Orange and Cardamom
Orange et Cardamome

Spread, 150 ml. $ 7.69

available at fine food stores; see also www.vergerduhaime.com

There will be chocolate. As far as Shelf Life is concerned, December is national Resistance Is Futile month. Temptations lie in wait for us at every turn – if the holiday carbs don’t carry us off, the forces of cocoa will drag us to their lairs, where we will become too fat and happy to escape. Shelf Life is particularly helpless in the face of well-made chocolate with a twist (especially if the package includes a charming mini-knife), so when we spotted this all-natural, elegantly presented, made-in-Quebec orange and cardamom chocolate spread our fates were sealed. In the next minute we found ourselves buying ice cream to go with it, so there was no turning back. On balance this product gave us few regrets. The chocolate is fine quality, if a little on the sweet side, and the dash of orange provides edge and dimension. The cardamom, however, is fugitive – depending on how you look at it, it’s either not as conspicuous as advertised or wonderfully subtle. When heated, the spread turns into a syrup, which brought a nice tang to ice cream. In its unheated form this item is a sort of glamorous cousin to Nutella; warmed up, it’s a far better than the usual supermarket syrups. Kids will love it. Shelf Life will probably be back for more, if only to hunt for that elusive cardamom.

THREE STARS***