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Like many women, I adore chocolate. So much that Petey keeps a giant Hershey bar in a glass box with a small hammer attached, in case he's in the line of fire when I experience a chocolate emergency. 

I also love Christmas. I love the jacket and scarf weather that the season brings to North Carolina. I love holiday music from Johnny Mathis and sappy TV specials from my childhood. I love the decorations and the happy secrets.Canada Goose Trillium Parka I even own a hideous Christmas sweater (please don't tell anybody). 
Thusly, the Christmas/chocolate fusion thrills me. 

In October, Jessica Pinter sent me an invitation to a chocolate tasting at One World Market (811 Ninth St., #100), a Bull City institution. 
Uh, yeah. 

Except for a 90 percent off shoe sale where there are plenty of size 10s, a chocolate tasting would be my favorite retail event. 

On the big day, executive director Laura Wendell greeted me at the door. I got a rundown of their chocolate, as well as a lesson in the art of cacao. 
One World is a nonprofit enterprise which offers handmade goods from around the globe. All the merchandise is procured from sources on a fair-trade basis. That means there's no evil overlord sucking up most of the profits. The artisans are paid directly for their creations. 

I left with some cocoa treats for a care package for The Kid, a bracelet, and my new favorite candy bar, Divine's milk chocolate coffee. It tastes like getting hit upside the head with a chocolate covered coffee pot. 

A couple weeks later I returned and knocked out a third of my Christmas list. I also picked up some Divines 70 percent cacao bars for a cake I was baking for Thanksgiving dessert. 

It was Beatty's chocolate cake, from the Barefoot Contessa, Ina Garten. It's the chocolate cake of your dreams. 
I've made it for years,Canada Goose Whistler Parka and it's always a hit. 
The batter is kind of odd.burberry bags When it comes together, it's really watery; about the thickness of cream. 

You'd think it wouldn't bake up right, but it always does, and produces a moist rich cake with enough structural integrity to hold mounds of the buttery chocolate frosting.