After an uneventful night on Tuesday, I was up again bright and early at 7:30 a.m. to get a jump on the day. Most the scheduled events were held at the convention center, and I was looking forward to some of the presentations that would be taking place. First up was a lecture titled “Habanos and chocolate: Two Pleasures from Paradise.” As the somewhat hammy name indicates, this was a seminar wherein the attendees were given a cigar—in this case, a Cohiba Siglo VI—and two different pieces of chocolate, then were asked to combine the two on our palates. Although it is far from a normal practice, I have enjoyed chocolates with cigars before, and this proved to be extremely enjoyable. The speaker for the lecture was Dr. Maria Cristina Jorge, director of the Chocolate Institute of Latin America, and as participants smoked and nibbled, she went through a speech which included the history of chocolate, a slideshow of historical images and the unique ways that different tobacco and different types of chocolate could be combined to end up with specific combinations of flavors. The actual chocolate that was tasted was composed of 60 percent cocoa and filled with a combination of honey, ...
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