So we are babysitting a yellow labrador named Daisy. Our dog Stella, also a yellow lab, now has a buddy. Stella has been playing non-stop–neck fights, running around tables, wrestling for “the stick”…the list goes on. Stella has dark circles under her eyes.

This is only day one; Daisy is here for two weeks. Here are a few pics of them going nutso on each other and one of Stella on her pretty new pillow–thanks to Daisy’s parents!

My food writing class had a chocolate tasting this week; similar to a wine tasting, we judged the chocolate–Did it snap when you broke it? Did it melt in your hand (if it did there’s too much oil additives).

My friend Kelly, owner of Toute Sweet in Jordan brought in four samples–milk chocolate, then a dark chocolate (about 65% cocoa), then single origin chocolate (meaning from a single plantation). One was from Costa Rica and another from Papua New Guinea. The darker the chocolate the higher the cocoa content–but, the less I liked it. The flavour went from creamy to gritty. The dark PNG had a tobacco taste–picking up on the soil where it grew.

My favourite was the hot Belgian chocolate shot with chilies. Sipping hot chocolate — It went down smooth then smacked-you-up-the-side-of-the-head with chili.

The rest of Kelly’s visit was eating, and more eating. I had a hang over from food when she left.

Here we are.

It was odd timing for a visit, however. While we ate at The Forks in London overlooking the Thames, later that afternoon I helped organize a meeting at a women’s shelter.

It made me think of food as necessity and then pleasure.

Stuffed and starved;

it’s also the name of a book, so don’t think I’m that clever.

At My Sister’s Place, the women’s drop in centre in London, we made a beef stew and talked about food. I felt like I had a foot in two worlds.