Hello, Chicago. Hello, Candy.

Day one of the All-Candy Expo is down. After perhaps the most horrific hotel stay I've ever had, and a grand total of six hours of sleep over the past two nights combined, I was more than ready to walk around an enormous convention center, shmooze candy reps, and eat sugar for eight hours straight. BRING IT ON.

Over 400 candy companies are at the expo, which makes navigating the center an overwhelming task. This is a shot of the inside right after the doors opened, which explains why it's so open and lacking in ravenous freeloaders.

The smallest booths were about 10x10, while the largest were larger than most restaurants. The Hershey's "booth" had a full-on bakery inside, where they assembled made-to-order cupcakes, brownies, etc. Other booths had cars, chocolate fountains, stilt walkers and jugglers......and let's not forget the power of Elvis in candy promotion.Master Chocolatier Joseph Schmidt had one of the most visually striking displays. Here he is with a chocolate bowl:

Yes, these are all made out of chocolate. He makes them by blowing up a balloon, dipping the bottom in multi-colored chocolate, letting it harden, then popping the balloon. The tulips, from stems to blooms? Chocolate. The vases? Chocolate. The picture frames? Chocolate.
The leg on the left was labeled FRAGILE. That's Italian.

The take after one day. Wisely, I packed a duffel inside my suitcase to help cart all this loot home. I was so sick of sugar by lunchtime, I didn't really have any all afternoon at the convention, then I had a sensible dinner...and promptly came home and tore into it. Like a kid on Halloween, I tell you. My room's trash can has such an embarrassing number of candy wrappers, I'm considering taking it out myself so the maid won't see it and wonder at my gluttony. More updates to come!
P.S. to my Chicago peeps: many apologies for not calling, this trip is super short and overbooked...J & I will just have to come out and see y'all sometime soon!