Notes on chocolate: small bars are the perfect pick-me-up

Years ago, my friend Charlotte posited this theory that she had come up with: when people get out-of-the-blue foot injuries (ie not from playing sport or jumping out of planes) it’s their body’s way of telling them to slow down, when they haven’t listened to any of the cues beforehand. Ever since, I’ve thought about this when people have had unexpected foot injuries and, after some gentle interrogation, they tell me they were stressed/busy, etc. Highly scientific.

I’ve always loved smaller versions of things anyway, because there’s so much less guilt

I was thinking of this, and all I had to do, in a fog of panic and dread, just before I took a step down into the garden to hang out the washing and turned my right ankle 90 degrees to the left. The body always wins.

Restricted movement and the correspondence of chocolate are not the best bedfellows, so thank goodness for mini bars. I’ve always loved smaller versions of things anyway, because there’s so much less guilt for those of us with a paucity of will power, when you breach and then consume the whole packet.

Cox & Co has brought out single-origin Colombian cacao, mini versions of three of its chocolates , £10/6 bars. All are good, the Bee Pollen and Honey possibly a bit too sweet for me (no one does honey in chocolate better than B Chocolates in its honey and sea-salted caramel ).

But I really liked the mint crunch – mint with cacao nibs; the latter always gives a strong cocoa hit without seeming too worthy. And the miso and caramel was just the right amount of sweetness. These are small and perfectly sized (25g) for a day’s ration of chocolate and the lovely artwork is by the founder’s mum-in-law, Dawn Ogden-White.

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