20. Attend the library's 8th Annual Death by Chocolate Bake Off.

About a month back I found out my husband was going to be out of town on Valentine's Day. At first I was a little bummed because I really enjoy Valentine's Day... the sappy yet sincere love letters, the ridiculous amounts of chocolate, the soon-to-bloom flowers... I love it all! After the initial bummed-ness that lasted a healthy amount of minutes I decided there's no harm in celebrating a day or so late. And celebrate a day or late is exactly what we did! Saturday ended up kind of being our Valentine's Day... minus the flowers, cards, chocolate, etc. that he showered me with on the 14th [I feel like I've been writing a lot about V-Day lately... so I apologize if, unlike me, it's your least favorite of the holidays]. 

On Saturday morning we did a whole lot of nothing, which for us is wonderful because we tend to do too much on Saturdays. After waking up and doing the blissful nothing we did some Kenpo-X (hep! hep! hep!). I then made a tasty dinner fully equipped with homemade French bread, lasagna, and not-so-home-made blueberry pomegranate juice, although that woulda been pretty cool. Dinner ended up being a hit and afterwards we dropped Peter off at the neighbors [thanks Maren'n'Dave!] and headed over to the public library for their 8th Annual Death by Chocolate Bake-Off. It. was. heaven... in a library haha. Everywhere you turned there was another table covered in FREE chocolate desserts! The categories for the competition included cheesecake, cake, cookies, brownies, hodgepodge, and professional. 

We started out at the cake table and sampled all 8 entrees. Todd's favorite ended up being the 5-Spice Chinese Chocolate Cake and I voted for the Choc-A Lot Cake... although the 5-Spice was a close second.

Todd then moved on to the professional table where my visiting teacher, Melisa, was competing with her Choffee. It's like coffee because of the way it's made but instead of coffee beans they use cacao beans. When I first tried it at a mutual friend's house a few weeks back I thought it would be like drinking melted chocolate... wouldn't that be awesome?? But instead it was like drinking watered down chocolate... makes sense once you know how it's made but unfortunately I was a little let down. It's just not my cup of tea... or Choffee... anyway, Todd loved the stuff. 

My second table was the cookie table. Most of the cookies were banana/raspberry/sugar cookies with chocolate chips or chocolate flecks on top. Pretty much there wasn't enough chocolate going down for a "Death by Chocolate" competition. As my faith began to waver in my decision to select the tasty-sounding cookie table a miracle happened. The heavens opened... and an entire chorus of angels began to sing as I approached [more like floated to] the dark chocolate macaroons. I knew from the moment I laid eyes on them that they were going to be de. lish. us. And they were. They were amazing. So amazing. I only got one and it could very well be the best chocolate cookie I have ever eaten in my entirety of living. It melted in my mouth and was very comparable to a mini beacon hill cookie. Obviously I voted for the dark chocolate macaroon and I am totally going back next year to eat the entire tray. Oh man... can you even imagine that?? Some crazy lady showing up and scooping the whole tray into her purse? Haha watch out cause that's so going to be me next year. 

See it?? Right there in front...
the cookie from the gods!

I also want to enter the competition next year. Todd and I almost did this year but didn't get around to it. Turns out the winners [one in each category and two over all] get a cash prize and a ribbon/gold [plastic] goblet of awesome! Do you know how accomplished I would feel if I won a ribbon?? Or a TROPHY?!! Okay, that would be so cool!! Anywho, I'm really looking forward to next year. I for sure won't be entering the cookie category though because we both know who is going to win that one every year for the rest of forever. Oh man... I just want another dark chocolate macaroon! Phew... I am really getting worked up about this cookie. 

They did a pretty good paper-mache job
with this little chef dude, huh.

Overall, Todd and I had a great time tasting all of the different desserts. We didn't stay for the award ceremony due to Peter's bed time but I'm pretty sure I know of at least one entry that won. (: