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AsiaOne
2 days ago
- AsiaOne
Warning: These World Chocolate Day destinations might melt your heart (and tastebuds), Lifestyle News
Of all that has been said about chocolate, perhaps Joanne Harris, author of Chocolat, summed it up perfectly when she wrote, "Happiness. Simple as a glass of chocolate or tortuous as the heart. Bitter. Sweet. Alive." For many, the words "chocolate" and "vacation" spark an immediate warmth, conjuring images of delightful indulgence and exciting new discoveries. Perhaps it's a coincidence-or maybe it's sweet destiny-that Wego data over the last 12 months reveals that among GCC travellers, the United Kingdom, Spain, Italy, and Switzerland are consistently among the top searched destinations in Europe, while Mexico holds a strong position as a leading choice in the Americas. This World Chocolate Day, these beloved locales also double as chocolate havens, where rich traditions and irresistible flavors await discovery. A simple treat, a global celebration On July 7, we celebrate World Chocolate Day, commemorating the historic introduction of chocolate to Europe in the 1500s. This annual tribute isn't just about indulgence-it's about joy, comfort, and the shared memories that chocolate so often stirs. The best way to celebrate World Chocolate Day is to honour traditions and indulge in the deliciousness of cocoa without overthinking it. Other ways World Chocolate Day is celebrated are: Try out a new chocolate recipe. Invite your loved ones to bake or cook with you and make new memories over chocolate. Visit your favourite restaurant or cafe and order your favourite chocolate dessert. Try out a new chocolate that you have never tried before, perhaps from another country. Revisit your favourite classics, or read a new book that involves chocolate. We are particularly partial to Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, The Chocolate Sundae Mystery and Chocolat. Once you've indulged locally, it's time to explore the world's most beloved chocolate destinations. Explore the sweet trails Beyond tasting chocolate at home, why not explore the places where it's deeply woven into local life? From historic cafes to immersive museums, these destinations turn cocoa into an unforgettable cultural experience. Oaxaca City, Mexico Make your way to Oaxaca City, Mexico's chocolate heart and a Unesco World Heritage Site, where the legacy of cacao runs deep. Ancient sites like Monte Albán offer a rich backdrop to this flavourful journey. At markets like 20 de Noviembre and Benito Juárez, vendors grind cacao beans with sugar, almonds, and cinnamon to create soul-warming cups of traditional hot chocolate. Wander into Chocolates La Soledad or stroll Calle Trujano, where shops like Chocolate Mayordomo and Chocolat Bonnat share the street with indie chocolatiers. For a modern twist, sip a cup at the minimalist cafe Mamá Pacha Chocolate, Instagram-worthy and indulgent. Barcelona, Spain While we don't know exactly who first brought cocoa beans to Europe, historians agree they arrived in Spain in the late 1500s - a precious "food of the Gods" from Central America. Today, vibrant Spain, renowned for its beaches, flamenco, and cuisine, is also a haven for chocolate lovers, with Barcelona shining as a key destination. Indulge your senses on a dedicated chocolate tasting tour, where you'll sample diverse flavors like a seasoned connoisseur. Or, chart your own sweet day starting at Barcelona's Museu de la Xocolata. This "sweet sanctuary" tells the tale of chocolate, from its sacred origins in Mesoamerican ceremonies to its decadent rise in European salons. Wander among whimsical chocolate sculptures or roll up your sleeves in a hands-on workshop, molding cocoa dreams into reality. It's a delicious blend of history, art, and just the right amount of mischief. Turin, Italy Italy embraced chocolate with unmatched passion after its introduction from Spain in the late 1500s, and today, Turin remains at the heart of this sweet legacy. This Piedmontese city invites chocolate lovers to savour centuries-old delicacies like luxurious truffles, velvety pralines, and indulgent gelato. Iconic cafes such as Pfatisch, Stratta, and the historic Caffé Al Bicerin enchant visitors with their timeless charm, serving unique creations like chocolate-infused coffee and the decadent 18th-century treat Merenda Reale. For an experience "one for the books," step onto Turin's Choco Tram on June 15, 2025. Glide through old cobblestone streets, tasting delightful giandujotti while storytellers share enchanting tales. At Choco-Story Torino, the Museum of Chocolate and Gianduja, every delicious bite transports you deeper into Turin's captivating chocolate past. Paris, France Paris proudly stands as one of the world's chocolate capitals, a far cry from its 17th-century origins when chocolate was a rare aristocratic indulgence. Today, its allure has solidified its place in Parisian gastronomy. Experience this regal history at iconic houses like Debauve & Gallais, suppliers to Queen Marie Antoinette, or step back in time at À la Mère de Famille. The city is also sprinkled with prestigious chocolatiers such as Jean-Paul Hevin, Patrick Roger, Jacques Genin, and La Maison du Chocolat, each offering indulgent creations from daring ganaches to timeless pralines. For an unparalleled celebration, plan your autumn visit around Le Salon du Chocolat (Oct 29 to Nov 2, 2025). As the world's largest chocolate event, it's a five-day festival of magic-complete with workshops, tastings, live demos, and a unique chocolate haute couture runway. It's a delicious reminder that in Paris, chocolate is truly a cultural celebration. Brussels, Belgium From the people who modernized the chocolate, we take our journey to the present chocolate capital of the world and the heart of Belgium-Brussels. Every corner of Brussels has its own tale to tell, with chocolatiers and their chocolates. We recommend taking a gastronomic walking tour to experience Brussels's best choco magic. However, you can also skip to the Belgian Chocolate Village in Koekelberg and learn about the history of chocolates before indulging in a demonstration of how chocolates are made in Choco-Story Brussels. Another unique experience you ought to indulge in is taking a chocolate-making class from master chocolatiers. Several places in Brussels offer chocolate-making classes to tourists, like Choco-Story Brussels, Belgian Chocolate Village, Planète Chocolat, and Belgian Chocolate Workshop. We recommend registering for the workshops on the official website of the chocolate places before visiting for a smooth experience. Fribourg, Switzerland As the renowned homeland of Lindor and the historic home of Toblerone, Switzerland stands as perhaps the most famous country for chocolate and a must-visit for any food enthusiast. Broc in the Gruyère district of Fribourg canton is one of the most notable stops in Switzerland for chocoholics. It is home to the Chocolate Museum of Maison Cailler, where you can learn about the history of the famous Chocolat Cailler, witness the chocolate-making process, and taste it. Finally, you get an "all-you-can-eat selection of Cailler chocolates" and join a chocolate-making class before leaving Atelier du Chocolat. If time constraints cause a hindrance between you and the Turin Choco Tram, then you have an entire train waiting for you in Gruyère. Le Train du Chocolat, or the Chocolate Train, runs between Montreux and the Cailler-Nestle chocolate factory at Broc, offering a seven to eight hour scenic train ride through the Swiss countryside, accompanied by coffee and chocolate croissants, a free show at La Maison du Gruyère, and a free admission to the chocolate factory of Nestle Cailler. Birmingham, UK While Birmingham or the UK might not immediately spring to mind for iconic chocolate destinations, this is the beloved homeland of Cadbury! Our chocolate exploration wouldn't be complete without a delightful detour to the enchanting Cadbury World in Bournville. Home to the UK's largest Cadbury store, this immersive attraction offers a journey through chocolate heaven. If you're a fan of the classic Bournville chocolate bar, you'll be thrilled to discover that the charming town of Bournville is home to Cadbury World - an immersive attraction offering a journey through chocolate heaven, complete with the UK's largest Cadbury store. We can imagine Cadbury World as this vibrant, chocolate-themed entertainment zone set up for us to uncover the fascinating Cadbury story through engaging presentations and even a 4D cinema experience. Journey through a captivating Aztec Jungle to learn the ancient origins of the cocoa bean, and snap some fun pictures in front of the Cadbury green screen. If little adventurers are accompanying you, they are bound to be thrilled with the African Adventure Play Area, a dedicated space for them to explore and play. To ensure your chocolatey escapade begins smoothly, remember to pre-book your tickets online through the official Cadbury World website. Ready for your sweet escape? Our exploration of the world's chocolate havens ends here, but your adventure is just beginning. This World Chocolate Day, discover how each destination offers a unique taste of global culture and unforgettable memories. Bon voyage, and sweet travels! [[nid:718222]] This article was first published in Wego .
Irish Independent
26-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Irish Independent
Wexford theatre school's new take on ‘Alice in Wonderland' is their best show ever
Featuring a cast of 130 young performers aged 5 to 19, this production brought audience members on a journey through Wonderland, filled with beloved characters, playful humour and jukebox musical favourites. Speaking after all four performances of the show wrapped, PRO Susan Flavin Bell said: 'It truly was our best show ever and people were really remarking on the costumes and the set were really vibrant colours. "There were 130 kids and it's always a big undertaking to move that many kids around in one show. The kids were such troopers and by the Saturday night they were pretty much exhausted but they had such a sense of accomplishment. "The support from the wider community, not just the parents, is really notable in Gorey because if it was just the parents, you wouldn't fill the theatre four times over and sell 1,300 tickets. It's important that so many come out to support the arts,' said Susan. Lily Heinrich Doyle wrote and directed this musical adaptation of Lewis Carroll's timeless story, with choreography by Madison Coleman and musical direction by Richard O'Toole. Three actors took to the stage as Alice and the show highlighted the exceptional talent and passion of the students at Innovations Theatre School. "Our director Lily Heinrich Doyle completely changed and rearranged the show. She made it into a show with so much heart so people were actually crying at the end of it. It kind of felt like the end of the Wizard of Oz, where Alice is leaving all these characters behind where they're all mad and all the best people are,' said Susan. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory in 2023 and The Jungle Book in 2024.
Irish Daily Star
20-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Irish Daily Star
Donald Trump 'more orange than he's ever been' in terrifying Rose Garden speech
Fresh concerns have been raised about President Trump's skin color after he appeared particularly orange in a recent clip, though critics have questioned if the video was oversaturated. A fresh debate has been ignited over President Donald Trump 's skin color after a video clip in which he looked particularly orange went viral. Journalist Aaron Rupar remarked on X that President Trump looked "as orange as he's ever been today" after sharing a news clip from Fox News of Trump speaking outside at the White House Rose Garden late Monday afternoon. Around 3:22 p.m. EDT, President Trump announced that he signed the Take It Down Act, a near-unanimously passed bill proposed by Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) last year that criminalizes deepfake and revenge porn. For several years, people have poked at the reality TV star-turned-president for his skin color, which often appears to be spray-tanned in a particularly orange shade. Several users replied to Rupar with photoshopped images of Trump as an oompa-loompa, orange characters from Roald Dahl's 'Charlie and the Chocolate Factory,' while others shared images of various Pantone orange shades. "Oompa Loompa looking a--," one user replied, with another critic similarly adding: "Oompa Loompa doompety boom, Trump's failed tariffs spell economic doom." "Same shade as the traffic cones in a parking lot," another snarked. A third joked, "HOLY S--T, HE LITERALLY GOT DIPPED IN CHEETO POWDER." "Wearing perfect makeup for the circus he's running," another critic remarked. Making fun of both heads of office, another snidely said, "He didn't put a tariff on cosmetics cause he and JD Vance both have the most sephora VIB points of any shopper ever." In light of the president's recent trip to the Middle East, another replied, "That's a custom Saudi Arabian spray tan." However, Rupar's post also solicited ample criticism from users who cast doubt on the authenticity of the clip, which was sourced from Fox News, slamming Rupar, who boasts 968,000 followers on X, for "running out of material." "The saturation in the video is tweaked," one claimed. Another similarly added, "Wow! Even the flowers in the background have an unnatural hue. Aaron is still playing with his new imaging processing app." One partisan chimed in, rebuking, "Democrats are green — with envy."
Daily Mail
04-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Daily Mail
Dark side of Roald Dahl: Author's anti-semitic views laid bare in blistering new play that serves as a reminder that the beloved author could be a cheat and a monster too
He inspired us to believe that somewhere inside we all have the power to change the world, and showed us that a little magic can take you a long way. But while Roald Dahl 's reputation as one of the great children's storytellers remains undeniable, his literary legacy forever secured by classics like Matilda and James and the Giant Peach, the darker aspects of the author's worldview have become barely less notorious since his death in 1990. In his novel The Twits, Dahl reflected on how external appearances can be deceptive. 'You can have a wonky nose and a crooked mouth and a double chin and stick-out teeth,' he wrote, 'but if you have good thoughts they will shine out of your face like sunbeams.' The flip side of that sentiment, however, is that unwholesome thoughts can also be concealed beneath an outwardly respectable veneer. Dahl might have captured the imagination of millions of children with characters like Charlie Bucket, the 10-year-old boy who rises from poverty to become heir to Willy Wonka's confectionery empire in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, but his toxic personal views stood in stark contrast to the family-friendly tales he produced. That is why the the Olivier award-winning play Giant, which deals with Dahl's noxious antisemitism and has just transferred to the West End, will make for uncomfortable viewing for those who view the author only through the lens of his classic tales. Infamously, Dahl's beliefs were laid bare in his musings on another author's work. In August 1983, he wrote a review of God Cried, an account of Israel 's invasion of Lebanon the previous year produced by the Australian author Tony Clifton. 'Never before in the history of man has a race of people switched so rapidly from being much-pitied victims to barbarous murderers,' Dahl wrote in the Literary Review. 'Never before has a race of people generated so much sympathy around the world and then, in the space of a lifetime, succeeded in turning that sympathy into hatred and revulsion.' When the New Statesman subsequently contacted Dahl to ask about the review, in which the author also stated that the US was 'dominated by the great Jewish financial institutions' to the point where they 'dare not defy' Israel, Dahl doubled down on his views. 'There's always a reason why anti-anything crops up anywhere,' the writer told journalist Michael Coren. 'Even a stinker like Hitler didn't just pick on them for no reason.' Coren, who had anticipated that he would find Dahl in more contrite mood, was stunned by the author's intransigence. 'The assumption was that he would row back from his extremist stance and the story might make a few paragraphs in the next edition,' Coren wrote in this space last year. 'When I phoned him that day, I had no idea that our exchange would still be being talked about decades later. 'If I had expected him to apologise for some of what he'd written, or at least qualify the harshness and inaccurate generalisations, I was soon to be disappointed. The opposite happened. 'When I raised the tenor of [his] observations with the author, he was polite - not unfriendly - and spoke slowly and deliberately. But it was as if I'd opened the doors on some dark, deep hatred that had been waiting for years to be expressed.' The fallout from this reputation-puncturing episode provides the starting point for Giant, which premiered at the Royal Court theatre in London last September and has now transferred to the West End. Starring John Lithgow as Dahl, who stood 6ft 6in tall but saw his stature greatly diminished in the eyes of many as a result of the scandal, Mark Rosenblatt's play earned the American a best actor award at the Oliviers. The drama opens with Jessie Stone, an American Jewish sales executive dispatched by Dahl's publisher, attempting to persuade Dahl that a public apology would be in order. The to-and-fro that develops between the pair gradually throws light on the author's views until, eventually, they are illuminated with glaring intensity. In that sense, even the fictional elements of the drama find a counterpart in real events. Just as the darker side of Dahl's nature becomes ever plainer on stage, so it was in real life. In 1990, just months before his death at the age of 74, Dahl spelled out his bigoted beliefs in definitive fashion. 'I'm certainly anti-Israeli, and I've become antisemitic in as much as that you get a Jewish person in another country like England strongly supporting Zionism,' he told the Independent. 'I think they should see both sides. 'It's the same old thing: we all know about Jews and the rest of it. There aren't any non-Jewish publishers anywhere, they control the media - jolly clever thing to do - that's why the president of the United States has to sell all this stuff to Israel.' In the aftermath of his death, the troubling nature of Dahl's personal views was initially overshadowed by his reputation as one of the foremost children's writers of the 20th century. In 2003, four of his books made the top 100 of The Big Read, a BBC survey to determine the 'nation's best-loved novel'. But the tide began to turn in 2018, when it emerged that a plan to honour his life and works with a commemorative coin had been rejected by the Royal Mint because Dahl was 'associated with antisemitism and not regarded as an author of the highest reputation'. Together with the Roald Dahl Story Company, the novelist's family later issued an apology for 'the lasting and understandable hurt caused by some of Roald Dahl's statements'. 'Those prejudiced remarks are incomprehensible to us and stand in marked contrast to the man we knew and to the values at the heart of Roald Dahl's stories, which have positively impacted young people for generations,' read a statement on the author's official website. Yet it remains far from clear that Dahl had a positive impact on those closest to him. His first wife, the Oscar-winning actress Patricia Neal, who had previously been married to Hollywood legend Clark Gable, dubbed him 'Roald the Rotten', portraying him as an arrogant and irritable figure. It cannot have helped that Dahl was a serial womaniser, even cheating on Neal with her closest friends - one of whom, Felicity D'Abreu, became his second wife in 1983 after an 11-year affair. Dahl's marriage to Neal was scarred not only by his infidelities but also by tragedy and accident. Their baby son was badly injured when a taxi hit his pram, their eldest daughter died from measles at the age of seven, and Neal suffered a series of catastrophic strokes that put her in a coma for three weeks and left her temporarily paralysed. Dahl's daughter Tessa, the second of the couple's five children, found him remote and controlling. It is no coincidence that her 1988 novel Working for Love deals with a problematic daughter-father relationship. 'Daddy gave joy to millions of children,' Tessa has said, 'but I was dying inside. 'Even though he was present for me physically, he was not emotionally. It was just bad luck, jolly bad luck, that I had been present both for my brother's accident and my mother's strokes. That my older sister Olivia had been the love of Daddy's life. That both of us contracted measles, but that she had died.' If the picture that emerges seems largely removed from the fictional landscapes Dahl conjured, it should be acknowledged that even his writing for children was inflected with a darker side. Many have detected misogyny in his portrayal of characters like Miss Trunchbull, the headmistress of Crunchem Hall primary school in Matilda, while the ostensibly benign chocolatier Willy Wonka is one of numerous figures in Dahl's oeuvre who betrays a more sinister side. And even Dahl tempered his initial portrayal of Wonka's Oompa Loompas as black pygmies. Yet any consideration of the author's legacy should not overlook the personal trials he endured. Born in 1916, Dahl was just three years old when his father died. At the age of nine, he was sent to boarding school and hated every moment. He left at 17 and went adventuring in Africa. When the second world war broke out, he joined the RAF and crashed in the Libyan desert, sustaining what he described as 'a monumental bash on the head'. The injury would cause him pain for the rest of his life, and perhaps went some way to explaining his cantankerous nature. None of which excuses Dahl's unsavoury views, of course, and it is perfectly legitimate to wonder whether his barnstorming success as a children's author would have been achieved had his personal beliefs been public knowledge. Even Steven Spielberg, the Jewish director of 1993 Holocaust drama Schindler's List, was unaware of Dahl's past when he filmed The BFG. Notably, though, Spielberg refused to condemn the author on learning the truth. 'Dahl liked to say things he didn't mean just to get a reaction,' said Spielberg. 'All his comments about bankers, all the old-fashioned, mid-1930s stereotypes we hear from Germany - he would say for effect, even if they were horrible things.' How then should Dahl be remembered? Was he a monster, a magician - or merely a man of contradictions? Jeremy Treglown, the author of a 1993 biography of Dahl, inclined to the last of those possibilities. 'He was famously a war hero, a connoisseur, a philanthropist, a devoted family man who had to confront an appalling succession of tragedies,' Treglown wrote in Roald Dahl: A Biography. 'He was also a fantasist, an anti-semite, a bully and a self-publicising troublemaker.' As Giant hits the West End, audiences will once again have the chance to make up their own minds - but the man who plays him has no doubt. 'Dahl wasn't a monster covered in scales,' said Lithgow. 'He was a very complicated man damaged by terrible tragedies.'
Telegraph
03-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Telegraph
Roald Dahl would be cancelled ‘immediately' today, says John Lithgow
Roald Dahl would be 'immediately' cancelled in today's world, the Hollywood actor portraying him in the West End has said. John Lithgow, who has won plaudits for his portrayal of the Charlie and the Chocolate Factory author, said that Dahl would be 'in very, very hot water' in today's censorious age. The actor portrays Dahl in the play Giant, in which the author grapples with the dilemma of whether to make a public apology to avoid the risk of being cancelled amid an anti-Semitism row. The play, set in 1983, imagines an emergency meeting between Dahl, his Jewish publisher and an American sales director following the publication of an article by the children's author containing anti-Israeli and anti-Jewish sentiment. With the threat of a boycott of his forthcoming novel The Witches, Dahl must decide whether or not to apologise for the comments. In an interview with Sky News, Lithgow said Dahl would 'immediately' be cancelled if such a scandal broke out today. He also bemoaned the pressure on artists and writers to conform and self-censor their statements for fear of being victims of cancel culture. 'You can get misrepresented' 'It's terrible to be so careful about what you say, how it goes into the world and you can get misconstrued, misrepresented and cancelled just like that,' Lithgow. The Telegraph revealed in 2023 that Puffin Books had made hundreds of changes to the author's original texts, with the approval of the Roald Dahl Story Company. References to weight, height, mental health, gender and colour have been removed, and new passages added by the publishers to minimise offence. In recent years Dahl has been criticised for anti-Semitism, misogyny and racism. In an interview with the New Statesman magazine in 1983, he had said: 'There is a trait in the Jewish character that does provoke animosity, maybe it's a kind of lack of generosity towards non-Jews. I mean, there's always a reason why anti-anything crops up anywhere.' He added: 'Even a stinker like Hitler didn't just pick on them for no reason.' Dahl acknowledged he was anti-Semitic and went on to add in an article in The Independent in 1990 that Jews 'control the media' and that it was 'a jolly clever thing to do'. In 2020, the Dahl family and Roald Dahl Story Company apologised for his anti-Semitic views. They said: 'Those prejudiced remarks are incomprehensible to us and stand in marked contrast to the man we knew and to the values at the heart of Roald Dahl's stories, which have positively impacted young people for generations.' Many authors have come to the defence of Dahl's work, including Sir Salman Rushdie, who said that despite being 'a self confessed anti-Semite, with pronounced racist leanings' it was 'absurd' to rewrite his children's books. Following the controversy over changes to his work, Puffin announced that it would produce uncensored versions of Dahl's stories.
