Gourmet Chocolates--! X)

Top 10 Gourmet Chocolate Makers

By Brett Moore, About.com

Chocolate is the voice of passion and love, whether it is the love of chocolate itself or as an expression of love for another human being. Valentine's Day or Saturday, chocolate is the perfect gift for those we care about or just want to impress. Here are some online chocolate shops with some truly extraordinary products.

1. L.A. Burdick Handmade Chocolates

"We don't use extracts, concentrates or flavorings. Our complementing flavors come directly from their sources. We brew coffees and teas, cook fruits, squeeze and zest oranges and lemons. Herbs and spices are used as needed. No two batches of the same recipe are exactly the same. We use local honey, Mexican vanilla beans and a variety of nuts and dried fruits from California and Turkey; the best we can find!"

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2. Christopher Norman Chocolates

"Distinctive boxed collections, hand painted & sculptural truffles, and innovative flavors are all essential elements in Christopher Norman Chocolates. It is our mission to create extraordinarily luscious and sensory-provoking confections that encompass the quintessentially classic flavors, as well as unique and fresh taste experiences. Only the finest all-natural ingredients are used in our truffles and chocolates. Each piece is made by hand, here at our New York City factory."

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3. MarieBelle New York

"MarieBelle's signature line of chocolates combine the finest chocolate, eclectic ingredients and artisinal techniques, creating nothing less than works of art. Named after Maribel Lieberman, designer and founder, the chocolates resemble semiprecious jewels as displayed in their beautiful Italian boxes. Everything about MarieBelle New York is haute couture, with a timeless style that feels classic and contemporary." Wonderful handpainted chocolates in exotic flavors.

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4. Lake Champlain Chocolates

This Vermont native produces some truly delicious gourmet chocolates. "The union of the rich history of making fine chocolate, the heritage of craftsmanship, and the wonderful flavors of Vermont is accomplished every day at our factory, producing sweet indulgences with pride that goes into each bite. Perhaps that's why The New York Times reveres it as "some of the best chocolate in the country."

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5. Romanicos Chocolate

My favorite truffles! Owner Alejandra Bigai presents chocolate the way it was meant to be; luxurious, sexy, and, above all, delicious. Hand rolled chocolate truffles with delectable flavors like wild coconut, holy berry, passion caramel, heavenly vanilla, and more. The Piccolo Art Collection features hand painted chocolates filled with almonds, hazelnuts, pistachios, or dulce de leche (caramel from Argentina). Beautifully packaged. Custom gifts available for businesses.

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6. La Maison du Chocolat

An exquisite collection of fine chocolates made in the French tradition. Glazed chestnuts are the perfect wintertime treat.

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7. Vosges Chocolates

Owner/chocolatier Katrina Markoff has created some truly extraordinary chocolates. French trained, Katrina combines classic chocolate techniques with her love of world cuisines. You can find flavors of blood orange, Mexican chili, pumpkin, Hawaiian sea salt, and other exotics as well as classic hazelnut, fine honey, rich caramel, and more.

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8. Richart Paris

This wonderful French company was started in 1925. "Two generations later, we consider it our daily mission to seek out both an inexhaustible supply of the finest cocoa the world has to offer and, along with it, an equally endless amount of the happiness and pleasure that chocolate has to offer." - Michel Richart. Be sure to check out the Little Gourmet collection.

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9. Recchiuti Confections

Recchiuti Confections, an artisan company in San Francisco, is on a mission to introduce people to real chocolate and to share with them what it is meant to be. "One bite of these handcrafted morsels will change the way you think about chocolate forever." Classic fine choclates along with some unexpected twists like the signature burnt caramel chocolates or tarragon grapefruit. The Paul Madonna collection features chocolates painted with San Francisco life by the acclaimed artist.

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This article is from About.com; see the original article here: http://gourmetfood.about.com/od/wheretobuygourmetfoods/tp/chocolateshops.htm

More On Health

The last post I put up started the ball rolling. Health isn't only important when it comes to kids.. (duh!) and obviously, the people that would usually opt for food deliveries would in fact be adults, or teenagers like myself.

And if the kind of people coming to this site are anything like me, indulging in the guilty pleasure of conveniently delicious morsel doesnt immediately mean that we dont secretly (or not so secretly ^_^) want to be healthy (read: hot) too. Me being the self-consious person that I am, went to this site quite some time back; remembered it, figured it might be relevant to THIS bloggie, and went back there to look it up.

It's mainly a method to reducing cholesterol, but more importantly, it covers nearly everything you need to know about properly understanding exactly what cholesterol is, why it's important and what you can do about lowering it quickly and effectively at the same time as doing a heckuvalotta good for your health.

Lower Your Cholesterol

Now I'm not guilting you into anything, but I'm just saying.. that cheesy Italian slice of heaven does cost more than what you paid the pizza guy. Balance, I always say, is the key. LoL. >=D

Mom Convinced Me the Little Broccolis Looked Like Trees. Somehow, They Then Tasted Better.. =/

I found something pretty cool the other day and it just occured to me to follow it up.

After watching movies like Supersize Me, and hearing about the gross obesity of the current generation, it seems to me like more should be done so children have better eating habits. Because really, kids dont really put much thought into what they eat. They'll pretty much eat anything that has a hint of promise of tasting good, which depends on whats given to them. So why aren't parents giving their kids greener healthier things..?

And it occured to me that the immense popularity and interest of food deliveries is somewhat a symptom to this situation. People are busy. People dont have time to go out and sometimes its just more convenient to have the food come over. But why must this convenience necessarily be an unhealthy one?

Anyway, my moral aptitude led me to this site that turns out to have some pretty good ideas on how to get children develop healthy eating habits by helping moms cook meals and prepare snacks from fruits and vegetables that kids will actually love. Its got all kinds of tips and tricks, trade secrets of successful moms who are able to feed their kids fruits and veggies without the constant frustration of making threats and childish deals and dealing with sulking and untouched plates.

Sounded pretty cool to me. ^_^

The Yummy Healthy Tummy

Farmers Getting On the Online Bandwagon

Virtual farmers market will let UK shoppers buy real produce

Building on an initial experiment in online virtual world Second Life, a British food importer says he will launch a virtual farmer’s market in the United Kingdom in January. The transaction-enabled Virtualfarmersmarketuk.com will serve as a portal to the web sites of specialty British agricultural producers, with online shoppers able to place orders on those web sites or centrally on the virtual market platform, for local delivery.

Importer Marcus Carter says the virtual farmers market will move from Second Life to a dedicated virtual platform his organization is currently building using online gaming technology. As was the case on Second Life, the new platform will allow visitors to tour market stalls online and view what each stall has to offer. But, unlike Second Life, visitors won’t have to create avatars to navigate the virtual market. Instead, they can travel through the market using their mouse and cursor.

Sellers will be limited initially to four to six items per market stall. Farmers will deliver goods to a London-based warehouse, which will fulfill the orders from the online shoppers. Shoppers also can choose to order directly from any producer’s web site linked to that producer’s market stall.
Carter says he will buy goods and sell them to consumers at a 10% markup. The virtual market, which closed on Second Life earlier this year, will reopen on the new platform with an initial 20 to 30 farm producers, but Carter plans to add many more.

The new virtual market will include 90-second videos of each participating producer discussing the story behind her product. Visitors can view the farmers’ videos when they visit their stalls.That ties directly into what Carter sees as the utility of the Internet in accomplishing his objective, which is to make British consumers aware of local produce grown right in their backyard.

Carter notes that access to real-world farmers’ markets in the U.K. is limited. “People want to buy better food but they are not willing to go to 20 producers individually, and there isn’t any place where they can go to meet the producer, listen to his story and then make a decision to buy, with the exception of a real-life famers’ market,” he says. “I’m trying to bring that online. “

JOEY WEDNESDAY: This article is from Internet Retailer. Specifically found at

http://www.internetretailer.com/dailyNews.asp?id=31885

Student Run Delivery Service

They shop, then drop
Students offer buying, delivery service
By BRUCE ERSKINE Business Reporter

TOO BUMMED to shop? We’ll do the drop" is the abbreviated business plan of Store-To-Door, an online grocery buying and delivery service developed by two Dalhousie University commerce students.

"We’ve been working on it since the beginning of July," said Alexandra Barkin, 19, a third-year commerce student majoring in accounting who formed the business as a co-op work term project with classmate Gillian Hull, 20, who is majoring in marketing.

"It’s a great learning experience."

The two Toronto-area natives are targeting the service to Dalhousie and Saint Mary’s University students living on the peninsula.

Since its launch on Sept. 10 after a promotional blitz featuring young women on in-line skates handing out Store-to-Door fliers at Dalhousie, the business has signed up about 40 customers and made about 15 deliveries.

"It’s actually been pretty close to what we expected," said Ms. Barkin.
Store-to-Door delivers a range of products — everything from meat and vegetables to frozen foods and toiletries — that are sourced from Superstore, Costco and Walmart in the Bayers Lake Business Park.

Delivery charges vary according to the size of an order, ranging from $3.95 to $9.95. Orders are done online and payments are made by credit card through PayPal, a guaranteed online payment service.

"Our markup depends on the product, but we try to keep prices on par with Superstore with a small premium for our service," said Ms. Barkin.
She estimated the business, which is offering free delivery on orders over $100 in September as a special promotion, could make $10,000 in the next four months if it signs 500 to 600 customers.

Ms. Barkin said she and Ms. Hull got the idea for the service after observing large numbers of university students calling taxis to haul their groceries home.

"Our delivery charges are about the same (as taxi fares)," she said, adding that while Pete’s Frootique offers a similar, more expensive service, theirs is the only one she’s aware of that focuses on Halifax’s large university student population.

Ms. Barkin said she and Ms. Hull have never run their own businesses before, but they did a lot of research and found that the online grocery shopping and delivery concept is popular elsewhere in Canada.

"In most provinces in Canada, it’s a big business," she said.

Their market research found that 77 per cent of students, if made aware of the service, would consider using it.

Ms. Barkin said the partners kept a lid on their startup costs, which included investments in web design and food coolers, by utilizing the expertise of her father, who is a chartered accountant, and Ms. Hull’s father, who is in the insurance business.

The business has one vehicle to make deliveries, but Ms. Barkin said she and Ms. Hull might have to lease another vehicle and add staff and storage space if the service continues to grow when they return to classes after their work term ends.

"We won’t do deliveries when we’re in school after the co-op term," she said.
"If it’s doing well, we’ll have others do it for us."
( berskine@herald.ca)

JOEY WEDNESDAY: This article was taken from the Chronicle Herald at http://thechronicleherald.ca/Business/1143761.html

Laughs Delivered

Found some cool food delivery graphics I thought you guys might like. =)

Posted Toast ^_^

Asian Food Deliveries?

Mail Order Lobster =)

Chinese Food Delivery Bike!! -_-

Okay, this has nothing to do with food delivery. But it looks so cute!!!

Meatball Spiders!!! X)

This is my favourite one.

Sometimes food really does drop out of the sky..

A retro delivery vehicle thing. I think it looks real cool. =)

I don't even know what the heck is going on here. X)

Food Delivery Service Sites

I've now realized two things.

1. Putting together this blog and hunting down food chain businesses that actually provide online booking and home delivery is actually pretty tough. (but I'm willing to do it anyway, what with all you hungry peopnle online out there. ^_^)

2. There are already existing websites that provide directories for food to be delivered to the home. Most of these involve some form of payment or signing up to gain access (and many are constrained to the United States), but all in all, to give you more options, I'll provide the links to them here on the blog too. =)

Welcome To The Site!

Shopping List, Online Bliss is exactly what you think it is. A guide to getting almost any kind of food imagineable from the great unknown to your doorstep.

Online shopping isn't only limited to charging dresses and bags to your credit card, or bidding on a rare piece of furniture or comic, in fact, millions of people now enjoy the convenience of grocery shopping and tid-bit hunting from their very own homes or while on the go.

Not only can you find nearly any kind of munchable available on the web, but there are some very enterprising individuals out there who would be more than happy to send them over to you for your gourmet pleasure.

Since this can all be very overwhelming, this site will not only help you out by pointing you in the direction you'd like to go, but also show you what else is in the great big virtual refrigerator of the world. Every so often, articles will be featured or written according to how often I stumble upon them or feel like typing one out. =)

I love to hear from you guys, so feedback and comments are always great. Thanks for your support, and I hope to hear about your experiences with online food real soon.

Enjoy!