On Sunday, 24th May 4pm AEST, I hosted my first meetup. It was a virtual meetup using Google Meet and focusing on my favourite topic ever – chocolate! Thanks to @PoliMC for featuring this meetup and helping to let other LGs know it was happening. We had nine LGs from 6 different countries around the world sharing the chocolate they loved to eat and it was brilliant! There was lots of laughing, eating chocolate on camera, chewing and asking questions.
@PennyChristie from Sydney shared first and showed us her favourite – Cadbury Caramilk chocolate. Although she is allergic to butter, Penny loves eating this rich chocolate. She also likes Cadbury Crème Eggs which look like a real, gooey egg inside.
I was next and I had a lot of chocolate to share. Unique to my state (Queensland) I found out from @PaulPavlinovich was Cadbury milk chocolate with pineapple crème inside. This block of chocolate is a like a tropical treat in your mouth! I also demonstrated how to do a Tim Tam slam. A Tim Tam is a rectangular chocolate biscuit with chocolate cream inside. You bite off each end, put one end in a hot drink – like coffee – and suck it up through the biscuit. It’s delicious.
Next was @KarenVChin from San Francisco and she shared the chocolates she gets from her local Trader Joes. Karen likes dark chocolate with nuts. She showed us a delicious looking trail mix. Karen also likes dark chocolate with orange or raspberry. She also showed us Trader Joes ‘Joe Joes’, chocolate tea, lacy cookies and described a yummy recipe for a chocolate banana malted milkshake.
@Stella2 from Greece had a range of milk and dark chocolates including those with hazelnuts, almonds and straight milk chocolate. She also described the hot chocolate drink she makes with cocoa powder and condensed milk – yum!
@Tushar18 from New Delhi showed us dark chocolate as well as hide and seek and Oreo cookies. He also showed pictures of his recent baking with chocolate. He had made this cake for his sister’s birthday and it was the first time he had made this recipe – amazing! There was also a photo of some yummy looking chocolate tea with cream and divine chocolate milkshakes.
@anuspice from San Francisco shared her love of Cadbury Fruit and Nut as well as hazelnut chocolate. Lots of us were nodding when she pulled out the Lindt Lindor Balls – yum! She also spoke about the famous Ghirardelli chocolate and Penny and I reminisced about the Peppermint bark in San Francisco last year. O’Henry was another brand of chocolate Tessa enjoyed – she loves nuts and fruits!
@JaneBurunina from the Ukraine showed us an amazing array of chocolates and she even tried some of them for the first time in our meetup! She likes 80% dark chocolate and she showed us a brand made in the Ukraine which featured five different bars inside, each with a different type of pepper added. Jane tried the one with cayenne pepper on screen and said that it was really tasty! She also showed us bubble chocolate, Milka milk chocolate, Green Tea chocolate, Blueberry Jam chocolate, dark chocolate with peppermint and rose chocolate. Jane tried this for us and it looked amazing. It was white chocolate which was mixed with raspberry powder so it had a pink colour and the smell of raspberry. Jane said it was very sweet and would be good as a dessert chocolate.
@PaulPavlinovich then shared some Aussie classics such as Golden Rough (milk chocolate with coconut), Mint Pattis (chocolate with a chewy mint nougat like filling), Caramello block chocolate (like his Caramello koalas – only bigger) and a block of dark cherry ripe chocolate. Paul ate the last three on screen – for the purposes of the meetup of course and they looked delicious. He also showed Darrel Lea Big Choc Orange Balls. They had a crisp, orange shell with milk chocolate inside.
@SilvyC shared that her favourite chocolate was white. She got into the spirit by taking a bite from a white chocolate and Oreo Milka block. She also showed us white chocolate Kit Kat, Snickers with cashews and a coffee/mocha with caramel.
@Kwiksatik was lucky last. She likes dark chocolate – like 85% cocoa! She uses some of the dark chocolate to make cookies, estimating that her family eats about 4 dozen of them a week! She likes it when the chocolate is so dark that it makes her mouth dry. She eats her chocolate just one square at a time - with strawberries or hazelnuts.
Thank you to all the local guides who attended. You made it the success it was with your willingness to share, show, tell and taste! I also want to say a very heartfelt thank you to @PennyChristie for co-hosting with me and talking me through the meetup creation process. Also to Connect Moderators @KarenVChin , @JaneBurunina and @PaulPavlinovich for helping me with the organisational details and for giving me great tips along the way. If you are thinking about hosting a meetup, definitely reach out to a moderator and ask for their help and advice. I can tell you it is a lot of fun and totally worth the time and effort!
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