While I will continue to serve hot chocolate after dinner, this novel concoction is a fun, delicious riff on the original drink.

WSJ: Baked Hot Chocolate

You must first get through a communal candlelit dinner of quail and mountainy lamb and white chocolate souffle, washed down by enough wine to make the jugs of the Gods carouse.

FORBES: Salmon Or Cognac, The Temptations of An Idyllic Refuge in Connemara

My daughters and I managed to rouse ourselves one afternoon after skiing at Moonlight Basin to go to the spa and one night to take a Sno-Cat ride two miles into the back country in the dark for an excellent dinner (tenderloin and mashed potatoes followed by chocolate fondue) in a big, heated yurt, courtesy of Moonlight Dinners.

CNN: Taking the kids: On an old-fashioned Montana ski trip

This was probably for the best, since dinner the night before consisted of foie gras and a dessert called a chocolate volcano, which left Conor (my heir) looking like a painting by Jackson Pollock.

FORBES: How foie gras was my valley