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Hurricane Sandy tempered November sales for retailers, but resultant damage, electric outages and gas shortages, could not overcome a subsequent burst of buying that included holiday purchasing at the end of the month.

Retailers lost days of business as their stores in the Northeast--the most populous part of the country-- were closed and saw little business in the days after as residents tried to recover from the storm's slam. But early reports Thursday from retailers indicate that while some felt Sandy's wrath, they still had a good month in general.

"It was a strange month," said Barbara Kahn, director of the Jay Baker Retailing Center at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School. "We had a difficult start to November, which dampened people's mood, but they appear to have more than compensated as the month progressed. This is demonstrated by the generally positive numbers we're seeing for the month."

Costco Wholesale Corp. (COST), which has a good amount of stores in the Northeast, but also has recovery supplies, posted a gain of 6% in U.S. sales minus gasoline. Analysts expected 4.8%. The retailer said its sales for the month were hurt by half a percent because of the storm.

Source: Fox Business

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The reason it’s getting lumpy is that you’ve burned the sugar in the chocolate. This can happen with any kind of chocolate.

As mentioned before, the double boiler method is pretty good, just be careful not to get any water into the chocolate as it will clump in a different but still unpleasant way. Be sure to keep the water underneath very low, not boiling.

The second way, as seen on Good Eats with Alton Brown, is to put the chocolate in a glass or other heatsafe bowl and put it on a heating pad. It will take a while to melt but will melt at such a low temperature it won’t lose its “temper” so it will still be shiny when it cools again if you’re dipping fruits for serving.

The third way is to do it in the microwave. But be very careful. Put it in for only 30 seconds at a time (use the defrost setting if you have it). Take it out, stir, then put it back in. Once it’s all melted it’s pretty easy to keep silky. But again, burning the sugar in the chocolate is exceptionally easy and there’s no way to rescue it once you’ve done that....

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How to write a message on chocolate?

I bought milk chocolate and I am going to melt it with a double boiler. I don’t have chocolate mold, but I have ice cube trays. I want to engrave letters to create a message on the chocolate cubes. Is there a way to go about this? I want the letters to be engraved like on Hershey’s chocolate bar. Thank you for your help!!!

I’m attempting to make a white chocolate bride with dress for favors at a bridal shower. The mannequin, is without the head, arms and legs, basically the torso, I can then dress up the chocolate once done...

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