All the World's a Stage: Beatrice Honeycomb Milk Chocolate

This is part 2 of 4 chronicling my two-week adventure in Europe. For more pictures and stories, take a peek at my Facebook photo album HERE. 


          We continue with England, the Motherland...

England was full of delights: renting bikes and cycling through Cambridge to have tea in a beautiful apple orchard. Sitting in camp chairs beside the river in front of Glory's charming home, drinking Pimm's and watching the swan making lazy circles around the house boats. The simultaneously reverent and whimsical Beefeater tour of the Tower of London, concluding in the beautiful chapel in the heart of the Tower where the lovely young Lady Jane Grey was buried in an unmarked traitor's grave, mere days after her coronation, along with hundreds of others with nothing to mark their passing. And the Borough Market! If you find yourself in London, go there. Just go. Delicious, abundant, affordable street food from all corners of the word, a mere hop across the Thames from St. Paul's Cathedral, right in the heart of the city. 

The sightseeing was wonderful, the Russian tea house captivating, and I cherished the opportunity to see Glory in her natural habitat, but altogether, more than any of our other destinations, England felt like the connective tissue of our journey. Although I came to enjoy the well-mannered countryside as it flashed past in the train windows, England was primarily a staging ground for us to shuttle back and forth between our various other destinations, and I feel like I barely got to know it.

In spite of the brevity of our visit, there was one brilliant, captivating, perfect highlight of our time in London... 

 
Allow me to set the stage, so to speak: I curate my bucket list very carefully. There are about 120 things on it, all of which I've carefully considered and selected from a much larger and ever-changing pool of possibilities. However, out of these 120 items, there are a handful which serve as immovable focal points for the rest of the list. These are the things which are so integral to my vision of myself and my life that I truly can't imagine them not happening at some point. 

 
Attending a Shakespeare play at the Globe is one of these. And it was the best kind of happenstance that the show running while we were in London was "As You Like It" - my favorite of Shakespeare's comedies, and one of my fondest Austin student theater memories from my youth. The stars simply aligned, and, £5 later, there we were - standing in the yard, watching some of the most joyful and skillfully executed theater I've ever seen. In that beautiful, historic venue, where so many remarkable actors have trod the boards, just a few hundred yards from where Shakespeare himself once performed, those precious three hours seemed to fly. It was a gift I won't ever forget. 

Afterwards, in the gift shop, amidst the First Folio facsimiles, tote bags, and lapel pins, I made a delightful discovery: 

Named for Shakespeare's beloved heroines, these sweet little things made perfect souvenirs. I had a hard time narrowing it down (Milk sea salt for Miranda! Dark chili for Katarina! Milk cinnamon for Desdemona! Dark espresso for Portia!), but in the end the choice was clear: I couldn't possibly pass up my beloved Rosalind (dark and raspberry - how appropriate for such an intelligent, headstrong young lady), but the one I was most intrigued by was Beatrice. Milk chocolate with honeycomb. Honeycomb? Yep. Definitely honeycomb. Fascinating! Well worth dipping into the 32% realm to try it out.

In a broader sense, so much of my personal history and personality is tied to the culture and literature of this place that it almost seems like home in an odd, disjointed kind of way. Although my connection to England wasn't as visceral or emotional as Ireland, I will certainly return to walk the halls of Oxford, track down 221B Baker Street, visit the hallowed Royal Shakespeare Theater in Stratford-upon-Avon, and meander the well-tended lanes of Hyde Park.

In the meantime, I will content myself with learning to make scotch eggs. Heaven help my poor, abused kitchen. 

Item: Beatrice Honeycomb Milk
Percentage: 32% cacao 

Made By: Sweet Theater presents Shakespeare's Leading Ladies
Purchased At: RSC Shop, Globe Theater - London, England
Purchase Price: £1.00 (Full-size bars available for £3.50)

Review: I wasn't entirely sure what to expect from honeycomb chocolate, but it is curiously satisfying. Our good friends, the bees, deliver deliciousness once again. Admittedly, this darling (albeit gimmicky) bar probably isn't the greatest treatment of it - the chocolate itself is a fairly standard 32% milk setting, which is both overly sweet (unlike it's designated namesake) and a little overpowering. That makes it even more remarkable how well the honeycomb manages to hold its own. Delightful, surprising fragments, alternately chewy and crunchy, serve as the culinary equivalent of glitter, except that you don't have to vacuum it out of the carpet for three years. The honeycomb is remarkably savory, carrying a light, centering honey taste without stacking more sweetness on top of the already very sweet chocolate. Would highly recommend honeycomb chocolate, although possibly not this particular instance as much as some others. More investigation is needed.

Recommend

With love, 
 - Kat