Category: Stuff We Love

Hanna Hartnell, wedding dress and formal-wear fashion designer extraordinaire, has cooked up six red-hot gowns to fit the bill. Her special collection of attention-grabbing hues range from a deep rose to rich merlot. Hartnell, who is working with the Red Cross to help make the event a big success, is also donating a $3000 gown for their live auction.

Every Valentine’s day, my husband Jaya brings me truffles from The Candy House of Davis, a wonderful chocolatier in Davis, CA. Each box comes with a card, picturing each of the 30 different kinds of truffles they make by hand. By comparing the way the truffle looks to the picture, you can find out what flavor ganache is inside. Whether it be Irish Creame, Decadence, Grand Marnier or White Russian, each one is so beautiful I almost want to save them… but of course, I never do. Each one I taste is more delicious than the one before.

I can only imagine what the new Real Simple Weddings magazine, which officially launched this week, will be like—and what I’m imagining is pretty darn good. If you’ve managed to snag an early copy at Crate and Barrel, I’d love to hear what Real (Simple) Brides think of it.

Thank goodness I discovered Dagoba. Fair Trade, Organic and award-winning, Dagoba’s unique “chocolate alchemy” combines flavors in innovative, tantalizing ways. Dagoba chocolate tastes genuine—that is, biting into a small piece, the first taste is chocolate, rather than sugar. Its authentic musky flavor sings of forests and unspoiled wilderness, invariably lifting my spirits. I’ve come to prefer my chocolate dark & spicy, and Dagoba’s Xocolatl, accented with cocoa nibs and chile peppers, satisfies my cravings. My husband isn’t as adventurous and fancies less intense varietals, such as New Moon, the best of bittersweet.

For wedding favors, I love Vosges’ adorable takeout containers which can include truffles like the Black Pearl (ginger + wasabi + dark chocolate + black sesame seeds). Their two-piece truffle boxes can be customized with your names or message and your choice of ribbon colors. And, you can feel good about Vosges’ green commitment.

Unlike my colleagues Lisa and Meredith, I didn’t even think about what chocolate my significant other would be. Instead, I grilled my poor boyfriend on what kind of chocolate he thinks I’d be. After vetoing every type of chocolate he came up with (“What? Really? Where the hell did you get that idea?”), the answer dawned on me while I was restocking on shampoo at the drugstore. An M&M! Or is it an M?

Woodhouse Chocolates makes so many delicious sweet treats that everyone will find a fave. They’ve become my go-to gift when I want to send something to a person I really adore and their Valentine’s gift boxes are sure to wow your honey (or, your friend. Why don’t we girls start sending Valentine’s Day chocolates to each other? Good idea, huh?). Each box is gorgeously wrapped and shipped very carefully with special cold inserts to make sure your gift arrives as perfect as it was sent. Trés chic!

If my husband were a piece of chocolate (yes, there are times I wish that. That’s not weird, is it?), I’m pretty sure he’d be a Smoked Salt Caramel from Fran’s Chocolates. I don’t know ya’ll well enough to go into the details of why I think that, but let me just say the salt dusting on top makes the flavors in these chocolates so much more complex than any other fine chocolate I’ve tasted, and that’s a very good thing.