reviewed by Elaine DiRico

For the trans-sensuals amongst us few things appeal so much as combining two favorites. In this case, Futterman parallels a woman's search for the perfect chocolate truffle and the perfect relationship. Makes perfect sense to me. If only my relationships with the men in my life could be as simple as my relationship with chocolate.

Beginning with our heroine Charlotte's (almost sounds like 'chocolate' doesn't it?) childhood in Brooklyn with a sugar-phobic mother and an indulgent father (who reliably carries a Hershey bar home each night from the Manhattan subway station, hidden in his overcoat...), the sensual mingling of chocolate and sex and forbidden pleasure is established. Soon a friend's mother teaches her how to make fudge and she is a lost soul. Marrying, divorcing, she embarks on the chocolate maven's dream tour of Europe, living on truffles from Paris through Munich and Vienna. In a feverish search of back streets and promenades, she unearths truffles of every imaginable variety. From the rather staid 'hot chocolate' (literally, a melted five ounce bar of Hawaiian vintage chocolate, served in a silver pot, alongside a matching pot of heated milk to be combined at the discretion of the patron), in 'Angelina's' on Rue d' Reveille in Paris, she slips like an opium eater into a sensual haze, consuming whole boxes of handmade chocolate truffles, wearing antique lace lingerie. I have never been tempted to wallow my life away in an opium den in a Hong Kong alley -- but a chocolate shop? Hmmmmm.....

This is so intensely a woman's odyssey that I have been almost shy in giving it to male friends, as though I am somehow telling secrets. It is an exquisite book to handle, like a wrapped box of chocolates, in a crackling parchment cover. The photographs, reminiscent of a milder Mapplethorpe in their abstraction, are evocative, lush and draw you in -- not just into her own journey but into her sensual psyche; where the slow and erotic consumption of chocolate is obsessive.

Lots of studies have indicated that women can self-medicate for hormonal uproar with chocolate. There is none of that here. This is purely for the touch and taste of chocolate -- for the pleasure of the textures and scents. The sexual parallels are always right below the surface, only breaking through occasionally. While she drifts hopefully through Europe, she explores all the levels of human longing, wistfulness, hunger and obsession and how one can slip and drift into another until the longing becomes an end in itself.

This book does have a few recipes, all of which I have used and all of which are staggeringly rich and good. While you are swept off by the tale itself, Futterman also infuses the story with a good dollop of history and science about chocolate, as important to its enjoyment as the information at a winetasting. It is most of all a book to be read and savored and returned to like a fairy tale. At 96 pages, Bittersweet Journey, a bottle of champagne and a box of chocolates make a perfect night's entertainment, whether alone or with friends.