The woman who lived in my apartment several tenants ago never put in a change of address form. And my repeated insistence to the friendly neighborhood post office that she really, really doesn't live here anymore has gone totally unheaded. So I find myself the recipient of a variety of interesting catalogues - along with some official and threatening looking envelopes from the IRS that I'm very glad are not addressed to me. One of the catalogues she/I get on a regular basis is a certain chocolate company known for naked ladies on horses. And you know - it's really not all that and a bag of chips.

(The chocolate, not the naked ladies - I'm sure the naked ladies are certainly all that).

I'm not really sure what happened to the high-end chocolate industry, but suddenly everything is the deepest, darkest bitter chocolate infused with green tea, ginger shavings, and habañero peppers. Come to think of it, I think I saw basil someplace. Forcing the chocolate lover inside me to ask, "Why, God? Why?"

I stumbled into the kitchen Valentine's morning to find my husband had laid out an enormous heart-shaped box of Russell Stover's. I couldn't have done it better myself. Don't go messing up my chocolate cravings with some sort of Mad Hatter dash through the spice cabinet. Don't. Just stop. Leave the nougat alone, leave the caramel and the nuts and the coconut. They, like a ripe cherry, need no further adornments.

Long live nougat!