YOGA + CHOCOLATE = BETTER THAN TV



Chocolate was everywhere on Thursday - Valentine's Day.

Trader Joe's was giving away three types of rather excellent dark chocolate truffles - I limited myself to just two - and later in the day Mr. Kotter and I shared Mohr Im Hemd (Hot Molten Chocolate Cake) at Julius Meinl (Austrian desserts are particularly dear to me because they're not oversweetened).

Chocolate was also all over public radio that day. Marketplace aired a wonderfully riveting piece about master chocolate taster Chloé Doutre-Roussel.

From the start, it was clear that she is more than just a globetrotting chocolate whisperer with an exquisite sense of smell (she was born in South America and raised in France, which explains her rather charming turn of phrase):

"When I was 14 I started to taste chococolate to find the best pleasure out of my pocket money...and I realized that when I was concentrating into the tasting of one chocolate, I felt the complexity, the intensivity, and that it was much more interesting than watching TV."

When I heard the next bit I sat up straight and thought, "OhMyGawd, she's also a yogi!"

"I have applied this theory of listening to my body to listening to my needs for rest, or where I want to go for holiday, or if I want to be with this person or not.

"When you do things that are not in tune with you, not only is it a waste of time, but you also harm yourself."

"

Jon Miller, the reporter, also stated that, "She told me about her desire to have a family and about the toll her constant traveling was taking on her body. We talked about her ongoing effort to reconcile her love of luxury with her arguably stronger love of austerity and quiet. She said she knew that chocolate isn't the most important thing on earth. But it's something she cares about, and something she knows about, and somewhere she can make a difference."

Definitely a yogi.

Her website is here.