Last Saturday I took the time to attend a Chocolate Festival. I know, I know, it was a HUGE sacrifice, but somebody had to go and eat all those free Chocolate samples. I mean, it WAS in the name of research you know!
CHOCOLATE research, to be specific! HA!
Just think, if it weren’t for my friend, Colleen, I wouldn’t have even known about this event. Can you believe that? Ack! It would have been a sad day when I discovered I had missed it. But thanks to Colleen, I didn’t. :)
Colleen called me up a couple of days before the festival to see about meeting there to check out the Chocolate booths. We hadn’t seen each other in a few years, so this was a good opportunity to get together.
Now, I have to tell you, Colleen isn’t the die-hard Chocoholic I am, but she does like this sweet treat now and then. The main reason she wanted to go was to take photos with her, as I call it, fancy shmancy camera. You see, Colleen has her own photography blog called Colleen Easley – Photo Journal, which is dedicated to her love of photography. Unfortunately, the lighting consisted of high overhead fluorescent bulbs and a lot of the Chocolates, while wrapped in clear packaging, were hard to photograph due to the light reflecting on them.
Bummer!
While I was also disappointed in my inability to get decent shots of the Chocolates for this blog, this didn’t stop either of us from trying all the free samples. Yum!
I didn’t know this ahead of time, but a lot of the vendors there only accepted cash for their Chocolate delicacies.
Stupid!
Why, in 2010, would vendors choose to lose out on a sale by limiting how they accept payment? Dumb! I’m one of those people who almost NEVER carries cash. It’s too tempting to spend it and on the rare occasions I do carry cash, I almost always end up buying crap I don’t need.
But in this case, this was CHOCOLATE folks and I wanted, no, NEEDED to buy CHOCOLATE.
Fortunately, I did find a few smart vendors that accepted credit or debit cards. Yay! Still, being the tightwad I am, I was trying to limit my spending and I ended up buying Chocolate from only one vendor - Blissful Wunders. The picture below is one of his Dark Chocolate Raspberry Truffles.
It was very yummy and I must say, his truffles are twice as large compared to a Godiva truffle. NOT that this was a problem of course… nom, nom, nom… oh, excuse me while I eat the last bite of it…
Mmmm…
Overall, I was very happy I attended the festival, if not just for the free samples of heavenly Chocolates, but for having met a few very nice Chocolatiers that were willing to answer all my Chocolate questions. :)
Be sure to come back since I plan on sharing with you more about the vendors I met there and their Chocolates I sampled.
They were de-lic-ious!!!
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{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
I think the main reason vendors dont have credit card set ups is that its expensive for them. I would assume these businesses arent big so to spend the $300-500 a year to have the machine plus they (visa m/c american express) take a percentage of the sale from 2-5% so it’s in their best interest to take cash especially when they are small.. When I go to festivals I always take out $20-40 depending on what I am willing to spend that day.
Well put Liz! You are right, now that you point out the math on it. Lesson learned for me, bring a few bucks when I go to one of these events. Thanks for explaining that to me, now it seems obvious. Haha! Whoops, I just got fired up there when I typed the post I guess and wasn’t thinking.
Thanks!!!
The chocolate festival sounds like a wonderful way to spend the day!
It was! Can’t wait to go to more Chocolate Festivals. I hear there’s one in July in Seattle that’s a big show.