For eight years now, Keystone Human Services has been organizing Chocolatefest as a sweet valentine treat for the inhabitants of Hershey, Pennsylvania and environs in a "celebration of love and chocolate". Scheduled the weekend before Valentine's Day, I've missed it every year until, finally, this year, Sunday, February 2, 2003, I saw the ads BEFORE the show. (I kept seeing the after the fact news reports for all the good THAT did me. Where the heck was the coverage before the event when it would help both me and the even organizers????)

Well, that was 8 years of waiting and anticipation down the drain. If you want to hear the gory details.. read on.

And as a quick note to the "professional" bakers that participated in the Cake Competition... you suck. You should be ashamed and I'd take back your credentials if I could.

Technically, this is a two-day event. It starts with the Chocolate Ball on Saturday night. Well, since my other half is west coaster AND has absolutely no rhythm, I passed that little soire right by. (Maybe next year just to do the write-up if I can swing the hefty price tag.) Then Sunday morning is the Chocolatefest Premiere (another salty price tag) from 12:30 p.m. to 2:00 p.m.. This was supposed to be an elegant chocolate tasting extravaganza where celebrity butlers waited on you bringing the sweet treats to your seat from the all premier participants. There was to be music, activities for the kiddies and general frivolity. Being still financially strapped from an overdone (again) Christmas, we decided to go to the public event in the afternoon, from 2:30 p.m. to 5:00 p.m.. Ticket prices for this were, I think, $20.00 each. Ok. This is for charity and who could resist all that, alleged, chocolate.

We headed out to Hershey early. We'd heard about the lines and I'd been warned that they ran out of some items if you went later in the afternoon, especially all the contest cakes. Ooh.. don't wanna' get there and not get any chocolate. We arrived a little before 2:00 p.m. and the line had already wound it's way around and halfway down the lobby of the Hershey Convention Center. I grabbed two tickets and we dutifully got at the end of the line. As the afternoon progressed, more and more people began cramming their way into the lobby. The line snaked around and around the lobby, turning in on itself in several decorative loops. It began to get slightly chaotic. No one could find the end of the line. People turned every which way. People crowded near the doors, in the front of the lobby, not sure where to go. It was getting warm in there. People were cutting in the line (evil eye death darts)!! Tempers, mine in particular, were getting short. We watched people from the Premiere coming out of the ballroom with dessert plates stacked with chocolaty delights, petit fours teetering upon stacks of brownies and cookies, and bar cookies precariously clinging to plate edges. There was more than one casualty as the Premiere attendees tried to squeeze through the drooling masses muttering silent oaths to their greed... ooooooohhhh.. leave some for us!!!! I don't do well in jostling crowds. I began to wonder if this was going to be worth it. That wouldn't be the last time the thought crossed my mind.

Five minutes until the doors open, one of the Hausfrau organizers of this little debacle bustles herself out to the center of the lobby and grandly announces.. "Do you all realize that there is no line and when the doors open you are to make your way to the ballroom in a orderly fashion." NO line? Is she mad? I've been standing in a line for half an hour in this unbearable human incubator. And you mean to tell me that those people that have only endured this madness for five minutes and crammed in the front next to the ballroom get in FIRST!!!! Obviously, this is not a democracy. That's 5 demerits. You're treading on thin ice people.

Doors open and the mob surges forward. It moves surprisingly fast. I was impressed. "Wow," I said to myself. "It must be well organized inside no matter what a git that woman is." In that lies the error of the rash conclusion.

They ushered us down a long corridor to strains of music played by a local ensemble, The Whitaker Trio, I believe. Nice music if you like that stuff. Well executed, or so it seemed from the 3 second music byte I caught as we were encouraged to quickly move down the corridor to the ballroom main entrance. There were several vendors along the outside hall enhancing this wonderful chocolate theme (lightly veiled sarcasm, here) with pitches for massages, spas, back adjustments, salon services and some stalls that I have no clue what they were touting. Well, maybe they had trouble selling their vendor space this year. Perhaps a huge cocoa blight has reduced the chocolate availability in our region and the chocolate makers were forced to stay home or decline. Things happen. (uh huh.. sure)

The ballroom layout was fairly basic. Rows of stalls running lengthwise down the ballroom with aisles at the end and one down the middle. Unfortunately, it seemed we were ALL being ushered down the same path through the aisles and the line quickly came to a grinding halt when the mass hit the first decent stand with food. And there we stood. And stood. And stood. I grabbed Mom's arm and we stepped out of line. One row back and there was no one. Absolutely no one at the stalls. Barren. Empty Unloved. So we started towards the back and decided to work our way forward. This worked for awhile until the line caught up with us or else there were more great minds in that mass than it originally appeared. But it was still almost working. As long as you didn't buck traffic and went in the same direction as the lemmings. As long as you could dodge plates of sticky concoctions. As long as you ignored the screaming children with sticky hands, the strollers getting under your feet, the monster Eddie Bauer baby carriages slamming into you, the elbows jabbing any unprotected body segment and just a plethora of rude, ugly, nasty, greedy people that acted like they hadn't eaten in three weeks. Yeah, works for me.

So we trudged past the stalls... bed n' breakfast, soda manufacturers, salad dressing makers, bridal consultants, (where's the chocolate?), bottled water, home party decor companies (uhh.. chocolate?), area restaurant (oh, look. here's... something. sugar & sawdust?), basket making company (to store my chocolate?), chiropractic center, local publisher, another restaurant (ok, I think I see some chocolate in this thing. nope,sugar & cardboard), local tech institute (oooh, they learn how to play with chocolate but they won't let me play with the chocolate *frownie face* but they gave me a piece of pretty chocolate *smilie face*), personal chef service (a cool whip refrigerator dessert. oh please), empty round table with chocolate stained table cloth (is that a cookie crumb?), another restaurant (did their chef make this or did they buy it at the club store?), a local warehouse club store (answers previous question), more restaurants (more sugar and filler), hotels (ooh. a miniature brownie, yum. how they cut them so little?), kitchen gadgets (fondue, yum yum), radio station, vintners (chocolate accessories?), non-profit kids orgnization (buy a cookie, mister?), and a health care services provider (never figured this one out, but they served a SLAMMING white chocolate caramel brownie to die for, and of course, I found them last and was already in sugar shock and their booth was being IGNORED. I was surrounded by Neanderthals.).

So I asked Mom if we should head over and see the cakes for the competition. She gave me this blank look. I asked again. Still blank. The jazz band stopped to grab a breath. She heard me say "cake" before they drowned out my words again and nodded, cause at least the word indicated a chance for chocolate and something pretty to look at.

Don't the entertainers realize they are BACKGROUND music for a function like this and they need to stay in the BACKGROUND? Now you've been told. No more excuses.

We squeezed our way over to the cake competition table. Got right in on the end. Looked over the "professional" cake categories.Oh, sorry. My misunderstanding. I thought they were professional cake decorators and bakers. So, what profession are you in real life? They were unbalanced, unimaginative, poorly constructed and unappetizing. I didn't even bother to taste them. There were four entries I think. In all of the Harrisburg/Hershey metro regions, with all of the hotels and restaurants that had booths there, four of you bothered to submit an entry? Maybe I should give them more credit for even submitting something. At least they tried. What's your excuse?

Reminders: chocolate doesn't only come in brown and strawberries aren't the only fruit you can eat with chocolate.

We took four steps around the corner to the student entries and waited for the line to proceed down the long table row. Waiting. Still Waiting. I looked down the row to see if we can step around the group of people next to me that seem entranced by a couple of the cakes in front of them and am stunned at the sea of people standing 4 to 6 deep in front of the table. There wasn't anyone there 2 minutes ago! And they are just standing. The time is 3:15pm. The cake cutting begins at 3:30pm. Hmmmm... In 15 minutes it becomes obvious to me that these people swamped the table and lined up in front of the cake they wanted. And just stood there. Waiting. Like cake vultures. Like these 4 story high, 12-14" round masses of chocolate and sugar were going to evaporate into nothingness at 3:30pm on the dot, and the vultures along with it if they didn't get a piece of THAT cake. Sadness. Make sure you look at the cake competition first if you actually want to see them.

We'd shimmied our way down the table about half way and then just gave up. I was able to see over some of the heads to get a look at the cakes before they decimated them (even though they thoughtfully took the cuts from the "backs" of the cakes first... nice slicing ladies. Truly grace under technological pressure). But Mom, bless her waist high heart, couldn't see a thing. And by that time, neither one of us cared any more.

I will say that the students cakes did show imagination and chutzpah, even if the technical skill wasn't there. Afterall, they were students and so they weren't supposed to be perfect. Whoever made that huge strawberry and chocolate tower sure was ambitious. There was some nice basket work. A cake/chocolate box that showed talent and patience. The pink (molding chocolate? it had absolutely no flavor) roses all over the one cake were beautifully executed. I swiped one for a sample. One thing that bothered me about ALL the cakes was that they looked so heavy, ungainly and cumbersome. Not just that they were large cakes, but they looked heavy handed. Heavy with icing. Heavy with decorations. Solid. Some even looked a bit frumpy. Not an unusual mistake for beginners. But I'm proud of every last one of you for giving it a shot. And there were dozens of you. Professionals take note.

Suggestions to the students and forgive me if this is obvious: Level your cakes before beginning construction. I know. It breaks my heart to cut away part of my cakes too, but when appearance counts, it's worth the sacrifice. If they are doming very high, your oven is too hot. Turn oven down and bake them longer, if needed. When doing a tiered cake, never do layers less than two inches in diameter difference and four inches is better. Bad tiering is one of the things that makes a cake look heavy, squat and ungainly. Proportion matters. Spice cake with chocolate peanut butter frosting was my Dad's favorite cake. Not everyone likes berries and chocolate.

Keystone Human Services is a good thing. I am not bashing that organization and their good works at all. But this wasn't a cheap event to go to. And it wasn't the first year. There were seven previous Chocolatefests to get these issues ironed out. Get some crowd control stancheons in the lobby. Have more than one pathing through the event. No, you can't help rude people. But you can create a setup that reduces their opportunity to be rude. You can ban strollers. You should ban strollers. You can ban babies, too for that matter, but no one ever agrees with me on that. They shouldn't be eating chocolate anyway. Any parent that takes a tiny baby to this event, should be beaten. Where were the chocolate treats? There were over 80 booths at this event. I had three, THREE decent chocolate treats and one was from a kitchen gadget home party outfit. Does anyone else find that pathetic? If this isn't a chocolate festival anymore, then change the name or don't advertise it as one. Your promotions are misleading. Your purpose may be to raise money, but people deserve something fun for their $20. The ONLY reason you're getting people at this thing is that the press still touts it as if it's fun to go to. It's BORING!!

If anyone asks me if this is worth going to, I'll give them a resounding "NO WAY!".