We have a photo somewhere of me, taken the summer after we got married. I had found a baker’s supply place that was selling Hershey’s cocoa for a dollar a pound–providing you were willing to buy it by the 50 lb bags. Well, YEAH! I consulted with my officemates and friends, bought two bags and a scale, and spent a Saturday afternoon measuring and divvying. A fine brown mist settled all over my small apartment’s kitchen and all over me. It was the first time I’d sneezed chocolate.

I gave 15 lbs to my sister-in-law when we moved away and had to make space in our beat-up old car as we moved from one grad school to the next; most of what we’d kept had been declared nonessential, but not by me. Years later she told me she’d finally run out and that it was a shock to have to go to the grocery store and actually buy some. She loved chocolate but her family not so much, so it had taken her a long time to go through it all.

She had been fighting her cancer for several years by that point, so I went looking for a declaration of life and longevity. I found her a 5 lb bag, which I gave her that Christmas with a promise to buy another one as soon as she used it up. She never got to, but it was my declaration of life and of not lacking for the things that make it more pleasant. She appreciated it.

So I’ve been buying those 5 lb bags off and on for awhile, enjoying my morning large mug of good homemade hot chocolate while reading my email. Somehow, though, it’s been harder to find those bags lately, and it seemed time to explore some other brands anyway. What that really means is, it would be Scharffenberger every day if I were rich, but I’m not and I have kids in college.

The end result was a package that arrived with a label that totally cracked me up. I don’t have any Colonial Rosewood knitting needles to pose with this 2 lb bag of Colonial Rosewood cocoa, just some similar-looking Holz and Steins straights, but the picture will do.

Knitters know knitting and chocolate go together, but who knew that the chocolatier did?