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chocolate
Spanish, from Nahuatl chocolAtl Date: 1604
1 : a beverage made by mixing chocolate with water or milk
2 : a food prepared from ground roasted cacao beans
3 : a small candy with a center (as a fondant) and a chocolate coating
4 : a brownish gray

From Kölner Stadtanzeiger, april 12/13, 2001 (excerpt):
Chocolate makes one fat and isn't good for your health! That's at least what people say. Volker Pudel, food psychologist from Göttingen thinks this is wrong: "Chocolate is a fine product, you should savor it with a good conscience."
If you're having trouble with your weight, you're probably wrong to blame chocolate for it: "The average overweight person hasn't become fat because of chocolate" says Pudel. "If your daily diet doesn't consist of too much fat but rather of carbohydrate, you won't have weight problems."		  

But chocolate does have a positive influence on your well-being, says Pudel. Chocolate compensates for stress. This isn't however due to the cacao in the chocolate, but to the sugar. The consumption of carbohydrates increases the production of the biological messenger serotonin (5-hydroxytryptamine), which has a soothing effect and raises the mood. Fat-free sweets such as jelly bears have the same bio-chemical effect. However most people find the oral sensation of chocolate more satisfying.
 

Quotations for Chocolate

"Each day I feed myself with the four basic foods that are essential for a good health:
milk chocolate, plain chocolate, white chocolate and cacao."
(Bebra Tracy)

"Strength is the capacity to break a chocolate bar into four pieces
with your bare hands - and then eat just one of the pieces. "
(Judith Viorst, american writer)

"Don't think of chocolate as a substitute for love! Love is a substitute for chocolate!
Chocolate is, let's face it, far more reliable than a man "
(Miranda Ingram)

"Abandon yourself to chocolate without complexes or feelings of guilt and remember:
There's no reasonable man without a spark of madness!"
(La Rochefoucauld, french moralist and politician)

"Life is like a box of chocolates... you never know what you're gonna get"
(film maker Robert Zemeckis, text for Tom Hanks in the movie "Forrest Gump")

"9 of 10 like chocolate. The 10th lies."
(anonymous)

"A piece of chocolate contains just as much energy as you need to take another piece"
(anonymous)

"To explain the meaning of responsibility to an advertising man is like trying to
convince an 8 year-old child that sexual intercourse is more fun than chocolate ice cream"
(Howard Gossage)

"Since both its national products, snow and chocolate, melt,
the cuckoo clock was invented solely in order to give tourists something solid to remember it by."
(Alan Coren on Switzerland)

"Page one is a diet, page two is a chocolate cake. It’s a no-win situation."
(Kim Williams on so-called women’s magazines)

"Researchers have discovered that chocolate produces some of the same reactions in the brain as marijuana.
The researchers also discovered other similarities between the two, but can't remember what they are."
(Matt Lauer , on NBC's "Today" show, August 22, 1996)

"Anyone who knows chocolate and yet prefers to smoke
is either mentally disabled or a chimney!"
(Sugar K)

"Only chocoholics can gauge the miserable condition of smokers,
as smokers have never known the true delights"
(Sugar K)

"The only thing I don't like about chocolate is its colour:
brown isn't really divine."
(Sugar K)

"The 12-step chocoholics program:
NEVER BE MORE THAN 12 STEPS AWAY FROM CHOCOLATE!"
(Terry Moore)

"There's nothing better than a good friend, except a good friend with chocolate."
(Linda Grayson, "The Pickwick Papers")

"Seen recently on a tee shirt:
EMERGENCY ALERT: If wearer of this shirt is found vacant, listless, or depressed,
ADMINISTER CHOCOLATE IMMEDIATELY."
(anonymous)

„Just look what happens if you don't eat enough chocolate!” - window of a chocolate shop in England

„Just look what happens if you don't eat enough chocolate!”
(window of a chocolate shop in England, 1997)

"This guy found a bottle on the ocean, and he opened it and out popped a genie,
and he gave him three wishes.
The guy wished for a million dollars, and poof! there was a million dollars.
Then he wished for a convertible, and poof! there was a convertible.
And then, he wished he could be irresistible to all women...
poof! he turned into a box of chocolates!"
(anonymous)

Chocolate is good for three things. Two of 'em cannot be mentioned on public television.
(anonymous)

"Las cosas claras y el chocolate espeso."
(Ideas should be clear and chocolate thick.)
(Spanish proverb)

Nuts just take up space where chocolate ought to be.
(anonymous)

"Don't wreck a sublime chocolate experience by feeling guilty.
Chocolate isn't like premarital sex.
It will not make you pregnant. And it always feels good.
(Lora Brody, author of 'Growing Up on the Chocolate Diet')

"Put 'EAT CHOCOLATE!!!' at the top of your list of things to do today.
That way, at least you'll get one thing done."
(anonymous)

"Diet tip: Eat a chocolate bar before each meal.
It'll take the edge off your appetite and you'll eat less.
(anonymous)

Q. Why is there no such organization as Chocoholics Anonymous?
A. Because no one wants to quit.
(anonymous)

"Chocolate is cheaper than therapy and you don't need an appointment."
(anonymous)

"Love is like a piece of chocolate - tastes good, but decreases with each bite."
(anonymous)

"In many cases the imperative urge for chocolate overshadows all other basic instincts."
(Sandra Boynton)

"All I need is love. But a little chocolate here and then doesn't hurt."
(Charles M. Schulz)

picture from the movie "Chocolat"
(Picture: Senator-Film)

Movie Review "Chocolat"

Chocolat
with Juliette Binoche and Johnny Depp

Despite its promising title this movie didn't make it into my personal hit list. I don't necessarily object an obvious story line, provided the story translates well into the movie. In this movie it does, but it still left me cold. Was it because I was clean at that time? Or maybe it actually was the story? An entire village being against chocolate? That doesn't really fit in the world of a chocolate freak like me. The movie is based on the fight against the chocolate despisers. And who wins? Well, guess! And why does she win? Because of her extraordinary chocolates. If fact they're so good that two elder villagers, who over the time have become very passive in their bed, re-adopt honeymoon behaviour. I myself have experienced some impact of chocolate consumption on my body too(mainly above the belt). However: Chocolate a substitute for Viagra? Well this could be my next self-experiment! I prefer doing this in camera though. As a side note: I was pleased to state that Juliette is still a sexy girl, being less than a year younger than myself!

Bridget Jones's Diary
with Renée Zellweger, Colin Firth, Hugh Grant

"I thought it was a stupid movie, but I think you'll like it". That's what a workmate had said to me before I watched the movie. I probably wouldn't have watched it despite - or because of - his prediction, but the German title ("chocolate for breakfast") was promising. An interesting subject for my chocolate page! Of course the German title is misleading, there is no chocolate in that movie whatsoever. This is not surprising for the original title is "Bridget Jones's Diary".

The plot is mainstream cinema: Girl looking for Prince Charming. Or more general: Human being in search of perfect happiness. The protagonist's name is Bridget Jones and she is an unvoluntarily single woman. People like her don't have brunch or a prosperous breakfast on the terrace - people who wake up alone have chocolate in bed. A suitable quotation taken from another Hollywood-movie: "From the biochemical point of view, love is nothing more than eating enormous amounts of chocolate". (Al Pacino in "The Devil's Advocat")

This "comedy" was supposed to be funny. And at some points it really was. I laughed out loud once, at normal voice level two or three times, I smiled several times, but often enough I was glad that it was monday and I hadn't paid the full price.

  stage set of Bridget Jones' Diary
Renée Zellweger is Bridget Jones, an unvoluntarily single woman
 
stage set of Bridget Jones' Diary: Renée Zellweger as Bridget Jones  

A girls'movie? The man who was sitting behind me was the one who laughed the most. I heard a woman say that all the laughing gave her a stitch in her side.

The movie was lowbrow and not very suspenseful, but it was good entertainment. You can guess the ending, but if you don't basically dislike happy endings, both women and men will get something out of the final scene at least: Bridget Jones, bare-legged and wearing tight panties, falls into her lover's arms in the snow, and he keeps her warm under his large, black coat.

Is there a man who doesn't dream of female bellies in tight panties?
And is there a woman who doesn't dream of the sense of security under a strong man's coat?

And there is another subject in the movie that tries to appeal to the masses: First, everybody is searching. Mostly in the first stage of life. The second stage of life is then either spent in the state of having-found or not-having-found. You can enjoy chocolate for breakfast anyway (i.e. real chocolate, not the movie). But in the state of having-found, you don't have a bad conscience when doing it.

above left: René Zellweger as Bridget Jones, center left: the same together with Hugh Grant as Daniel Cleaver, below left: Colin Firth as Mark Darcy. All pictures by courtesy of United International Pictures GmbH
stage set of Bridget Jones' Diary: Renée Zellweger with Hugh Grant
stage set of Bridget Jones' Diary: Colin Firth as Mark Darcy