The Bluestocking - your local women's pub, warm, friendly, and not at all unusual in any way.

[MarieDeGournay]

Welcome to The Bluestocking, the welcome is warm, the conversation is wide-ranging, the food and drink are delicious but magically free from anything they need to be free from, and the bar staff are highly-trained, professional, efficient and very friendly gerbils.

There used to be a family that made chocolate who lived a few houses away from when my family are from in Europe. It had almost no dairy or sugar and was sold in plain paper packaging in the post office they ran. It was amazing and coped well with the hot weather. They'd made it for generations and the last generation stopped and moved to a city to live after their kids left for university. It's been 25 years and I can still remember how it smelt, even though I only got to eat it when on holiday visiting family. It was a small town up a mountain in the arse end of nowhere, so the chocolate was one of the most exciting things about the holidays.

Am now investigating HRC: heat resistant chocolate. Also just remembered someone gave us a bag of 'PLOPP' at Christmas 😂. It appears to be little bars of chocolate & caramel, & Swedish.

I join MN must have been during lockdown because that's what prompted my username. It was because of the whole trans thing. I think it was probably Glinner's substack that steered me this way. Never would have occurred to me that this place was the only one that wasn't in lockstep. I wish I found FWR sooner, i might have got ahead of it with my sprogs who are still be kind. It could be worse though.

If it's chocolate, it's in the house and doesn't belong to anyone else I'll give it a go.

I think you can make hot chocolate in a velvetiser with anything if it'll melt. So After 8's would probably work. I keep meaning to try with Maltesers. My favourite chocolate is anything with peanut butter in it.

I have a large Toblerone in the cupboard, but I wouldn't waste it in hot chocolate. Also it would be lumpy as a drink, and I don't fancy that.

The nougat would melt I think, chopped nuts would need straining out.

Brit I completely concur about American chocolate.
Bleurgh, most of it.

I didn’t know what a velvetiser was so had to go on Amazon to look. Are you just drinking pure melted chocolate?

Yeah, it's really good. The hotel chocolate sachets are pretty expensive unfortunately

Still, a lot cheaper than hot chocolate in a café and probably better too

Do you add water, or milk, or is it like meting a bar of chocolate in a pan and drinking it?

I wish I could see the expression on your face when you wrote
'Are you just drinking pure melted chocolate?'
Was it
😍
or
😧
or
😱
😋
?

I think it was the third one 😱

Milk usually, and the machine heats it up and whisks in the melted chocolate.

Although I’m not sure of the significance of the blue head….

Ah, thanks Magpie. That makes much more sense more sense 🙂

I've just stood on the scales. I've lost about 4 pounds so far, which is good!

Well done, Magpie! That’s good going.

👏That's a good result since New Year, Magpie.

You may need to block your ears and sing Lalalala for a bit though. This conversation could put pounds on you without eating a thing!

Why do you think the Toblerone is in the cupboard, rather than out and open!

Ah, your cupboard is obviously like mine. There's a secret force-field around it. As long as you don't open the door, you're safe.

Where can I buy a force field thingy then?

Exactly right. If I can see it, it's much harder to resist eating it.

Hotel chocolate velvetisers are ridiculously expensive, though they look very pretty. There are other brands that are much cheaper but do the same job. I can't vouch for any of them though. The velvetiser hot chocolate could be a bit hotter. If I get a hot chocolate from a cafe, like Costa or Starbucks, they're never hot enough. Tea though, tea is usually so hot I honestly don't know how it's still a liquid.

Well done.

Keep going.

I had to <looks downcast, shakes head> throw out a Toblerone the other month. It was only 5 months past its BBE date but tasted absolutely awful (still not as bad as Hersey's though). I'd put it in a drawer so I couldn't see it tempting me, then forgot about it.

ETA and it was one of the huge ones.