Chocolate Show

I live in FL. Not too far away in Tampa, there is a museum called the Museum of Science and Industry: MOSI. For the past three days they’ve been hosting a chocolate convention. Take just a moment and let that sink in: Chocolate. Convention. What could possibly be better? (Winning a chili competition comes to mind…….see previous post.)
Well, I couldn’t allow a chocolate convention to be that close to my abode without taking a trip. Normally I would take both of my parents on such a trip, but my dad was working today, so I took my mother.
Admission to MOSI included a visit to the IMAX, which I always enjoy, and the chocolate convention. Let that sink in for just a moment……Chocolate…..well, you get the point….
The museum was fun and the IMAX was entertaining, but the CHOCOLATE. It was so fun. It was an entire show room of chocolate, baked goods, and happiness. The museum folks didn’t operate on “money”, per say. You exchanged real money for tokens, and the various baked goods cost so many tokens. Kind of ingenious.
I decided to exchange $10 and make as much of those ten coins as I possible could. And we did well.
The first delectable was a carrot cup cake. I know. Someone just exclaimed, “THAT’S NOT CHOCOLATE YOU HIDEOUS FOOL! WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!?!?!” And I must admit, it was not my favorite carrot cake. It was very cinnamony, the frosting was so-so, but it was very moist. It looked prettier than it tasted. Tragedy.
We then had a white chocolate cranberry oatmeal cookie. It was delightful: chewy, moist, and sweet.
We blew most of the remainder of our budget on a “turtle”. It was loaded with cashews, caramel, and chocolate. We ate half of it at the convention, and saved half of it for after lunch. It was delicious.
Mom also splurged and bought us a white chocolate dipped pretzel. And she claims she’s not a foody.
We watched an ice cream eating competition and a cookie stacking competition. Both were fun and diverting. The emcee threw chocolate samples into the audience as dummy prizes. I might have elbowed an old lady in the face for a chocolate the size of a quarter. I guess that taught her a lesson. Sorry mom.
I’m glad I was able to go. It almost made me forget about the chili competition…..almost. Long live chocolate.