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Hello and good day!
Now that the weather is beginning to cool down, we are going to resume putting new products online.
I just put up two products that are both very popular in our shops.Both are dark chocolate items. Both are nut clusters. Both are delicious.
I'm talking about dark chocolate almond clusters and dark chocolate peanut clusters made with our Fortunato No. 4 68% dark chocolate.
We already have dark chocolate covered almonds online.
The difference between our dark chocolate almonds and dark chocolate almond clusters is that the cluster has more chocolate and also the shape of a cluster is more pleasing to many people.
With our individually coated dark chocolate almonds we intentionally don't put a very thick layer of chocolate around the outside because our desire is for you to taste both the almond and the chocolate. The nature of a cluster is such that chocolate fills the space between nuts, and this inherently makes a cluster more chocolatey.
We already have a milk chocolate peanut cluster online that is very popular and highly rated.
In our minds, peanuts and milk chocolate go together like hydrogen and oxygen and we weren't thinking about doing a dark chocolate peanut cluster. However, folks kept requesting it though, and since we aim to please, we obliged.
We source our almonds and peanuts from a company we feel good about both in terms of product quality and environmental protection standards.
Looking at a heat map, we plan to completely remove the warm weather warning from our website in about two weeks. In the meantime, the only states where we aren't offering a 100% unconditional money back guarantee are as follows:
Arizona, Georgia, Alabama, Florida, Texas, New Mexico, Arkansas, Mississippi, Nevada, South Carolina, Louisiana, and Oklahoma.If you are in one of those states and your chocolate order shows up melted, we can't extend a no questions asked refund to you for a couple more weeks.
In all other states, if you are unsatisfied with our products for any reason, just write in for a refund and we'll process it immediately.
As the weeks roll on now, we'll be putting more and more products online. Sometime in October, we're supposed to have several new machines showing up. When those show up, we'll be able to put up additional caramel and toffee products.
We have a killer toffee recipe given to us by a wonderful customer. It was her grandma's recipe, and it is close to one hundred years old. We make it with dark chocolate and almonds.
The only problem is that our incredibly resourceful chocolatier, Javier, is currently making all of our caramel and toffee in small batches on a camping stove. This isn't sufficient for producing all the products we'd like to produce in large enough quantities.
If you'll recall, we only started making products beyond our 1.1 pound bricks of chocolate less than two years ago. We've never manufactured confections before, and we are figuring it out as we go along. The lease on our current kitchen will be up in a year and we plan to move into a much bigger space and try to build a real factory.
This holiday season will be our first experiment with machine driven production lines. Of course, we don't want to lose the heart and soul that we put into all of our products and that will be an important challenge for us to manage.
How do we make our online store mimic our retail stores in terms of product selection without sacrificing quality? One thing we never want to do is sacrifice quality. I'd rather keep using a camping stove and not ramp up production at all if it means the soul of our products will dissipate away.
But if we can't figure it out then our wonderful customers all over the country can't enjoy some of the very good new creations our production team has come up with.
We're still waiting on packaging for our new sugar free dark chocolate made with monk fruit. Once the packaging arrives, we'll get that online too. When the cold weather comes, it is our time to shine, and I am very excited about the coming weeks and months.
If you'd like to try our dark chocolate peanut or almond clusters, simply click the link below.
Also, I'd like to share a few more poems, passages, and words of wisdom from my Aunt Opal's diary.She wrote these down for posterity when she was 85 years old.
A Favorite Poem
I’d rather see a sermon than to hear one every day,
I’d rather one would walk with me than merely point the way,
The eye is a better pupil and more willing than the ear,
Fine counsel is confusing but example is clear,
The best of all the preachers are the men who live their creeds,
For to see good in action is what everybody needs,
I’ll soon learn to do it if you’ll let me see it done,
I can watch your hands in action but your tongue too fast may run,
While the lecture you deliver may be wise and true,
Yet I’d rather learn my lesson by observing what you do,
They may misunderstand you and the fine advice you give,
But there’s no misunderstanding how you act or how you live.
By Gladys E. Deck
Lord, let me live from day to day,
In such a self-forgetful way,
That even when I kneel to pray,
My prayer will be for "others".
Help me in all the work I do,
To ever be sincere and true,
And know that all I do for you,
Must needs be done for "others".
And when my work on earth is done,
And my new work in heaven's begun,
May I forget the crown I've won,
While still thinking of "others".
"Others" yes Lord "others",
Let this my motto be,
Help me to live for "others",
That I may live for thee.
By Gladys Adkins
Today is mine,
It belongs to me,
To live the best I can,
To shape,
To mold for eternity,
A day that is simply grand.
I mustn't fill it with petty things,
Selfish things,
And small,
I must live only for the joy it brings,
To give my best,
My all.
God made it such a beautiful day,
A special day,
You see,
He made it bright,
And shining,
Then he gave it to me.
You too are given a special day,
A day in which to do,
Not only what you feel you must,
But all that's expected of you.
Every day is a special day,
A day in which to give,
The very best within you,
Every day you live.
Thank you so much for your time today.
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