There's a Chocolate Factory in the Basement.

Before I write about the chocolate factory, I want to update you on the strange Ecuadorian fruits Leslie and I have tried. Nellie told us that every time she goes to the market she is going to buy a fruit she thinks we've never heard of and serve it to us. Today it was pepino dulce, literally translated sweet cucumber. Apparently it's green before it's ripe and tastes more like a cucumber, but when it ripens it turns yellow and stains purple and tastes like a melon. You peel the skin and eat it like an apple.
So I know I've mentioned this at least once on this blog; there's a chocolate factory in the basement. I'm not sure what it's called, but it's about the size of the kitchen and they send 1,500 truffles to Guayaquil every month to be sent to the cruise ships on the Galapagos islands. The truffles are various shapes, mostly ovals with Galapagos animals on the top. Others are hearts, feet, stars and other assorted shapes. The molds were special-ordered and hand-made in Holland by somebody that Nellie knows. All the truffles are cream-filled and every variety of filling is put into every design of shell so unless you are pulling it from a particular case in the basement you have no idea what you're biting into. Some of the flavors are: almond, coconut, mint, orange, strawberry and others that I either can't remember or that are fruits for which we don't have a word in English. All the truffle shells are an incredibly creamy and smooth milk chocolate and all of the flavors are intentionally artificial so that nobody is allergic to any of them. You can never know what you're biting into, so it's better not to be allergic to any of the varieties.
There are two empleadas who work in the chocolate factory; one is Magalay who is only in there part-time and Leslie and I still don't know the other woman's name because she spends all day in the basement. She has braces. I've noticed that in Europe and I guess in Ecuador and possibly all of Latin America it is much more common for middle-aged women to get braces. I don't know if it's because employer all-of-a-sudden have dental, if braces are all-of-a-sudden affordable or what but it's a peculiar phenomenon. Anyways, the empleada that works all day in the factory spends each day doing just one part of the chocolate-making process. I don't remember what all the processes are, but I think they are made five days at a time. But yeah, one-and-a-half people make well over 1,500 chocolate truffles every month.
Now it's not well over 1,500 because I've been eating a bunch of them. Nellie keeps a small tray of 5-8 chocolates in the kitchen for entertaining guests and personal consumption (the leftover truffles of every variety after the flavors are counted off for shipping are put in a pan titled "consumo propio"), and every once in a while each of us eats one or two of them. Personally, I don't like any of the fillings. The chocolate itself is phenomenal, so I think I'm going to have the full-time chocolate empleada set aside some of the chocoalte shavings she cuts off of the molds before she fills the shells with the flavors. Either way, the chocolates are very good but I won't be eating very many of them.
Also, for those of you who read my blog and will have a chance to visit us here (my family, maybe a couple others), you should know that it isn't customary for the Colomas to show their guests the factory, so I most likely won't be allowed to show it to you. I will, however, be able to take flavor requests and bring the truffles into the kitchen to be eaten by us.