Now’s the time for fresh olallieberries to eat out of hand, to make jam or to bake pies and cobblers.

But there’s another fab way to enjoy the sweet-tangy flavors of these plump berries.

Luis Moro Chocolate of Santa Cruz has a lovely new bonbon made with olallieberries that is out of this world.

Proprietor Luis Dinos Moro, who names his creations after favorite destinations around the world, has devised the “Santa Cruz,” a bonbon of dark chocolate ganache flavored with black currant with a olallieberry pate de fruit on the bottom. You bite into rich, creamy chocolate first, then hit the wiggly, fruit jelly on the bottom. It’s rich and zingy, with a lingering fruity finish.

The native Spaniard makes his chocolates in small batches. The “Santa Cruz” bonbon is part of a berry collection, which also includes “Landes” (dark chocolate with French raspberry liqueur); “Portland” (milk chocolate ganache infused with blackberries and clementines); and “Scandinavia” (elderberry).  A four-piece box is $10.

Winner of Monday’s Contest: In this quickie contest, I asked you to tell me about your most memorable time at a sporting event — either one in which you were an onlooker or a participant. Winner will receive three tickets to this Saturday’s Bay Area Barbecue Championship and Oakland A’s double-header, both at the Oakland Coliseum.

Congrats to:

Wayne, who wrote, “This requires elasticity in the term “sporting event”: Many years ago at a high school on the San Francisco Peninsula, an annual event was taking place–Senior Bow Day. On that day of horrors, any freshman unlucky enough to be caught by a senior at school was honor-bound to do the will of the upperclassman. Getting caught didn’t top most frosh To Do Lists.
On this particular Senior Bow Day, one very small but quick freshman prepared himself to get to his last class before lunch, Social Studies when he spotted one of the biggest men on campus, a real sports hero who lettered in football, baseball and put shot in track on the front stairs waiting to hook up with one of his jock buddies for an off-campus lunch.
Waiting for his chance, poised to go like a sprinter at the blocks, the skinny freshman was immobile, holding his breath until the senior stepped off the front stairs fully turning to look for his pal–then the underclassman took off like a scared rabbit.
You know where this is going–yeah, the senior’s genuine athleticism enabled him to see and snag the frantic freshman before he raced by. He lifted him by his collar then turned him upside down, suspending him by his jeans. before heading to a nearby deli—he turned the freshman upside down suspending him by his jeans and gently shook the 90-lb freshman until forty-three cents rattled to the stairs; the senior righted the freshman and said “Gimme.” The frosh picked up the change and handed it to the senior looking for approval to leave, got it and bolted.
The senior, whose sun-bleached hair was crew-cut, wearing his Block SM, dated (and later married) the head cheer leader at San Mateo High School—his name: Kris Kristofferson.
Guess who the skinny freshman was? Yup. Tis a true tale — about one kid’s thought of a sporting event was to sprint past a BMOC.”

Runners-up Prizes: While there weren’t a ton of entries for this contest, each was so wonderful that I wished all of them could have been won. So, in that spirit, I am awarding Food Gal readers, Gary, Gina and Kelly each a runner-up prize of a cookbook from my vast collection.  Enjoy!

More Olallieberry Fun: The Famous Duarte’s Pie