth started watering and my husband told me I had a crazy look in my eye.    

Lauren Roybal is the owner of Cocopelli Chocolatier in Santa Fe, NM and she is passionate about making people happy through all things chocolate and sweet.  I have since learned that Lauren has always been a chocolate lover and through a series of opportunities and experiences in her life - she realized that she was sort of destined to open up a chocolate shop.  In an email she wrote to me she said, "Good chocolate is something to celebrate, to be picky about, and also to share...my hope is to inspire others to find local artisan baker/chocolatiers."  She had me at "good chocolate."

The thing is, Lauren isn't just my new favorite person because she opened a chocolate boutique - the most awesome part about her is she is a real life hero.  Lauren may be the owner of Cocopelli Chocolatier, but she is also serving in the National Guard as a pilot flying an H-60 Black Hawk helicopter for Medevac - where she participates in search&rescue and fire fighting missions.  (She came off of active duty in September 2011 but still flies regularly).

She is a soldier AND she makes chocolate...pretty sure those are the makings of the most awesome superheroine ever?

So then Lauren sent me over some of her artisan chocolate to try and review for all of my readers...

And can I just say that it took me all of 30 seconds after taking this pic (while still sitting in the car after getting the mail) to immediately gobble up one two pieces of her chocolaty heaven.  And now here we are a mere 4 days later and I'm ashamed proud to admit, there are only 3 pieces of chocolate left...and that's only because I am attempting to have some type of will power over my sweets addiction.  I claimed my family couldn't try any to ensure the blog review was authentic, but its really because I didn't want to share.  oops.

Each sweet treat in my Cocopelli Chocolatier box was a delight and a happy surprise.  I have a thing for chocolate and sea salt - so my absolute favorites were the sea salt topped truffles.  But a very close second were the swirl pieces (like the one in the pic on the lower right) because it had sort of a cookie type bottom layer that was crunchy and divine.  Each truffle was both beautiful and savory in its own unique way.  I honestly felt like Lauren had created and hand selected each piece just for me; each truffle a little piece of delicious artwork.

Honestly, I was chowing down on my box of chocolate like I was Rachel McAdams in the Vow...unfortunately there was no Channing Tatum involved in my little binge- even more unfortunately for me, my very own hotter-than-Channing husband wasn't involved because let's be honest, I'm a little greedy about my chocolate.

not me.

Let's just say I'm feeling kind of blue that I don't live in Santa Fe so that I could regularly stop by and say hello (and thank you -for her service to our country) to Lauren while lingering and drooling into the display case.  My sweet tooth and I give Cocopelli Chocolatier's chocolate two very big thumbs up.

Speaking of Santa Fe...do I have any NM readers?  If you are reading from Santa Fe - or live near by...or are traveling there - make sure to check out the Cocopelli Chocolatier website for menus, hours of operation, and their list of events and classes.

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And now for the great giveaway news - Lauren is happily ready to send over a 1/4 lb box of some of her high cocoa content, artisan chocolate along with a few select chocolate&nut patties* to one of my lucky readers.  Yes, you read that correctly - artisan chocolate delivered directly to you.

To enter the giveaway, all you have to do is "like" CoCopelli Chocolatier's facebook page here, and comment below with a chocolate story that you would like to confess to all of us fellow chocolate lovers.  Maybe it's where you stash your secret chocolate - or what recipes you add chocolate to (even if it doesn't call for it), etc.   I'll start us off with one of my favorites:

I love chocolate all the time, I truly need a little bit of chocolate every single day.  I read somewhere once that if your body is craving chocolate, it really means you're missing magnesium and that can be fulfilled by eating legumes and I literally laughed aloud about it.  When I'm in need of a chocolate fix, their ain't a legume out there that's going to fill it.  

Anyway, when I'm pregnant, my chocolate situation is a little more severe.  So the truth was finally revealed one night when I was about eight months pregnant with Gemma. I was watching tv in the evening and way too tired and big belly'ed to get off the couch so I yelled into Brandon to bring me a chocolate bar.  Very hesitantly he reported back, "sorry babe, we don't have any candy bars."  Which I quickly shouted back, "no we do.  Check in the back of the snack cupboard on the right side, behind the box of popcorn."  B walked in with the candy bar silent and shaking his head.

Hello, my name is Tabitha and I hide chocolate from my family members so they can't find it and eat it.

Enter the giveaway!!  Winner will be randomly selected on Wednesday, October 10, 2012.



*allergies:  chocolate pieces are possible to have traces of nuts.  Chocolate&nut patties could include (but not limited to) toasted almonds, macadamia, chocolate y maiz, etc.