Tony's Chocolonely

August 18, 2007; 16:30 PM: for the first time in my life I ate Tony's Chocolonely, a fair-trade and slave-free chocolate bar. The brand Tony's Chocolonely is launched by Dutch journalist Teun van de Keuken. He scrutinized the production of chocolate, denounced the chocolate industry, and accused it of labor exploitation, even slavery. Unfortunately his crusade against the chocolate industry did not change it. Therefore, he initiated Tony's Factory and started the production of fair-trade and slave-free chocolate products. For more information on this subject, you can watch a documentary at You Tube.

And for the record: I ate a bar of plain chocolate (72% cacao; Tony Chocolonely; blue wrapper) and it tasted great!!!

Home again

This year's holiday we visited France (Lorraine, Jura), Switzerland (Lake of Geneva), and traversed Germany on the way back home. We camped on farmes and in (the vicinity of) cities like Nancy, Becancon, Bern and Strasbourg. Some 'holiday highlights' were: (a) the Musée départemental d'art ancien et contemporain in Epinal, (b) canoeing on the river Loue near Becancon, (b) the Paul Klee Zentrum in Bern, and (d) the Strasbourg Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art. Camping was great, despite the huge snail community that accompanied us during the first week of our holiday. Never knew snails like polyester tents.