Some friends gave us a box of lavender salt, so we returned the favor by mixing it with melted chocolate.

Also, I recently got a handheld digital video camera, so I'm practicing making and uploading baby videos.

Making the chocolate was easy. I melted some Ghirardelli 60% chocolate pieces, added about a tablespoon of the salt, poured it out in a pan, waited for it to cool, then cut it into pieces and papered up.

The only part of that not shown in the video is the cutting. While the chocolate was cooling, I would occasionally draw a toothpick across the chocolate. When the chocolate was cool enough that the cuts didn't melt back together, I used a toothpick to draw lines all across. That was enough to at least score the chocolate, and then when it finished cooling, the bars were easy to break apart.

The only flaw in my cunning plan is that the chocolate began to bloom where the salt was near the surface. This doesn't hurt the chocolate, but does cause slight discoloration. (Bloom is the pale brown coloring you get on chocolate sometimes, especially if it's been in the refrigerator. It's totally harmless, but less-than-esthetically pleasing.)

K