la.foodblogging

I wanted to call my two posts, “His candy & Her candy,� but I went for less cheeky, more descriptive headlines. So while I got Father’s Day Candy, my wife got herself a sweetie all her own:

Ecco Bella’s Women’s Wonder Bar (my caps) may not exactly count as food, but it more than makes up for it by being extra “LA�. Sure, the chocolate is made in Switzerland, and the bars are made by a New Jersey cosmetics company; but the gals in Milwaukee aren’t lining up to shell out this much money for a candy snack that’s a PMS cure.

Ecco Bella is a natural cosmetics company apparently trying to be the Ron Popeil of chocolate—it’s got hundreds of uses! It’s a face mask, a soap, and even a vitamin. Folks, you can say lutein and lycopene all you want, this is an expensive box of chocs.

How expensive? Let’s just say that the price tag was scrapped off before it was brought into the house. $20 on the net. My wife’s story is that she was in the supplements aisle, when the salesgirl had to apologize for eating a piece of chocolate while talking. She gave my wife a piece of this “PMS curing chocolateâ€? (not to be confused with “weight-loss scotchâ€? or “mortgage-paying pizzaâ€?), and before she knew it, she was screaming on her knees, “Does this stuff come in BARS?â€? She knew I’d give her that look I’m so famous for, but she was hooked, and it didn’t matter what the price was.

Though it does come in bars, we are the proud owners of the 50 piece “gift box”, little pieces in a Fair-Trade Certified double wraper. The chocolate looks good, it’s dark and shiny, but the mouthfeel is at first quite waxy, before later melting down into a belated and unsatisfying chocolate taste. And while you shouldn’t expect much in the taste department from such a product, they’re not selling One-A-Day vitamins–it’s Swiss chocolate, so judging it seems fair game.

It tasted initially like nothing. Then an orangey, fruity flavor comes in, which makes you grab the box searching for an explanation. It’s Rose Oil. Then, a chocolate flavor, but one that never quite lands. Further, the flavors never really meld, they just combine, so that the entire eating experience is fairly confusing on the tongue. I think the idea is that as you’re eating a piece, you’re also reading the packaging, which offers a Q&A in French and English on such topics as: “Why do so many women crave chocolate?� and “Why is chaste tree berry in the women’s wonder bar?�

Is it good chocolate? No. Is it a good PMS cure? Doubt it. Women’s Wonder Bar is for women who love chocolate, hate their PMS, hate their $20 bills, and wonder if anything can help them. Boys keep out, it’ll only make you sarcastic.

By Why We Type (see more of his posts).