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Tropical Chocs by Mark Meredith | Issue 34 Like
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Only during the short, frenzied feeding days of Easter do we eat even more chocolate. At this time of year, even after the saturation stuffing of Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners, the pumpkin pie and Christmas puddings, there always seems to be room for a chocolate. And another, and another. For countless thousands of severe cases — the hopelessly obsessed — the closing of the year heralds a time when their passion for “the food of the gods” is accepted and copied by all. It’s a time of sweet extravagance, high art, and dazzling packaging. For the lover of chocolate, life doesn’t get much better than this. One severe case is Rosemary Stone-Hirst, a Trinidadian and the only manufacturer/exporter of handmade chocolates in the Caribbean. An ex-fashion and food editor of the Trinidad Express and later, food columist for the Trinidad Guardian, Rosemary says she’s “in lust” with chocolate. For someone so infatuated with the stuff, she cuts a trim, attractive figure, hardly the sign, you’d think, of a person preoccupied with a chocolaty passion. “Since I’ve owned the Chocolate House, I’m slimmer and healthier. It may be a paradox, but it’s worked for me. It’s not the chocolate that’s putting the weight on; it’s the diet. Even if you have high cholesterol, it can be good for you because the good cholesterol in a fine chocolate balances the bad cholesterol in your body. Yes, it can be addictive; that’s because of an ingredient with a very long name that occurs in