Title: Chocolate Therapy Author: Kathy Farrell-Kingsley Publisher: Fair Winds Press Publish Date: 2006 Pages: 224 Genres:: Aphrodisiacs, Non-Fiction Reviewer: SexHerald Staff

Rating:

Whether you’re craving chocolate mousse that lays heavy on the tongue in a swirl of brown velvet foam or just need a PMS-battling chocolate bar during a work break, former Nestle Chocolate spokesperson and award-winning cookbook author Kathy Farrell-Kingsley has produced a compilation of divine and innovative ways to get your chocolate freak on. And in visual tribute to the beloved cocoa bean, the cookbook’s cover, pages, and print are a delicious-looking shade of brown.

Ah, chocolate. The comfort food, potency treatment, reward and general reason for being whose dynasty has spanned centuries and whose seductive appeal shows no signs of subsiding.

Farrell-Kingsley’s writing is warm, intimate and succinct. She breezily intersperses chocolate trivia and history between the recipes along with quotes from varied personalities about the wonders of chocolate from an Al Pacino movie character to a famous poet. For example, Mozart made mention of it in an opera and the Aztecs offered conquistadores wicker baskets filled with cocoa beans. Chocolate first made its way into the U.S. in 1765 by Irish chocolatier John Hanan.

Recipes range from devil’s food pancakes to grilled steak with cocoa spice rub. If you’re not familiar with the use of cocoa and chocolate components in meat dishes (like the reviewer), you are literally in for a treat. Over the course of time, chocolate was thought to have medicinal qualities and has been touted as everything from a digestive aid to a natural tasty virility enhancer. Chocolate’s beneficial effects on men’s longevity have been documented in a Harvard study.

If you’re on a diet, proceed with caution while reading because staying on it is going to get a hell of a lot tougher. Of course, there’s always the option of portion control. All I have to say about that is: good luck! Expect to salivatingly navigate dessert concoctions like Exotic Chocolate Mousse bars and Venus Truffle Torte. Try not to moan aloud if you read these while taking public transportation. Farrell-Kingsley also discusses her own heartfelt attachment to the cocoa bean in all its luscious forms and how it has been her rock, rather her bar, depending on the format in which it was consumed.

Farrell offers some interesting information on gauging chocolate’s quality: bars that snap the loudest are the best. No wonder I don’t hear anything when I eat a Three Musketeers. The author muses about the intensity of her own attachment to the voraciously consumed delicacy and although she doesn’t offer one answer, she is definitely about the journey.
Farrell-Kingsley is a chocolate athlete and this book will definitely leave you hungry for more.