Friday, November 09, 2007

Chocolate, Chocolate, Everywhere!

For Utah chocolate lovers, the time is almost here. Next week is the 4th Annual Utah Chocolate Show! Woohoo!

Read part of the press release here, and then continue below it for a chance to win TWO VIP EVENT PASSES, worth $95.00!!!

(I usually don't indulge in lots of bold type and exclamation points, but this is a moment that warrants such enthusiam).

About the show:

Chocolate lovers of every stripe have waited all year for what has become a fixture on the state’s holiday event calendar: The Fourth Annual Utah Chocolate Show, November 16 & 17 at the South Towne Expo Center, with more to do, see, learn, and experience than ever before.

Some of the best chocolate that Utah and the U.S. have to offer will be there, including V Chocolates, Utah Truffles, See’s Candies, and Utah’s own bean-to-bar creator, Amano Artisan Chocolates, plus many others. Attendees can sample chocolates and enjoy show-only specials as they get a jump on their holiday shopping.

Specialty Classes that require pre-registration—a long-time attendee favorite—are back, as are free how-to demonstrations on the Gygi Culinary Solutions Chocolate Stage.

A Woman’sHeart.org, the show’s support platform for benefitting The American Heart Association in Utah, benefits their initiatives for women. The “I Love my Heart” 5K run/walk takes place Saturday, November 17, before the show opens that day.

Other new show features include a chocolate wedding cake competition display gallery and the Utah Loves Chocolate Photography contest, sponsored by V Chocolates. Young show-goers will be delighted by a special appearance by the Chocolate Princess on Saturday from 2 to 4.

An exclusive VIP opening celebration will be Thursday, November 15, the night before the 2-day main event. That evening, the “An Introduction to Fine Chocolate” tasting class will be free, and after judging by three of Utah’s foremost pastry chefs, chocolate wedding cake competition winners will awarded. A live-action Jeopardy!-style game featuring local celebrities will benefit the American Heart Association in Utah. Vendors will offer VIP night-only specials.

Main event show tickets are $7.00 each and are good for both Friday & Saturday. Children 5 and under free. VIP passes are sold only in pairs for $95. Tickets and passes can be purchased on the show’s website www.UtahChocolateShow.com, as well as at the door at their respective events.

###

Back? Good.

So here's the deal: One of my main jobs with UCS is writing the Weekly Chocolate Fix, a free electronic newsletter with fun chocolate trivia, recipes, show updates, and more. We award show tickets each week and chocolate prizes each month (the one for November is worth $50.00!).

Every so often, I throw in true chocolate confessions and funny chocolate stories--such as times when a mother steals from her kids' Halloween stash or licks the chocolate off her kids' toe. You know, the things real chocoholics do but don't really want to admit to.

That's where you, dear readers, come in.

Add your chocolate confession/story of no more than 150 words to the comment section (or email it to me: annette at utah chocolate show dot com).

You've got two big things going here:

1) If I select YOUR story to include in the next issue of the Weekly Chocolate Fix, you get the two VIP passes that are good for the VIP opening night celebration (which has tons of fun stuff not available at any other time--visit here for the low-down on the fun), but they'll also get you into the two-day show. And they're worth NINETY-FIVE BUCKS.

2) If I don't pick your story now, but DO decide to use it in a future issue of the e-letter, you'll receive FOUR free tickets to the 2008 show.

Really, folks, it's a no-brainer.

Now for the technical stuff: All submissions become property of the Utah Chocolate Show and may be edited for length and/or clarity.

To subscribe to the Weekly Chocolate Fix, click here. After the show, we always take a holiday hiatus before starting up again in January.

But please join us (both on the Fix and at the show next weekend)!

If you come, be sure to find me and say hello. And then give me chocolate. :)

6 comments:

Karlene said...

Tootsie Rolls were my passion. They got me through so much stress. On really bad days, I would buy the giant ones and eat a chunk every 15 minutes just to get me through.

When my children started trick-or-treating, I told them that mothers were allowed to take a Tootsie Roll Tax. That was our "payment" for making their costumes and escorting them through the neighborhood. They didn't mind too much because they always got lots of Tootsie Rolls and I never took all of them (just most).

For some reason, my kids never checked this out with their friends until my oldest turned 12. Instead of going out with the family, she went with a group of kids that year. They were swapping candy at her friend's house and she mentioned that she couldn't swap the Tootsie Rolls because of the tax. Boy, was she ticked when she discovered that other mothers did not tax their kids' Halloween haul.

She blabbed it to the younger ones so I told them that it was only once you turned 12 that you didn't have to pay the tax anymore. That bought me a few more years.

Amber said...

I am a true chocoholic. I love chocolate any form, the darker the better. After the birth of my third child I went on a diet. Part of the diet was little to no sugar. My baby was 6 months old and I was doing pretty well. I was limiting my chocolate (and sugar in other form) intake drastically.

I was talking to a friend of mine about life and somehow she decided that I must be pregnant because of some symptoms I'd told her. I wasn't convinced, well, maybe I suspected, but I wasn't ready for a fourth baby (and the third in 2 1/2 years) so I was in denial. I refused to go buy a test on the grounds that what I didn't know couldn't hurt me.

My friend bought me a pregnancy test and FedExed it to my house in Las Vegas. Rather then just have a pregnancy test in the box she also included a bunch of varieties of mini chocolate candy bars. Normally that would have been fine. But it was July in Las Vegas. I wasn't home when the package was dropped off- so it sat on my porch in 110+ heat and by the time I opened it the chocolate was melted. But it was okay, they were individually wrapped. Throw them in the freezer and then they'd be fine.

I took the pregnancy test and got a positive result. Well then, the diet was off! I pulled those chocolates out of the freezer (where they'd been less than 5 minutes) and proceeded to eat them by opening the packaging carefully and licking most the candy bar off the wrappers since they were mostly just puddles of chocolate with some nougat or nuts in the middle.

Luisa Perkins said...

I SO wish I could be there. Have fun!

And thank you for the kind birthday wishes. I was very touched that you remembered.

Unknown said...

Tristi and I are really looking forward to doing our booth there! We think you and your sisters do an incredible job hosting this show every year.

EVERYONE MUST COME! No, I'm not screaming at you, I'm just really excited.

Annette, we really missed you last night. Please put January 10th down for lunch with the Blogging Babes. Deets on my blog.

Kimberly Vanderhorst said...

Here's my confession...

My husband bought a bag of lindt chocolates to have around as an occasional treat. I snarfed them all while he was at work one day (my three year old made me do it! I swear!), and promptly panicked. I loaded the kids in the car, drove to the grocery store, and bought another bag. I then wrapped the offending wrappers up in several grocery bags and pushed the bundle to the bottom of the garbage can. He never suspected a thing. And his sympathy over me feeling ill that night? Just a little bit torturous.

Autumn Ables said...

I have MANY confessions of chocolate indulgences and crimes.

But...since I don't live in Utah...haha I don't have to confess them in hopes to win these awesome tickets! hehehehehehe

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