Festival of Awesomeness (I mean Festival of Chocolate)

If I have a complaint about living in West Palm Beach, it’s this.  There is just too darn much to do.  My biggest problem is that I hate to miss stuff.  In West Palm Beach, there is so much going on that it is impossible not to miss something.

One event my husband and I did not miss was the Festival of Chocolate, held in the Palm Beach Convention Center on November 19 and 20.

The $12 admission was worth every cent, just to be engulfed by the aroma of a room full of chocolate.  For additional fees, one could play chocolate bingo, or participate in a wine and chocolate pairing seminar, with plenty of sampling.

Chocolate vendors were everywhere.  We had two main goals – to eat chocolate now, and to bring chocolate home to eat later.  I am happy to report we succeeded at both.

We enjoyed huge lumps of chocolate billed as “The World’s Best Brownie.”  My husband bravely tried a wasabi chocolate, and liked it.  My favorite was the chocolate wine.  The vendor was gracious enough to let me sample the wine five or six times, just to make sure it really was good.

There was a chocolate museum.  There were chocolate sculptures, and chocolate trivia games.  We saw the step-by-step process of making chocolate, and sampled what was sure to be the freshest chocolate we would ever eat in our lives.

Culinary types participated in candy making and cake decorating workshops.  We were busy figuring out which treats would come home with us.

In the end, we chose cookies and chocolate-covered marshmallows from blue-ribbon winner Kriss Velasco, Grand Marnier truffles from the Notter School, and raspberry truffles from the Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory.

Back at home, we enjoyed our treats, and talked about the fun we had.  Seeing people of all ages, genders, shapes and sizes enjoying chocolate as much as we do was perhaps the best part.  No, that’s not right.  The chocolate was the best part.