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So Halloween is less than 2 days away - have you got your costume ready yet? Well, here’s some interesting facts about Halloween Candy from the National Confectioners Association:

• Bite-sized chocolate candies are the post popular type of candy to be included in Halloween activities (76 percent), followed by bite-sized non-chocolate candies (30 percent).
• Twenty-six percent of households will include full-size candy (chocolate and non-chocolate) in their Halloween activities.
• Kids tell us that their favorite treats to receive when trick-or-treating are candy and gum. Eighty-four percent of kids said candy and gum are their favorites.
  • Chocolate preferred by 50 percent
  • Non-chocolate candy, 24 percent
  • Gum, 10 percent
• Kids’ least favorite items to get in their trick-or-treat bags were fruit and salty snacks like chips and pretzels.
  • Fruit, 1 percent
  • Salty snacks, 1 percent
  • Toys, 2 percent
  • Baked goods such as cookies/granola bars, 2 percent
  • Other, 2 percent
  • Don’t know, 5 percent
  • Don’t trick-or-treat, 3 percent
• Ninety percent of parents admit to sneaking goodies from their kids’ Halloween trick-or-treat bags.
• Parents favorite treats to sneak from their kids’ trick-or-treat bags are snack-size chocolate bars (70 percent sneak these), candy-coated chocolate pieces (40 percent), caramels (37 percent) and gum (26 percent).
• Parents least favorite goodie to take from their kids’ trick-or-treat bags is licorice (18 percent).
• When kids ages 6-11 years old eat candy, they prefer chocolate candy two-to-one over candy that doesn’t contain any chocolate.
• Kids ages 6-11 years old say if they were given lots of candy, they would
  • Share some with their family, 66 percent
  • Share the candy with their friends, 64 percent
  • Give some to their teacher, 26 percent
  • Keep it all for themselves, 7 percent
  • Don’t know what they would do, 2 percent

Paris, France is hosting its annual Salon du Chocolat for five days from Saturday Oct 28, gathering nearly 130 French and foreign chocolate specialists, and stocking up with about six tonnes of chocolate, not least for the catwalk shows of dresses made out of chocolate. This is the French version of the New York Chocolate Show I blogged about earlier when talking about the much smaller Utah Chocolate Show.

Chocolate has found its way into cosmetics, following a trend to mix fresh fruits and foods and applying them to the face. It was bound to happen knowing that chocolate contains numerous complex molecules whos benefits are still being tested. Most manufacturers tend to use cocoa butter, which has moisturizing and nourishing properties, but is easy and cheap to obtain. Using edible chocolate is not recommended because of the sugars and soy lecithin which is harmful to the skin.

Under its “Chocolatherapie” brand, Zelda Gavizon (an exibitor at the Salon) has developed a series of beauty products and considers cocoa to be a true cosmetic asset and not just a gimmick.

Read more about Chocolate in Cosmetics on Yahoo News

Halloween candy

Originally uploaded by qmchenry.

So I was over at Walmart tonight (a place I call affectionately “Wally world” since it sounds as circus-like as the store itself) and picked up a big bag of Halloween candy (Holy cow man, $8?). For the costumed kiddies come this Tuesday you might ask? Well, actually no, it’s for me. Since last year I got ONE trick-or-treater at my door, I don’t expect to get too many this year. I plan on consuming at least half the bag myself.

Mmmm. Swedish Fish… (as I dig into the bowl of candy)… Yum!

BTW, do kids still trick-or-treat in 2006? Or is it just my neighborhood that seems to have boycotted it? I remember that the local mall use to have a trick-or-treat, and the kids would go from store to store to get all their goodies. Perhaps giving away candy on Halloween could be encorporated into Tweet Sweet’s event plans?

So I get the newsletter from the Utah Chocolate Show people, and here’s something that sounds pretty fun that they just announced in the recent edition:

Registration Open on the Showpiece Class!
We recently announced one of our big new offerings at this year’s Utah Chocolate Show—a private, 3-hour chocolate showpiece class, where even beginners can learn to make chocolate sculpture.

Space is limited, and registration is officially open NOW!

Raymond Lammers, our award-winning instructor, is appearing on ABC4’s Good Things Utah this morning, showing the types of things he’ll be teaching in the class.

Because an entire sculpture cannot be created from the ground up in only 3 hours, students aren’t making their own sculptures, but they will observe every step of the process and sometimes even participate.

Even better, at the end of class each student takes home a complete kit with the tools needed to make their own sculpture at home!

As if that weren’t great enough, our kitchen sponsor Orson Gygi Co. is including in every student kit nearly $30 WORTH OF CALLEBAUT CHOCOLATE to get you started. (Just be sure to use it for a sculpture; you can always eat the good stuff later!)

Register for the class online at www.UtahChocolateShow.com or reserve your seat by calling Emily: 801.856.6599.

Here are some of the other amazing chocolate show pieces that their website links to.

So did you know that this month is National Carmel Month? What are you going to do to celebrate? I would suggest eating some carmels, but could that just be the obvious choice? Perhaps paint your house carmel?

Here’s some other candy holidays. (Did you know there were so many ways to celebrate sweets?

October
National Caramel Month
28th – National Chocolate Day
30th – National Candy Corn Day
31st – National Caramel Apple Day

November
7th – National Bittersweet Chocolate with Almonds Day

December
7th – National Cotton Candy Day
16th – National Chocolate-Covered Anything Day
26th – National Candy Cane Day
28th – National Chocolate Day
29th – National Chocolate Day

January
3rd – National Chocolate Covered Cherry Day
8th – National English Toffee Day
26th – National Peanut Brittle Day

February
15th – National Gum Drop Day
19th – Chocolate Mint Day

March
3rd week – American Chocolate Week
19th – National Chocolate Caramel Day
24th – National Chocolate-Covered Raisin Day

April
12th – National Licorice Day
21st – National Chocolate-Covered Cashews Day
22nd – National Jelly Bean Day

May
12th – National Nutty Fudge Day
15th – National Chocolate Chip Day
23rd – National Taffy Day

June
National Candy Month
16th – Fudge Day

July
7th – Chocolate Day
15th – Gummi Worm Day
20th – National Lollipop Day
28th – National Milk Chocolate Day

August
4th – National Chocolate Chip Day
10th – S’mores Day
30th – National Toasted Marshmallow Day

September
13th – International Chocolate Day
22nd – National White Chocolate Day

So this evening I decided to type into Google the words “utah” and “chocolate” and see what it would come up to review.

The top listing was a link to the Utah Chocolate Show. I hadn’t heard that we had a chocolate show in our fair state, so I investigated further. The Utah Chocolate Show is the brainchild of Melanie Henderson. She concocted the idea over the summer of 2003 and convinced her two sisters, Annette and Michelle, to join her in the venture. The website says that the show offers the best chocolate Utah has to offer and includes chocolate demonstrations, hands-on classes, and a kids’ area.

It appears as though the show is based off the more famous Chocolate Show held in Paris, New York, Tokyo, Beijing, and other international locales. The Utah version seems like it does lack one of the more interesting parts of it’s older brother - an Annual Gala Fashion Show featuring the unveiling of the Chocolate Fashion Collection. Classic and cutting edge designers collaborated with pastry chefs and chocolatiers to produce wearable chocolate fashion. Cool hu? A review of last years show made me check Orbitz for tickets to New York.

But not all of us can plunk down a few hundred dollars to fly out to NYC and attend the Gala dinner ($200 a plate), so the local Utah Chocolate Show provides a nice alternative to get our chocolate fix.

The Utah Chocolate Show
November 17th & 18th, 2006
11:00 AM to 8:00 PM
South Towne Exposition Center
9575 South State Street, Sandy, Utah
http://www.utahchocolateshow.com

Check it out - You can bet that I’ll be there, and will report on it right here on Tweet Sweet!