Milk chocolate fit for a vegan

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Ryan Ritchie, Staff writer Article Launched:10/24/2006 12:00:00 AM PDT I OWE A lot to my mother. Besides the obvious gift of giving birth to me, she's shown me a lot and handed down a few

characteristics that define who I am, whether I like it or not. The biggest and best gift my mom ever gave me was a love, no make that a lust for chocolate. Normally I don't buy into hyperboles, especially when dealing with food, but there are exceptions to every rule. Eating has never been a metaphor for love or sex or anything remotely sensual for me. Maybe that's the straight young male in me, but food is food nothing more, nothing less. Except chocolate. This fine treat is too good and too deep to be labeled simply as food. Sloppy Joes and greasy French fries is food: Chocolate is a gift from someone somewhere from a far away mysterious place whose goal in life is to hook others into the wonderful wonders of everything that is the taste explosion that comes only from the cocoa bean. Chocolate is the Cadillac of delicious delights. It's the majestic blue whale swimming in a sea of candy mediocrity. It's the star on top of every Christmas tree, the

period at the end of every sentence and a small slice of hope that all can be right with this world if we want it to be. And mostimportantly for me, it's what concludes nearly every meal I've eaten since Reagan was president. Chocolate was the final frontier in my transformation to 100 percent vegan. I even went so far as to find out if there were sub-divisions of veganism that might allow chocolate as the only dairy product, but unfortunately there aren't. I knew I had to do something. I soon found out that a lot of dark chocolate is made without milk, so you can imagine how much of that I've been having. Along the way, I learned all about the magnificent world of carob, a caffeine-free chocolate substitute eaten by vegans. I've grown to really enjoy carob, but similar to Tim Burton's version of "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory," it's just not the same as the original. Also, many companies (some of which I hope to write about in future columns) make

vegan cookies, cakes and what-nots. Most are pretty good, but I'm the first to admit there's nothing like the real deal, which leads me to today's featured items. I nearly wet myself when I found a company named Terra Nostra Organic and their ricemilk-based chocolate. The group's website shows a whole army of vegan chocolate, but so far I've tasted three bars, each of which ignited a parade in my mouth complete with chocolate fireworks, marching bands and a tall flag team. If the rest of their products are half this good, I'm in trouble. I'm a plain sort of guy, so the first one I ate was the Ricemilk Choco (I should mention that although these are the real deal, the company calls its products "choco" as a way to let the public distinguish the difference between regular and ricemilk.) It's a lightly-colored slice of heaven with a deliciously smooth texture that takes me back to my pre-vegan days. The flavor is rich and full of everything that makes chocolate

so temptingly naughty and is so good my mom would never know this is vegan. Next up was a similar product, the Ricemilk Choco Dark Truffle Center. Its attributes are virtually identical to the light Ricemilk Choco, but slightly darker. It's rich, it's smooth, it's flavorful and tastes like it's made from gold. And forget money: You could probably barter with this stuff in certain parts of the world or at least in my apartment. If I ever become a prisoner on death row, I now know what I'm having for dessert. TERRA NOSTRA ORGANIC CHOCOLATE Price: $3.79-$3.99 Where to buy: Wild Oats Natural Marketplace, Whole Foods Market, Mother's Market & Kitchen Rating: 5 happy cows Last and certainly not least is the Ricemilk Choco with Almonds. Years ago I would have left this for my mom because of the nuts, but times change. I wouldn't say this is smooth because the

almonds give the bar a crunchy vibe that blends nicely with the otherwise mellow texture of the chocolate. The absolute best thing about this product is the amount of almonds. The fine people at Terra Nostra got it right by keeping the focus on the chocolate while using the almonds as something of a side dish that complements the main course. Too many times I've had chocolate with nuts that left me wondering where the chocolate was. Many companies don't realize that although we're buying chocolate with nuts, we're still buying chocolate. If I wanted a bag of nuts, I would have bought a bag of nuts. Fortunately, this bar gives the flavorful chocolate and almonds a chance to live together, in peace, the way all good chocolate/nut bars should. Each of these products retails between $3.79 and $3.99 and can be purchased at Whole Foods Market, Wild Oats Natural Marketplace and Mother's Market & Kitchen. I'm not made of money, but this is an investment that will

definitely pay off in the long and short term. All three bars say they are vegan right on the front, so there's no confusion. The inside wrapper mentions something about Equi-Trade and what that means, but like a hippie and acid flashbacks, I abruptly returned to a world I once knew and couldn't see straight enough to read. I think that's called bliss. Ryan Ritchie (562) 499-1257 or ryan.ritchie. Peter H

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