Poking Chocolates: And Other Rude Habits (En Route to the Sweet Life) Paperback - 2015

Spiced with compelling anecdotes, Poking Chocolates tracks the author as she bumps into the rich, odd and famous in search of the sweet life.

With Stevie Wonder on the radio, Costa and I sang our way into Harvard Square, parked illegally and scoured bulletin boards looking for cheap housing. Unhampered by the drag of tradition, we were soaring helium balloons. Delighted to be free!

...After an inspiring eight months with me, the man who had shared my bed and life decided he was definitely gay. I'd always been a fierce champion of personal freedom, so why did I feel crushed?

Needing a diversion after Costa left, I met with a handful of writers that summer in the home of Anne Sexton, a Pulitzer-Prize winning poet. When I'd left home at seventeen, Princeton had been a stimulating pit stop, but it left me hungry. Not one of my college professors seemed to care about my enlightenment. Sexton was famous for a sexy brand of alchemy, digging deep for what was true and transforming her lousy love life into passionate poetry. Had I stumbled on an all-purpose mentor?

Heading out on a quest for she's-not-sure-what, the author leaves her Kennedy-esque life of easy privilege to find her own life. Whether slicing spam for Grandma Grunt on Martha's Vineyard or eating coddled eggs with Lady Chichester in London, whether tripping on MDA (the "love" drug) in her mother's garden or scrapping for justice in a courtroom... the cross-cultural puddle jumping lands her in dozens of unexpected territories, both ideological and geographical.

Funny and fast-paced, Cia's serendipitous tour leads to an encounter on a country road in England that upends her life.