Just When You Think Nothing Can Shock You

For a little lascivious chocolatizing -

This is the link to the Godiva chocolate marjolaine recipe site -
http://www.godiva.com/recipes/recipe.aspx?id=506

I've said this repeatedly on a2k, so I won't belabor it now, but when I went to italy the first time, for the first long vacation in decades, in 1988, I fell in love with it immediately, even while exhausted out of my mind from an unending flight, etc. I'd not been able to visualize it there, this being pre internet, except for some photos I'd seen over the years of, say, the colosseum - I was a stranger in a strange world, and very avid to experience things. Not least, the pasticcerias and gelaterias, and pizzerias, on and on. And, my point, the sweets in the pastry shops were not as sweet as ours in the US, or didn't seem so, and seemed to have more flavor of whatever sort. So, that was a transitional experience and I got pickier about sugar after I came back.

I had the same experience from living 6 years in Germany. After that I could no longer take America's sickeningly sweet deserts. I also got into the habit of drinking sparkling mineral water in place of soda/sugared tea and lemonade.

Yes, me too. I drink Gerolsteiner, Apollonaris, Pellegrino, in that order, those being the ones available here, gerolsteiner having the most interesting mineral list. Sometimes I squeeze a lemon or lime or orange in them, but usually not.

I admit to having a coke or ginger ale once in a while at other people's houses though.

Well, here's the societal break point - do you sugar iced tea? (I put a teaspoon in a big glass if it's ordinary tea).

One trick my mom taught me with dessert recipes: Halve the sugar called for, and it comes out better.

I agree, US desserts have so much sugar, it's sickening. I have trouble with those at-work Birthday Cakes. Yuck!

That Photo! OMG!
<Rushing off to THAT site>

I can't link to a photo of the actual cake that Diane and I split a piece of, as it's on a secure site of the cafe we went to - but it was delicious beyond compare, and better, lookswise, than the godive website photo. Sigh, the cafe stopped making it, as I probably mentioned.