I’ve always kind of liked chocolate. Sort of. I wouldn’t turn it down anyway. But when I was a kid I preferred jelly beans and gummy bears to M&Ms and Hershey’s Kisses. By the time I was in college, though, my candy of choice had become chocolate covered raisins. It was a sleazy compromise: nature’s candy drenched in decadent, yet second-rate chocolate.

Later, when I worked retail, a co-worker with a second job at Teuscher Chcolates once brought me a champagne truffle. A whole new world is about to open up for you he promised. I scoffed. But during those next few seconds, I knew he’d spoken the truth. I had no idea what real, quality chocolate could do to a person. Seriously. No idea.

But they were expensive. Those fancy European drugs.

Proximity is of course a factor, but those former fancies are now within my easy reach and considerably cheaper (bearing in mind the all-things-relative caveat). “Within reach” meaning in the supermarket! Valrhona, Côte D’Or, Hachez, Jacquot, Lindt and more. Even on this little island, Neuhaus is available.

It should be understood that there’s a reason quality chocolate is sold only in small bits and pieces. It’s meant to be savored and cherished with a great cappucino or a divine glass of wine, not devoured with a careless abandon that can only be described as sheer gluttony. That’s the American in me talking. The one who was trained from a young age to take all things to excess.

What I was not expecting, however, in my trans-atlantic culinary journey is how good the “regular stuff” is. An Irish friend of mine (in Seattle!) returns from visits to Ireland with suitcases full of Cadbury chocolate. Insisting that it didn’t taste the same as Cadbury one buys in the States, he proved it by shoving a chocolate egg in my mouth.

As an aside, it was also interesting that buying a jar of Nutella in the States often made me feel part of a secret society of those who understood the beautiful marriage of chocolate and hazelnuts, who got a certain ironic glee by pretending it was “kind of like peanut butter!” and who would eat it by the spoonful(s). Here it’s considered an everyday purchase. And by that I do mean “every day.”

In Sweden, Marabou is the appointed chocolatier to the King. Marabou is, as a label, owned by Kraft. And frankly, I don’t care a wit. It is good. Damned good. It isn’t crazy sweet, like most OTC chocolate in the US, and carries a hint of caramel. I might be making that up. But my refined palate senses it. It is, however, the equivalent to a Hershey bar. Really. Nothing extravagant about it or any of its offshoot products. One of the most common things in the nation. Marabou chocolate. Pffft!

But I’m telling you I am crazy about it. I probably shouldn’t admit this, but I could (and have) eaten an entire 500g bar of it (that’s about one pound) by myself in one sitting. It should be enough to put a person into a diabetic coma. But, as I live and breathe and waddle around the room, I’m proof that the stuff is magic.

But “a life without chocolate” you ask? Yes, well, starting today, I’m going cold turkey. For a while. Wish me luck.