Presenting the 2013 fall collection

Ninety pounds, two ounces of chocolaty goodness:

I’m pleased to say that we finished the final chocolates at 4:30 pm on Saturday, which is a new record – last year I was making chocolates into the wee hours! The last day of chocolate-making was uneventful, except for two minor disasters. The first was me spilling an entire freshly-poured tray of caramelized banana ganache on myself while trying to juggle two big sheet trays. (Which, in retrospect, was a really stupid idea, but it was 4:30 am…) By some miracle, 90% of it fell back into the bowl, leaving only about 10% splattered over my shirt, my jeans, and my hair! Time for a trip to the washing machine, and a second shower.

Astonishingly, I did not have feline help for that particular disaster: I did it all by myself! However, the second minor disaster was entirely feline: the kittens discovered toilet paper. What a mess! I replaced the roll, making sure there were no sheets hanging off the bottom, and fortunately they have not rediscovered it. Kittens!

Anyway, yesterday was the annual chocolate-packing party, and six friends came over to help me pack. First we packed all the chocolates into candy cups:

Then we spread out all the containers of yummy chocolates onto the table, so we could pack them into candy boxes:

In the end, we packed sixty-nine beautiful boxes of chocolates:

Fifty-five of those got packed into shipping boxes, and will go to the post office this morning.

And here is a beautiful shot of a few trays of chocolates, courtesy of my friend Lieven (who also took the other photos and did my flavor inserts – thanks Lieven!):

And that’s it! Chocopalooza is over for the year, except the cleaning.

Finally, here is Tigress, investigating one of Lillian Whipple’s beautiful fine-thread samples:

And Fritz, observing on my desk:

It’s funny – people who were over for the packing party looked at them and exclaimed, “Wow! They’re so tiny!” Whereas I’ve been looking at them thinking, “Wow! They’re so big!” But of course I remember the tiny little balls of fluff that came home with us six weeks ago, and they are thinking of adult cats. I guess it’s all a matter of expectations. Regardless, they are infinitely adorable, even if they have discovered toilet paper. 🙂