Chocolate in 1793

Trying to minimize Ernest's long days, I drive him to the zoo, amuse myself for a few hours, then pick him up again. If he goes with his dad, it's an 8 hour day.

I lived in or near Santa Barbara for 10 years, and commuted to work there for another 12. I am enjoying my rediscovery. I'm trying to visit the many places I have just driven by. High on the list was El Presidio, because you literally drive through it going "up" on Santa Barbara Street.

Part of a requisition list for supplies, dated March 31, 1793:



But wait! Only 6 boxes of chocolate? Inconceivable.



If you could read that, you would see that at that time, chocolate was for drinking, not for eating. And here's the chocolate paraphernalia. Chocophernalia?



To make your mouth water, check out Jen on the Edge's chocolate reviews. She is doing all of us a community service here.

And the winner is....

It's time to announce the winner of the Smalltown Mom Share-The-Luck Fall Giveaway! Here's my old-school random drawing. The entrants:In lieu of a hat, I put the slips in a beautiful wine glass:

They were stirred, not shaken. Then Ernest drew the winner. (I should have rotated the photo before I uploaded it. Oops. However, I have been politely asked not to upload any more photos this evening because they cause lag when two certain people are trying to play their new Wrath of the Litch King WoW expansion. Since they were polite, I'm leaving it alone.)
Look, his eyes are closed. His other hand is still playing Wow.
And the winner is: Louise, of Potted Frog. Louise, e-mail me with your mailing name and address! smalltownmomblog (at) yahoo (dot) com

The ultimate package is still mostly a surprise to you as well as me, but it will be finalized by this weekend and definitely WILL include chocolate and other items made or obtained nearby, in keeping with my desire to shop locally.

But I am having a difficult decision over the chocolate: Louise, do you want a box of the See's Seasonal Pie Truffles that I raved about? (BTW, I just realized you were the only comment on that post. Is this good karma or what?) Or would you like a box of scrumptious assorted chocolates made 3 blocks from my house? Your choice, just let me know ASAP. Before I eat them all! And don't worry. Whichever one you don't pick will still be gobbled up.

And that made me remember how much fun I had with my only other giveaway, which was a pay-it-forward thingie. So I'm definitely doing a holiday giveaway in December AND I am planning a large book giveaway on my book blog. Details to be posted later!

Valentine Assembly Line

Ernest decided to make home-made valentines this year. He likes the woven heart, a traditional Scandinavian Christmas decoration. So he and I had an assembly line going for a couple nights.

We stuffed each heart with 3 Hershey's kisses. As you would expect, many kisses were eaten before they made it into the valentine. Ernest unwrapped a very strange looking one...

(Sorry the picture is not clear.) The unwrapped kiss on the right looked like a swirl of poo to us... ... ... OK, he's a boy. He ate it anyway.