Day 21 of the 17-Day Diet - The Chocolate Cycle

The 17-Day diet actually has 3 17-Day cycles:  Accelerate, Activate, and Achieve.  I'm still on Accelerate.  But, I'm down 8 pounds!  That's 32 sticks of butter.  According to the book's guidelines, I should weigh about 25 pounds less than I weigh right now.  That's going with the "large-boned frame" weight range.  I'm pretty sure that my bones are large enough to qualify.  I feel sorry for people who are 5'2" and have small-boned frames.  The chart shows that they should weigh in at 98 pounds.  Yowza!  I'm still on the the Accelerate cycle because I've taken a break from the diet for a total of 5 days between a Santa Fe trip and Valentine's Day.  

In my kitchen there sits a lovely box of chocolates that Alan ordered from Dean and Deluca for my Valentine's Day surprise.  Well, there are actually 3 boxes of chocolate.  I gave him a box of Dove dark chocolate chocked full of antioxidants.  He gave me the heart-shaped box of chocolates along with a box containing a 6"X6" slab of Dean and Deluca dark chocolate sprinkled with tiny bits of dried rose petals and lavender.  Right now, it's 10:12AM, and I am savoring a lovely chocolate from the heart-shaped box.  It's called the "Charlotte."  Each of the chocolates in the box has a lady's name.  The Charlotte is a milk chocolate heart filled with apricot and basil ganache.

These are the chocolates I've enjoyed since opening the box at dinner last night:

• Hannah - a mysterious dark chocolate lady filled with burnt caramel and topped with a bit of Hawaiian sea salt
• Kelly - a triangle-shaped lovely filled with strawberry-lemon-thyme ganache 
• Helena - an irresistible coconut truffle rolled in toasted coconut
• the aforementioned Charlotte

Miss Sophie with her fresh squeezed lemon marzipan and Elizabeth's passion fruit-ginger ganache topped with crystallized ginger will go missing within the hour.  I scoffed at the 3 Potato Gratin that we served to "the mothers," Helen and Mary, on Sunday night.  A large order of french fries limp from the fryer glistening with sparkling sea salt would hardly rate a second glance.  But, the siren's call of the delicate chocolate beauties that are tucked into their form fitting plastic beds inside the heart-shaped box is too powerful for me to ignore. 

I hereby add a 4th cycle to the 17-Day Diet which will be known as Chocolate [pronounced: chok - oh - LATE].  During this cycle, one will alternate between Accelerate and Chocolate each day.  On Chocolate days, breakfast will include a demitasse cup filled with rich sipping chocolate topped with a toasted marshmallow.  For lunch, a large piece of chocolate meringue pie will be accompanied with a 5"X5" square of lasagne.  Dinner will include a large slice of chocolate cake with chocolate icing and/or a large scoop of Sheridan's chocolate frozen custard.  The entree:  chicken enchiladas.

I'll get back with you on my cycle 4 results.