Chocolate

WHEN winter set its chilly grip on Paris, I started scouring the rues and boulevards for my one true love: chocolate. Hot chocolate, to be exact. In France, the warm, rich, winter drink is known as \o7 chocolat chaud.\f7 Unlike the United States, where warm milk is mixed with sweetened cocoa powder to create a "chocolate-flavored" drink, the main ingredient in \o7chocolat chaud\f7 is real chocolate.

IN the deep of night when most of Los Angeles sleeps, Xuan Ngo -- his hands working with all the speed and precision of a veteran pastry chef -- intently cuts small squares of ganache, scrapes the seeds from Madagascar vanilla beans and candies tiny bits of freshly ground coffee for his Xuan Chocolates.

Chocoholics were given further reason to rejoice when a small clinical study showed that dark chocolate improved the function of blood vessels. "In this sample of healthy adults, dark chocolate ingestion over a short period of time was shown to significantly improve [blood vessel] function," said Dr. Valentine Yanchou Njike of Yale Prevention Research Center, a study co-investigator.

Calling all chocoholics. Put down the truffles and power up the PC. It's time to weigh in on a fundamental question: What \o7is \f7chocolate? Two of California's oldest confectioners, See's Candies Inc. and Guittard Chocolate Co., are battling an attempt to loosen government rules that dictate what ingredients go into the sweet stuff. Legally, the candy that melts hearts and comforts the brokenhearted is made with cocoa butter and, in the case of milk chocolate, whole milk.

CHOCOLATE -- that traditional antidote for broken hearts -- now has another use. Foods rich in cocoa appear to reduce blood pressure, according to researchers at the University Hospital of Cologne in Germany. Testing the hypothesis that plant compounds known as polyphenols found in cocoa and tea have a beneficial effect on blood pressure, researchers analyzed five studies on cocoa and five studies on tea published between 1966 and 2006.

ORIOL BALAGUER'S tiny corner shop on Plaza Sant Gregori looks like a chic jewelry store. But don't be mistaken. The shop is a salon of serious, couture chocolates. In a display case that seems to float in the middle of the room, shiny chocolates shaped like cacao pods march across the shelf in perfect rows.

Dark chocolate can slightly lower blood pressure in people with mild hypertension, according to a new study that spotlights the medical benefits of a tasty treat. German researchers writing in the current issue of the Journal of the American Medical Assn. said dark chocolate was rich in flavonols, plant-based compounds that also are credited with giving red wine its heart-healthy benefits.

Starbucks Corp., which has a bittersweet history mixing its coffee with chocolate, is trying again, this time with Hershey Co. The world's largest specialty coffee retailer said Thursday that it would begin offering Starbucks-branded, coffee-flavored chocolate products in the fall under a deal with Hershey, which has been struggling to perk up flat sales. Executives with both companies said they were eager to respond to customers' growing demand for premium chocolate.

Kei Okumura is an unrepentant chocoholic with a preference for the dark side. The Silver Lake mother of an infant son reduced her chocolate munching during her recent pregnancy, but now she's back at Trader Joe's several times a week purchasing bars of dark chocolate. "I always have two to four bars of different chocolate to nibble on daily," said Okumura, who figures she spends about $12 a week on the candy and has spent as much as $8 on a single bar.