We All Know Where the Rainbow Goes…

I’m eating chocolates and it’s bittersweet. I had been craving “box o’ chocolates” (as opposed to the swank organic, fair-trade, single-origin stuff I usually eat) and grabbed a box of Pot of Gold the other day. They’re getting hard to find.

The Pot of Gold brand was developed in the 1920s by a confectionery company in Halifax, Nova Scotia called Moir’s. Moir’s had started in 1815 as a bakery, but by 1873 was exclusively making candy and chocolates. Moir’s was actually the first company to come up with a mixed assortment box, and the Pot of Gold was an instant hit, becoming and remaining the best-selling boxed chocolate in Canada for decades. In most of the Maritimes, it wasn’t Christmas without at least one box under the tree, although you might also find rival Ganong as well.

Moir’s was sold to Nabisco brands in 1967 and in 1975, moved across the harbour from their location on Argyle Street in Halifax, to a modernized plant in Dartmouth. Hershey acquired the Nabisco confectionery division in 1987 and expanded the Pot of Gold line to a variety of different assortments.

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Choco-holic

After years of writing about events in Toronto, there are times when I still can’t help but feel like an imposter. I’m not – I’ve never attended an event and not covered it fully, but there have been times when I’ve found myself wedged against a buffet table at the ROM, balancing a plate of pastries and a glass of wine, while I try to avoid getting in the shot for Fashion Television or the CBC, that I begin to doubt my credentials. Nevermind that the lovely PR ladies all assure me that the fact that I give them any coverage at all puts me in their good books (you wouldn’t believe the number of people who attend media previews for the free grub and never write a word about the event or show), but as a kind of weird looking gal writing for various Internet sites, I still often feel as if I’ve somehow sneaked in and could get caught and kicked out at any second.

When in the same situation but also presented with all the free chocolate I can stuff into my little chocolate-loving mouth, my guilt does overtime. Not the least because chocolates are one of those things that you are only supposed to have one or two of. You don’t want to make a pig of yourself, after all. So when we walked into the Ganong Chocs-o-Fun party last night, the feeling of being “kids in a candy store” was close to the surface.

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