Well, the recipe I posted a link to seems to be lurking behind a paywall now so here is a link to the recipe at the Sun Sentinel. This past Sunday I was out shopping for some breakfasty type snackage and decided to wander over to the small appliances aisle to see what they might have that might be fun to play with. And leave it to Anderson's to have the ice cream maker I want.

So the ice cream maker came home with me and the freezer bowl went into the freezer to set up and I gathered my ingredients for making sorbet. I still had no Chambord (well, not enough) so I went with Grand Marnier instead as a compromise. The mixture comes out tasting heavily of the liqueur, but the taste slips into the background when it's properly set in the freezer. Aside from some texture issues it came out really nicely. It certainly tastes great.

Next recipe to make in the ice cream machine... Fresh Mint Chip ice cream a la David Lebovitz. The Man's got skills so I figure his recipe has to be a great one and I want to do fresh mint. So fresh mint should be happening sometime between now and Friday (dessert potluck thing at work or something so I need to bring something).

Cheers y'all!

Posted by William at 7:35 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Well, things have been... interesting. I'm working and this is good. As a result I've not been putting a lot of time into the blog. Again. And I've been eating lots of chocolate and baking and all sorts of fun stuff. I've just been busy with getting used to the new job and stuff and therefore not writing about the chocolate happenings. Tonight, however, I feel like posting so I'm going to go on a bit about what I've been up to.

First thing to address is the Weekend of Disastrous Chocolate (fully deserving of those capital letters). I was tasked with the creation of some decadent dessert for my brother's birthday. I tend to aim high and normally I hit my target close enough that things are all good. This time, well, I'm not exactly sure how it went. I decided that I would make something from my favorite cookbook, Alice Medrich's Cocolat. I decided to shoot for Chocolate Decadence - a torte with a name that summed up what I wanted to deliver. It sounded easy enough. And things seemed to go quite smoothly until I reached one point where things didn't feel quite right. I was folding my egg whites into the chocolate mixture and it just didn't seem to go well. I don't know if I over-whipped my egg whites, under-whipped them or possibly what I was folding them into was too hot. Or maybe I just had wrong expectations. It just didn't seem quite right so after the baking I set it aside as a failed experiment. One that tasted just lovely with a little raspberry sauce and whipped cream. Yes, I have odd standards.

So with one "failed" recipe behind me I decided to do something foolproof: brownies. Not the traditional cocoa brownies, but chocolate ones. So I reached for another Medrich cookbook, Bittersweet. I like the book because it has a great variety of recipes and has variations on some of them that are nice and easy to play with. I picked the version of the recipe I wanted to do and started flipping back and forth between the main recipe portion and the variant and got to work. I was certain I had everything right this time. Until I started looking into the oven to check on the progress that is. It really seemed to be sort of seething on top. Like it was over moist. The top looked almost like it was boiling. When I finally slipped the brownie slab out of it's pan the parchment in the bottom of the pan was stuck to the pan by an enormitude of liquid butter. The main recipe called for about twice the butter that the variant did. So my replacement dessert was just a wee bit over-buttery. Rich as all get out and not too bad tasting at all, but not what I was shooting for. Brownies should not leave you with greasy fingers.

So I turned to the cupboard to see if I had any bulk chocolate left. I had some old old old baking chocolate of dubious quality left and that was it. And I needed to get baking immediately. So I made another batch of brownies, this time with the right amount of butter. In fact it had the right amount of everything if you ignore the fact that the chocolate was old and sub-par. And in spite of the shortcomings of the chocolate itself the brownies turned out really pretty tasty. Finally I had a dessert I was reasonably happy with. At least happy enough to serve.

So to recap: it took me three tries to get to a dessert I felt confident serving. I should have just served the torte I made in the first place. It was tasty and people kept picking at it at the party. Not my best work, but I should have had a little more confidence in it. Oh, well. Live and learn.

Moving on, I've not eaten a whole lot of interesting chocolate of late, but I did pick up some Ghirardelli Dark Chocolate with Caramel squares to take into the office. I like to keep a candy bowl at work for the community at large. It's my little way of trying to help others through the day. It's all about sharing the power of chocolate. Anyway, they're really pretty darn tasty. Not the cheapest of chocolates, but not outrageously priced given the quality. And it's a bit better than the Snickers and Milky Way Midnight I like to stock the bowl with. Not that I plan on switching over to them instead of the cheaper fare or anything, but they make make an appearance in the bowl from time to time.

The other little item I've been picking up at the store is Coconut M&M's - yes, they're back! I've been running into them in stores again and I quite like to have them available to me once more. Well, available to me without me having to hit my big zipper bag of them that I've been slowly snacking on since last year when they first made the scene. They make me happy. Next to the Peanut variety these are my favorite M&M's.

Finally, for some odd reason I really felt the need for a mug of hot chocolate the other night. And if there is one thing I have a lot of it's hot chocolate. There are literally more than a dozen hot chocolate options in my cupboard - I kid you not. I decided to go for the good stuff and reached for my canister of Jacques Torres Wicked Hot Chocolate. I used a bit more milk than the instructions call for, but it was still awesome tasty. An odd choice for a really hot summer day, but it's what I craved.

So that's a bit of what's been going on in my little world o' chocolate. Not sure if or when things will get back to normal around the blog, but normalcy if overrated.

Cheers!

Posted by William at 8:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

I've gotta say, I've been pretty happy during this whole job search thing. I've been eating healthier and exercising more and have generally been really pretty happy and positive. One thing that has helped is chocolate. I've got rather a lot of chocolate lurking about my home - some of it candy some if it high quality bar chocolate - and I've been going back to my reserves and my experimental chocolate cellar for treats on a regular basis (tonight is Amedei Porcelana). I'll admit chocolate has been something of a nightly ritual for me, but I've always been picking up a lot of extra chocolate along the way. This last couple of months has been different in that I've only bought a couple of things (a few Godiva truffles, Pretzel M&M's and a Raspberry Zzang! bar). I will be reviewing these last two at some point soon, but things have been really pretty busy the last few weeks so I've been a trifle distracted from the blog yet again. I do think that things are settling down a little, though, and plan to get up a review of those darn M&M's this week and hopefully get to the Zzang! (with the obligatory exclamation point) next weekend. I don't think there are enough World Cup games to distract me from posting them.

But back to the original point regarding the whole nightly chocolate ritual. I found myself lucky enough to have a lot of excellent chocolate around so my desire to not spend money on unnecessary items (like chocolate) didn't end up leaving me dying for a good fix. I haven't had to go without and if I had to I could probably go a year or more on what I've got on hand. And after a long day of the this that and the other of job searching a little chocolate goes a long way toward making everything good. It hits my tongue and starts to melt and as it does so does any lingering stress. I've got to say that it's been no small help in keeping me happy. It's the little things that make life livable and a tiny bit of chocolate each night works wonders for me. And it's my obsessive chocolate searching that built up the amazing stash that sustains me.

So hurray for hoarding!

Posted by William at 6:54 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Summer is just under a month away and it's time to gear up for all the great tastes of the season. And what taste screams summer more than ice cream? Seriously. Since I was old enough to chase the ice cream man summer and ice cream have gone hand in hand. And to get into the spirit of the season Godiva has brought back their Ice Cream Parlor Truffles. They've even stepped up their summertime swing with new flavors. This year they're introducing Double Dark Chocolate, Pistachio, Lemon Sherbet, and Rocky Road. These are in addition to the existing flavors of Mint Chocolate Chip, Neapolitan, Hazelnut Gelato, Oranges and Crème, and Pecan Caramel Sundae. That's a pretty tasty sounding lineup. I was lucky enough to be sent a sampler of the new flavors in what is some of the coolest packaging I've seen in some time.

You see, they have these great little lidded cups that look like pint ice cream containers - awesome way to work with the theme, no? You can get pre-made pints or get a custom pint made at a boutique. Even cooler, if you do happen go to a Godiva boutique you can get an Ice Cream Truffle Cone - yep, they give the truffle a little dip and stick it in a mini-cone. And if that isn't already enough summertime fun they also have these cute Milk Chocolate Popsicle Lollipops. They look - surprise! - like a popsicle and are available in orange, green and brown tied with a pink satin ribbon. And that's still not all. They've gone whole hog on the ice cream with Ice Cream Parlor Truffle Bars! These are available in Oranges & Cream, Mint Chocolate Chip, Hazelnut Gelato and Vanilla Sundae. So if a single truffle isn't enough to satisfy your ice cream urge, they've got you covered. They've even stepped up availability by making the classic flavors available at department stores and online where last year they were boutique only. The new flavors are only available at Godiva boutiqes, though. But it may be worth it to go to an actual Godiva store so you can try those cool little mini-cones and get a custom packed pint container with your choice of flavors, old or new.

Love the theme and the killer packaging, but it's the taste that's important, right? Well, they've done some pretty impressive work on some of these. The Double Dark Chocolate is great - dark on dark is a sure winner in my book and this delivers. The Lemon Sherbet is nice and lemony, but I don't know that I've got any basis for comparison - I've had lots of orange and lime sherbet, but I don't know if I've ever had lemon. It's not my favorite, but it's still good. The rocky road is really nice and hits close to the mark of the classic ice cream flavor with a nice hit of marshmallowy vanilla along with the nuts and chocolate. And then there's Pistachio. I'm not sure how I managed to avoid the flavor for so long, but once I started on it I've been unable to stop and I love the combination of Pistachio and white chocolate. And that's what we've got here and it's really tasty.

As for the "old" flavors, well, I couldn't settle for just trying the new flavors, could I? So I nipped off to the mall and grabbed some of the classics to taste test. I haven't tried them all just yet, but the ones I have are some seriously good stuff. The Neapolitan is a home run - I just had Breyer's Strawberry Ice Cream on Saturday and the strawberry in the Neapolitan Truffle is close to a dead ringer for that natural strawberry ice cream flavor. Paired with some vanilla and all wrapped up in chocolate it really nails the flavor combination well. And good golly gosh the Mint Chocolate Chip.... dead on perfect and totally to die for. They are so wrong they're right. Gooshy, minty and chocolaty – they are a thing of beauty. Oh, and the Oranges and Crème matches up to a Orange Creamsicle pretty darn well, too. Then there is the Pecan Caramel Sundae. After the other truffles turned out to be so solid I had some pretty high expectations for this one. Luckily it lived up to expectations with some lovely gooey caramel and vanilla sections – with nuts even! Absolutely awesome.

So how do they all rate? I’d say they run from a low of 7 out of 10 for the Lemon Sherbet up to a good strong 9.25 out of 10 for the Mint Chocolate Chip and Pecan Caramel Sundae. Overall I’d probably drop an 8.5 for the whole line. Very tasty stuff and a fun change of pace. The prices aren’t terrible for Godiva either. A four-truffle pint will run you $10 and a three pint pack with Neapolitan, Mint Chocolate Chip and Pecan Caramel Sundae will run just $25 (they call it an Ice Cream Social – hee hee). And the cones will only set you back $3, the lollipops are $6 and it's only $2.95 for one of the Ice Cream Parlor Truffle Bars. It may be more economical to go with per pound pricing for your truffles, though. I love the packaging and all, but I tend to go that route because I don’t see a whole lot of reason to waste a box on chocolate that is just for me and my friends. But do what makes you happy. Just do it fast, because they're only here for a limited time!

Posted by William at 7:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Häagen-Dazs is celebrating their birthday and they want you to come out and celebrate with them. On Tuesday, May 18th, 2010 they're giving free scoops of their classic flavors (vanilla, chocolate and coffee) "at participating locations" between 4pm and 8pm. I do love the Häagen-Dazs and I do so love free chocolate so I'll be heading over to the mall next Tuesday in hopes that my local H-D will be participating. There's a little search thing on their site to find the store nearest you. Hopefully there's one near enough that you can take advantage.

Hmm... I wonder what flavor I'll be getting. Heh.

Posted by William at 8:05 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

It's once again been a long while since I last posted. The long and short of it is that the last two years have carried a lot of job-related stress that left me having little desire to do anything when I got home from work. So I would come home, take care of the rabbit, eat chocolate and vegetate.

Recently things were looking up and I was feeling a bit more positive and confident with regards to the future and was getting geared up to start posting again. And then I get informed that my position has been eliminated. Lovely.

So now I find myself between jobs with spare time on my hands (I can't focus on the job hunt ten hours a day - I'd go insane) and a wealth of chocolate all around me. And oh how that chocolate helps matters. I'm a bundle of stress and anxiety right now, but a tiny piece of chocolate can just dissolve the stress and improve my mood and outlook. I think the important thing will be keeping it down to eating just a tiny piece of chocolate. I don't want to start gorging myself on chocolate in the name of stress relief. It's all down to the thing I've been saying for years - you get every bit as much flavor and joy from a small bite of chocolate as you do from a big one.

So, as I deal with the stress of job-hunting (something I've never really had to do) I'm going to be nibbling on some chocolate and once again sharing my thoughts. It'll be a nice way to break up the day.

Cheers!

Posted by William at 11:49 AM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

Felt I should come out of hiding to wish everybody a happy holiday, whatever they may be celebrating (or just finished celebrating). Nobody should be terribly surprised that I'm celebrating with a little fine chocolate. Anyway, hope everybody had/has a good holiday and some good chocolate along the way!

Posted by William at 6:52 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

Well. It seems that I've started eating chocolate again. Not sure what flipped the switch, but I've tried a half dozen different things these last two weeks and it's nice.

The first thing I have to address is that the Coconut M&M's that I love so much have finally found their way to stores in Columbus (at least the stores I go to). Even better than their general availability is that they are every bit as good as I remember them being. Very lovely. I even got some more people to try them and they were very positive about them as well. I'm not sure how many bags I'm going to stockpile, but given it's Limited Edition nature I think I had better get some to slowly devour over an extended period of time. I'm digging these way more than I was digging the Dark Chocolate Peanut M&M's back in their Limited Edition days (I remember them as much better than they seem to be when I eat them now - so sad) so I want to make sure I have some to hold onto until they wise up and release these as a normal product (fingers crossed and all that).

But that's not the only thing I've run across in the stores lately, oh no. I found Dark Chocolate Reese's Peanut Butter Cups! I've been eager to get a big fat batch of them to try and was pleased to grab a bag at the store today when I was picking up my lunch. The short version is that there is something there that reminds me of something else and I don't know what. Until I get that weird deja vu taken care of I'm not in love. I really do love the original because I like the balance between the chocolate and the grainy peanut butter (not too sweet - the magic trick to working with peanut butter and chocolate). The peanut butter is the same, of course, but the chocolate is ringing a bell somewhere in my mind and as it's really cluttered in there it sometimes takes a bit to zero in on things.

I've been getting a little chocolate action with my beer lately, as well. I've decided that my favorite style of beer is the Impreial Stout and it's one of those styles of beer that have some lovely stray flavors going on. They quite often have a nice bit of chocolate and coffee as part of the natural flavor makeup and a number of them go that extra step and slip a little (or a lot) of chocolate into the mix. There have been a great number of chocolate stouts released in the past year and I've been enjoying the heck out of them. As one who loves stouts in the first place adding some extra chocolate to the mix just makes me a ridiculously happy camper. My most recent chocolate beer was a Chocolate Cherry Porter that they were serving up this past Friday at Barley's Smokehouse, my local favorite for beer and one of my top picks for BBQ as well. They gain bonus points in my book for recently having had Southern Tier Mokah on tap (so good).

What else? I know I've been eating chocolate like it's going out of style. Oh, yes. Amano. I was lucky enough to have a box of chocolaty love show up on my porch with a nice mix of the Limited Edition (oh, dear, am I going to capitalize that phrase all the time?) Montanya bar and a pair of milk chocolate bars of the Jembrana and Ocumare varieties. I've only taken one hit of the Montanya so far and I don't remember what my impressions were, but the milk chocolate bars? Well, I generally avoid milk chocolate because I've been exposed to so much bad milk chocolate, but this, I must say, is not in that category. These are some fabulously tasty bars. I've yet to sit down and think about them overly much, I've really just been happily chewing away at them. They are some darn fine stuff and a great addition to their line of bars. If they don't disappear before I manage to actually collect my thoughts on them I will try to do a review.

I've also been snacking a little on my Amedei stash. So far I'm prepared to state that I love all of the goodies I've got (Toscano Black, 9, and Porcelana). Beyond that I've got to say that while Porcelana is really exceptional and everything, but I prefer 9 to it and to their Chuao as well. Of course between the three you really are dealing with some of the best bars of chocolate in the world so it's all just degrees of awesome. I would like to do a review, but I want to do a full roundup of the three big dogs and I only have two right now so that will have to wait.

And speaking of awesome world-class chocolate I've been gnawing away at a couple of bars from Michel Cluizel. I may not be able to go to the amazing little store they had in New York any more (and my soul cries in agony at the loss), but I can still enjoy a bar of their chocolate. The bars I've been snacking on are the Hacienda Los Ancones and Vila Gracienda and they are both really excellent. I'm particularly in love with the Los Ancones. With the way I'm eating them (irresponsibly given the cost - they ain't cheap) I figure I should probably post a review at some point.

So that's what's going on in my little world o' chocolate. I'm eating chocolate again and am enjoying a nice variety of stuff ranging from candy to the finest bars of chocolate in the world. I'm still working on my thoughts on chocolate and wine and once I have that put together I want to take a look at what's going on in the chocolate world (like that low calorie non-melting Vulcano that Callebaut has in the works). And I hope to throw a review or three up as I go.

Posted by William at 7:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (9) | TrackBacks (0)

Heading into All Candy Expo I had already been looking for the M&M’s Mars limited edition products from their cross-promotion with the new Transformers movie, but while I was there I only managed to lay my hands on one of the two products. I came home with a bag of the Strawberried Peanut Butter M&M’s, but I hadn’t seen any hint of the Snickers Nougabot bar. It wasn’t long after the show that I found the M&M’s locally, but I was still having little luck finding the Snickers. The week before the movie came out there were bags of mini bars at the Kroger’s near work, but still no singles that I could find. Then, finally, the Monday after the movie was released I found a bounty of singles in the promo aisle. One went into my bag and came home with me. My curiosity would allow no less.

And what was there to be curious about? Well, the Snickers Nougabot isn’t quite the experiment that the Strawberried M&M’s are. It’s essentially a Snickers bar with the nougat colored to try and match the Autobot Bumblebee and some Transformers graphics on the wrapper. Not the most creative of limited editions, but I’ve seen worse so I’m not going to go off slagging it for not trying. But my mind just wasn’t liking the idea and was conjuring images of day-glow nougat that left me feeling more worried and less excited. Sadly, that’s just how my mind works. But whatever troubling thoughts I might have I was willing to let it go until I got to try the bar for myself before passing judgment.

So, now that I’ve tried it, just what is the official verdict? Well, it tastes just like a normal Snickers bar. I’ll be happy to give it that much. But the horrible visions of scary bright yellow nougat that haunted me? I hacked the bar in two with a knife so I could get a nice clean cut and a good look at the nougat. I found my fears well founded.

Now excuse me while I close my eyes and pretend I'm eating a normal non-yellow Snickers.

Posted by William at 6:46 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

Well, it's summer again and my tastes are wandering far afield from the chocolate that tends to hold their attention. As the days grow longer and hotter my mind turns to assorted other flavors like pistachio, apple, cherry, and citrus-y stuff. Last weekend I had a blondie and an apple marzipan square from the Suisse Shop and some Pistachio with Honey ice cream from Jeni's Splendid Ice Creams (also tried their Kona Stout which is very tasty and right up my alley), but, aside from a tiny piece Friday night, no chocolate. This weekend I had a little chocolate birthday cake (from Resch's Bakery - a Columbus classic) and a bit of Black Raspberry Chip ice cream from Graeter’s, but neither of those really count. In general I'm roving far afield as a restless need for distraction from the anxiety of the day-to-day takes over. I think I have been for a while now. I've got a bucketful of anxiety going on and I want to occupy my time and mind with something diverting and distracting (or entertaining and engaging). With so much anxiety tied up in everyday life I send my mind and taste buds off on little excursions and expeditions by expanding my interests into wine and craft beer. And, of course I try and spin that into pairings with chocolate (largely successful with beer and enormously unsuccessful with wine so far – more on that soon). I'm cooking a lot more as well and having fun taking recipes for things I want to eat and stripping as much sodium from them as possible. I've started cooking different foods than I've ever tried and it's a great deal of fun. I do so love experimenting in the kitchen. On top of the general kitchen tinkering I'm thinking that I'm going to go out to a couple of the you-pick farms in the area and buy a bunch of stuff and try canning. I figure that since I can't grow my own (due to the condo and an amazing ability to kill plants which has somehow not managed to claim my flowers this year) the next best bet is to buy a bushel of fresh stuff from somebody else's field and reducing it into other stuff. I'm really wanting to make my own spaghetti sauce, salsa and hot sauce but will be happy to stray into fruit preserves and jams and stuff. Just for fun. It's something new and different (ooh, broke pattern there - how about new and nifty or delightful and different) and probably a lot cheaper than actually traveling somewhere (which is what I'd like to do). It's a diverting distraction or something.

But the general gist is that chocolate is getting ignored somewhat in favor of other stuff. I hate to say that I'm bored with chocolate, but I can say I'm bored and frustrated with a lot of things lately. Can't seem to find any movies that can catch my attention successfully (I am hopeful about one movie, though). No new or recent games have me too very interested (in fact I've gone back to Final Fantasy VII since I can now play it on the PSP - much yay). I'm having trouble finding books that I want to read (or rather I don’t feel like reading any of the books I want to read) and every time I try to write anything I either hate the voice I'm writing in or I'm writing something less familiar and utterly unplotted and, thus, frustrating. And chocolate is largely an afterthought.

So I’m sort of wandering as summer and stress take over. I’ve got some things going on chocolate-wise, but summer is difficult for me because I can’t order things without paying out the nose for quick shipping and dry ice. And I just feel like having something different. So I’ve got some more thoughtful things I’m working on as opposed to stuffing my face with chocolate and talking about it (like normal). So there is stuff in the works and there is at least one sort of non-review going up tomorrow. I’m just a little distracted from chocolate of late.

Posted by William at 9:05 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

I've been toying with a few things of late, trying to find something worth writing about. And I've found things worth writing about, but I just don't know what the heck to say about them. One of those items that I should probably talk about is the Americanized Fling Chocolate. But what to say? I can go on about the ill-conceived marketing campaign, but I don't want to go there. My opinion of it would drag my little blog places I just don't want to take it. I'd rather focus on the candy, no matter what the marketing is like. I've only got the milk chocolate variety (apparently there are dark chocolate and hazelnut as well) so that's what I'm going to hit tonight. And, since I totally forgot when first posting this, I should say that I got it for free at the All Candy Expo.

And, you know, I like to focus on packaging because it catches the eye and builds some anticipation for what's to come and all that, but this is just a bit pink for my taste. But that's all part of the master plan (whatever the heck it might be) of the Mars marketing people. Inside you get two fingers (real industry term) of Fling which have a truffle layer on top of a crispy meringue style crunch layer all wrapped in "shimmering" chocolate. And they mean that shimmering thing quite literally. The pink on the package carries over to the bar with pink sparklies all over the thing. On the top of the bar it's subtle and you almost have to look for it. On the bottom it's super pink sparkle town or something. I had to start searching the web to make sure it was supposed to look like that and was safe to eat. I've seen similar, but this was a weird shimmery thing and it kind of worried me. From what I could find it's safe to eat so I took a bite. The crunch is nice, but not entirely what I had been expecting not knowing it was a meringue thing going on. But it's got a nice milky milk chocolate thing going on with a nice crunch and a nice bit of malt as well. It's not a bad combo. I'm not a fan of a whole ton of malt in my chocolate, but this gives enough to enjoy and is balanced by the milk chocolate. Overall it's a nice combo, but I'm not in love with the texture of the crunch. But that's just me being picky.

So we've got a decent crunch, a little malt, and some decent milk chocolate. It works well together so I'm going to give it a 7.75 out of 10. It's good, but not something I'll be going back for a whole lot. I don't care how pink and girly they want their product to be (I'm not about to turn my nose up at chocolate just because it's targeted toward women), I just want a different crunch in my chocolate. Same reason I don't do Twix - I don't dig the cookie in my chocolate and with Fling I just don't dig the meringue. But even if it ain't my cup of tea it still delivers some decent taste and crunch.

Posted by William at 7:49 PM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)

Going into All Candy Expo I already knew about the Strawberried Peanut Butter M&M's and was hoping to get my hands on them there. It took all of one minute of the opening session to shift my focus away from them and firmly onto the Coconut M&M's that they announced (coming later this summer - got mine in the swag bag at the Mars press conference). I'm a fan of coconut and love the texture (and miss the heck out of the Bounty bar). During a stop at the Mars booth I asked about them what they were like and the frightening answer was that they had no coconut texture. Just smooth milk chocolate and the characteristic candy crunch. So I was left to wonder: without the texture I love would I still dig the coconut action?

In a word YES! This could have ended up being a distressingly short review because I just want to say how much I love them, but we're going to go ahead and try and focus in and say something constructive about them. The basic idea is a slightly larger than normal M&M with dose of coconut flavor. Simple enough, right? And the concept is exactly what they delivered. It's an M&M chock full of great coconut flavor. And the really weird thing is this - it is dead on perfect coconut flavor with no nasty aftertaste, but nowhere in the ingredients do you find anything even close to coconut, not even natural flavor! They have a perfect artificial coconut flavor going on here! I was forced to share them around the office to make sure that I wasn't imagining things and everybody confirmed it. It tastes real. More than that, everybody liked them. People who hate the texture of coconut found them great. People who normally don't like coconut liked them (wha?). People who love the texture and taste of coconut like I do also loved them. It's a great implementation of a simple idea.

So, how great are they? Well, I'm tempted to give them a 10 just because I love the heck out of them. I consider Peanut M&M's a 9 and I like these better! So I'm going to give it a big ol' 9.5 out of 10 and call it nearly perfect. Why isn't it perfect? Because it's a limited edition. How unfair of me is that? I'm terrible. Anyway, I'm hoping that people love this is much as it deserves and it gets granted a position in the normal lineup. As far as I'm concerned this is a true winner. And all the people I've asked agree with me. Whether it is eventually adopted full-time or not, I have to give it to Mars. Bravo, people. Bravo.

Posted by William at 7:09 PM | Permalink | Comments (43) | TrackBacks (0)

I love to hunt for candy. Love to. I've been to more than a dozen places looking for the M&M's and Snickers limited edition Transformers tie-ins and after weeks of searching I have finally found the Strawberried Peanut Butter M&M's in a store. Of course I got some at the All Candy Expo a couple of weeks back, but after all of the searching I had to keep trying to find it in store. It was a point of pride or some such stupidity. Not to mention as I look for it I'm also looking for the Snickers Nougabot which I still have not found anywhere. But frustrations aside, tonight I'm going to address the M&M's.

I have to admit that when I first read about the Strawberried Peanut Butter M&M's my immediate reaction was a little confusion and horror. Strawberry and Peanut Butter? Seriously? It took a moment for it to click in my mind - it's peanut butter and jelly! I felt kind of stupid after that, but most people I've presented it to have the same mental block so I'm not the only person who can't see the obvious. Confusion aside, lets take a look at what we've got here. It's a peanut butter M&M with a hit of strawberry flavor to go along with the chocolate and peanut butter (yeah, I sort of failed to even mention the chocolate originally - oops!). It's a simple enough concept so it all comes down to execution and this is where it shines. I expected the peanut butter to taste like peanut butter, but wasn't sure what the strawberry would taste like. Strangely, it tastes like strawberry! With the odd exception the flavor is more peanut butter than strawberry and I'm really wanting just a little more strawberry than I'm getting, but the flavors are good and go well together. It tastes good.

So while it's a flavor combination I really didn't see coming, it's one that works on a very traditional level and one that they pull off very well. It isn't the ideal balance of flavors in my eyes, but I'm really one of those people who likes a little peanut butter with their jelly so I can forgive them. At the end of the day it's still good and different and a fun limited edition and as such I'm going to give it an 8 out of 10. I was pleasantly surprised by this one. Get 'em while you can or hit the bargain stores in a few months or look for it back in stores when the DVD hits.

Posted by William at 8:06 PM | Permalink | Comments (10) | TrackBacks (0)

I've been at a total loss as to where to begin with the pile of goodies I've brought back from the All Candy Expo. There is such a wealth of chocolates that it's hard to pick any single one. So I tossed a few different ones into my bag to take to work with me. When I needed a snack I would pick one of them and run with it. The winner today was Nestlé Cranberry Raisinets. The classic Raisinets remixed with the mighty cranberry instead of the humble raisin. I saw a number of cranberry products on the floor, but this is the only one with the power of the Raisinets brand behind it. I like cranberries so I was excited to give them a try.

The Cranberry Raisinets I have come in a 100 calorie pouch, which is nice for those who want to watch the caloric intake. Opening the pouch it feels like it isn't all that much. The individual pieces are pretty big, but there aren't a whole ton of them (one of the drawbacks of the 100 calorie pouch in general is that you sometimes feel shorted and want more which may lead to opening a second pouch to fill the craving). So how do the little cran bombs taste? The chocolate is nothing remarkable - decent, but it seems a sideshow to the cranberries which take over on the taste front pretty quickly. As soon as the cran flavor kicked in I had to reach for the bag to check the ingredients. I know cran and it's tart. I was hoping for some mouth-twisting tartness (the old sour candy junky in me as well as somebody who actually likes unsweetened cranberries) and what I found was a pleasant sweet tartness. So they've done the standard "make cranberry palatable for the average consumer" move of sweetening it. Well, as much as I do love the sour and tart flavor of a cranberry the sweetened cranberries are quite tasty and will certainly be more to the tastes of most people than unsweetened ones might be. So they deliver a little chocolate and a nice bit of cranberry in a reasonable serving size. I may be crazy, but that seems to be just what they were aiming for.

It's a decent new product in my opinion, but it's lacking a little something at the same time. It's one of those things where I quickly forgot the chocolate. It's like it wasn't able to stand up to the cranberries. But that might just be me and it's not like I didn't like them either. I'm giving it a 7.5 out of 10 - they're good, have some lovely health benefits via the cranberry (albeit with a dose of sat fat along for the ride), but they do have some room for improvement. Quibbles aside, they're good and tasty and I like them enough that I'll give them another shot down the road. Right now I'm a trifle overwhelmed candy-wise.

Coming Up: All Candy Expo: The Good, The Bad And The Ugly. It's sort of a jumble of observations and mistakes made and lessons learned. The idea of a whole huge narrative of my time at the show just started feeling boring on the quick so I'm going to go for the Reader's Digest condensed version.

Posted by William at 7:32 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

I've been doing some family stuff, but as time allowed I was working on taking pictures of everything and getting a post built. This is sort of a visual inventory of what came home from the All Candy Expo with me. It is missing a couple of items, but has pretty good coverage. Note that there are a lot of places I want to address at some point that did not send me home with samples. A lot of places were handing out unwrapped bits of stuff and I wasn't going to go littering my bag with a giant mass of unwrapped candy - that'd be all messy. The whole affair lurks after the cut.

Continue reading "All Candy Expo: Inventory" »

Posted by William at 11:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (6) | TrackBacks (0)

After the rush of the first day of the All Candy Expo I decided to kick things down a gear for the second day. My feet and shoulders were killing me so I really wanted to take things easier. And with my press bag emptied out it was a lot easier. There was a lot of candy in that thing and I had pushed along at a good clip on day one to make sure I got in at least one full pass of the show floor in addition to the four sessions I attended. Day two was for filling in the blanks. And it seemed to be a good time to do so. I don’t know if I was just used to the madness by then, but things seemed a little slower on Wednesday. Given the leisurely pace I was setting and the feeling that things in general were going slower (possibly an illusion since I had slowed down) I took some time to stop and talk to people I had skipped by the day before for one reason or another and had some nice conversations with a number of the exhibitors. As the day wore on I found my curiosity slipping from chocolate into my old loves of sour candies and meat snacks. That was when I knew I should pack it in. I was there for the chocolate and it would be rude to leave with one suitcase stuffed with chocolate and another stuffed with jerky and sour bombs. But people were so nice about it. Even when I told people I was reporting on chocolate and felt they should save their samples for people who would potentially be selling for them they were still happy to offer my some mammoth meat log or the newest candy on the block. People were very friendly and I only felt an attitude from a couple of booths which was nice. It really was a fun time and it had a fun atmosphere.

You will notice that this post is very short on details. This is intentional. I have a lot of stuff to sort and try and I’m going to break things up into a series of posts. The first will be a sort of general inventory of what I’ve got in hand. There will be a few posts dedicated to a number of items that will get full reviews at this time. The new varieties of M&M’s will get their own post for certain as will the Snickers Fudge bar. A number of items will get a little paragraph of detail since I only have a few moments conversation and a small sample to go on, but a lot of these items will later be brought back in for full reviews. And somewhere in there I’m going to do a general trip report with my thoughts on the show, the direction, what I loved, what was irritating, lessons learned (like don’t leave your business cards in your suitcase) and what I might do different if I go back next year. So I have a lot of stuff I want to write about and there is going to be a disgusting amount of candy consumed over the next few days. Luckily it’s a long weekend so I’ll have some time to address it all (I should have taken the entire week off so I could handle it all at a leisurely pace, but that’s really something to be shoved off to the “lessons learned” post).

So, to cap this bloated post of generalities, I had a great time, learned a lot, tried some great chocolates, brought home some great chocolates, met some cool people and came out with a better understanding of how to make the most of the show.

Posted by William at 7:57 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

I'm not going to do real posts about the All Candy Expo until I get home and get some of my stuff sorted. I can't even begin to figure out what to talk about at this point so I'll just throw some of the neat bits.

• Coconut M&M's in the Mars swag bag!
• Strawberried Peanut Butter M&M's in the Mars swag bag!
• Snickers Fudge Bars in the press room!
• Chuao chocolate and beer tasting! Stone beer!
• Cranberry Raisinets!
• Talking to some of the people behind some cool products
• Dark Chocolate M&M's Premiums
• Tasty chocolate from Liberty Orchards (details forthcoming)
• Conversation with Brightspot and Pure Origin (who i'm excited to learn more about)
• Flax SuperSnax (yum!)
• Hanging out and chatting with Cathy from CocoBon (locally sourced ingredients = win)
• Dark Chocolate With Espresso Toffee from Cary's of Oregon
• Jitterbeans (they scare me)
• Fried chicken and waffles with my sister

Posted by William at 9:56 PM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)

Once a year the candy industry descends upon Chicago for the All Candy Expo. It's the "largest confectionary, cookie and snack show in the Americas" and it's a pretty big deal. It is the king of candy trade shows and each year I sit back and live vicariously through the power of the interwebs and wish I could be there.

Well not this year!

I am not going to sit back and dream of all the wonderful candy just a few hundred miles away. I simply refuse to. Anyway, I'll be too busy attending the All Candy Expo instead. Yay for me! There's only like a billion and a half exhibitors (over 450) and I'm quite excited to see what all neat new stuff is coming down the pipe (and of course report my findings). No sitting on the sidelines for me this year. I get to get out and in the thick of it all.

There is one drawback, though. Got an email today. It contained the following terrible phrase:

The dress code for all Expo activities is business attire.

"Bah!" and "Boo!" say I. I was planning on wearing a jacket, but I don't like wearing ties. They're really uncomfortable. But not cost is too high for candy.

So, the pain of horrible ties aside, I will be happily flying off to Chicago and checking out all of the fun myself this time around.

Um.... whee!

Posted by William at 9:05 PM | Permalink | Comments (5) | TrackBacks (0)

Economy got you down? Looking for a little relief? How about some free chocolate? Sound good? Well Mars has got your hookup. They have instituted their Real Chocolate Relief Act. What the heck is that you ask? Well, it's this thing where through the end of September they're giving away 250,000 "single-sized packages" of chocolate every Friday. If you visit the Real Chocolate site at 9:00am EST (6:00am PST) on Friday you can try to get your hands on one of them. They get passed out on a first-come-first-served basis so the earlier you try the better. The only catch is they mail you the coupon (well, you also can't win more than once per Friday and no more than four weeks in the period and it says to allow approximately six weeks to get your coupon). But we all know what they say about gift horses right? Oh, and you're not supposed to look them in the mouth, either.

So forget the economic mess and get your free choccie on!

**UPDATE**
It would appear that there was some underestimation of the fervor for free chocolate. I hit them at 9:03am EST and their site was down. I suppose millions of people wanting free chocolate is a lot to expect your servers to handle. Ah, they'll get it back together and I'll bet next week they'll be ready for the crush. We've got many weeks left to try for our freebies.

Happy Friday anyway!

**UPDATE 2**
Hey, I just checked and it's working now! Yay for free chocolate! All indications are that I actually got there in time to get my a coupon. So if you were frustrated with the non-functioning status of the site this morning things seem better now. Or, if it ends up being too late there's always next Friday - and a whole slew of Fridays after that.

Posted by William at 10:02 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

I’m an Amano fan and the reason is simple: Art Pollard makes good chocolate. And when I say he “makes” good chocolate I do mean exactly that. For the unfamiliar, Amano is a bean-to-bar artisan chocolate maker. This particular bar, the Jembrana 70% cacao dark chocolate bar, is the first single-origin bar to use Balinese cacao beans which had me interested from the outset. I was quick to order some to try and they arrived, I believe, on the same day as some sample bars did (oh what a painful wealth of chocolate).

The bar comes in one of Amano’s great little boxes and, being a sucker for good packaging, I fell in love before I even opened it. But open it I did! And I’m glad I did - it’s an interesting bar. The bar itself comes wrapped in gold foil and is well formed (as expected) with a hint of red to the color. I didn’t find anything terribly exotic about the aroma - just some fresh cut wood/sawdust, leather, and a hint of some fruit I can't place - but my sinuses have been having problems and I think that I just can’t smell chocolate as well after wine. The taste has a good full dark chocolate flavor but it's also full of light nuts and blooms into a nice honey-nutty-buttery climax which fades – dryly – to a non-lingering mellow cocoa and honey. It’s really a gentle and accessible dark chocoloate bar with the slight dryness being the only possible issue I can see in winning others over to it. It’s very good and nicely different and I’m going to call it an 8.75 out of 10.

In other Amano news, they’ve started making milk chocolate versions of their Jembrana and Ocumare bars, they sell an array of nibs (and I’m working on finding the right recipe to try them in), and they have a new limited edition bar called Montanya featuring beans from the mountains of Venezuela. Which means, of course, that it’s time for me to order more chocolate.

On a final note, Kitchen Girl Jo made hot chocolate with the Jembrana and it sounds tasty to me (it uses heavy cream which I find makes a killer hot chocolate). Check it out!

Posted by William at 9:51 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

On my way through the checkout line at the store I noticed a new arrival to the local scene (or at least new to me – I don’t recall seeing them before locally) - Berkshire Bark. I’ve been getting a taste of them at the New York Chocolate Show, but have never brought any home with me (there’s a lot of stuff there and it’s hard to pick and choose). But since they’re conveniently placed for that impulse buy I’ve been picking them up as I go. Thus far I’ve hit two varieties: Pretzelogical and Midnight Harvest.

The Pretzelogical I grabbed because my brain misread it as Pretzelcoatl (the Aztec god of pretzels?) and I just loved it. Pretzelogical is still good, but the geek in my likes it the way my brain painted it. The bar itself was good, but not amazing. It had the right stuff: dark and milk chocolate, pretzels, sea salt caramel, and peanut butter. It’s a winning formula, but I liked it a lot more when I first opened it than I did when I went back to finish it. So it’s a 7.5 I suppose and I really need to go back and revisit to be sure that nothing bad happened to the bar between taste one and taste two.

The Midnight Harvest has dark chocolate, almonds, hazelnuts, cranberries, and orange zest and it hit the spot for me. I’ve been snacking on it at work (to avoid the wine/chocolate guilt) and it’s quite nice for a mid-afternoon snack. The nuts are big as are the cranberries and it’s a nice mix. Not much to say except “it’s good” and I recommend it. A strong 8.5 out of 10 and one I’ll definitely repeat on.

So the bits I've had in passing at the Chocolate Show have been good and these two bars I've tried have been good. They've got four more varieties for me to try and I'm thinking I'm going to have to give them a shot.

Posted by William at 9:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I love Peeps (LINK WARNING: JOLLY MUSIC). It’s a sickness. And when I got the announcement about the Chocolate Mousse flavored Peeps I set out to find me some. It took a few trips to find what I was after, but my favorite place for Easter candy, The Andersons (fabulous source for good food, beer, and wine), did not let me down. And I eagerly sampled my hard won Peepage. The long and short of it is this: if you don’t like Peeps you can stop reading here. I don’t have any gory pictures of melted Peeps this time around, just a brief description of the snackage. If you do like Peeps feel free to read on.

There isn’t a lot to say about them that I didn’t say when I reviewed and tormented the Peeps Cocoa Cats. They have a nice cocoa aroma and a nice cocoa + marshmallow taste thing going on. It’s simple, but that’s not to say it isn’t tasty and welcome. If I’m doing the Peeps Brulée thing then I really prefer the Chocolate Mousse/Cocoa version of the Peeps. Good and tasty if you like Peeps (and everybody has their stance on Peeps – some to a near religious fervor). But they hit the spot with me and I’m giving them a nice solid score of… hey, I never scored the Cocoa Cats. I just made messy Brulée with them and didn’t bother with a score. Oh, well. I’ll call them both a good 8.5 out of 10 (9.25 if they’re toasted/Bruléed). If you like Peeps they're worth a try.

On a related note I finished my last normal Peep of the Easter season just tonight and I’m trying to figure out when I’m going to be able to get my next fix. Maybe the closeout store will have some.

Also: what is with the colors? There are orange and green Peeps now and they bother me. It just feels wrong. It may be my childhood talking, but them ain't no proper colors for no Peeps. At least in my opinion. And my opinion probably doesn't count for much.

Posted by William at 9:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Well… it’s been a while, hasn’t it? I’ve been busy trying to teach myself how to do iPhone programming (got a good idea for an app that should sell reasonably well) and dealing with the rabbit and planning beer trades and a trip to Dark Lord Day (a big beer event) and trying to get my head around a mental block regarding wine and chocolate. If I have wine with dinner (and I often do now) I feel guilty having chocolate after. So I’ve been busy and had this guilt complex and, as a result, I’ve not been eating a whole lot of chocolate.

But “not a whole lot” isn’t quite the same as “none at all” and in my daily life there is one absolute certainty and it is chocolate. I've had a little bit here and there and recorded my thoughts as I went. So tonight I’m catching up. I’m taking the semi-formal mini-reviews I've written over the course of the month and tonight I’m adding a little spit-polish to them and publishing.

Chocolate ahoy!

Posted by William at 9:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

We all want chocolate (well, I assume that, but if you're reading Chocolate Obsession I'm betting the odds are in favor). The problem lately is that we don't want to pay for it. The recession is rough on us all, but tonight I bring you a chance to have some brownies, save some money, and help people out all at the same time!

'How' you ask? The folks at Greyston Bakery want to give you a chance to save 20% off of their Do-Goodie Brownies through FRIDAY (act fast y'all). ALL of the proceeds from the Do-Goodie sales are put back into the community helping those in need of jobs, shelter, healthcare, child care, and education so you can feel even better about your purchase. All you need to do to get your 20% off is enter "FOOLU" at checkout and voilá! Money is saved and lives improved.

I haven't tried them yet so I can't speak too much to the quality of the product, though I've had their mix-in brownies in Ben & Jerry's ice cream. It's been a while since I've had it, but I can definitely say that I've never had anything from B&J that I didn't enjoy. It's also earned a little write-up in O (as in the mighty Oprah) Magazine for their social mission which is pretty cool.

So, if you're of the mind to buy some chocolate snackies why not save some cash and help some folks while you're at it? I'm getting some.

Cheers!

Posted by William at 7:56 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Some times, when you’ve sort of come to accept something as a fact of life you tend to maybe take it for granted. And when I say “you” I of course mean me. There are some chocolate companies that are such a part of life that they’ve sort of faded into the background and now and then I start feeling guilty about it. Locally there is Anthony-Thomas Chocolates. A little further afield (except during the holidays when they set up in the malls), but no less a neglected fact of life, is See’s Chocolate Candy. We don’t have a See’s location locally, but I’ve seen them in the malls around the holidays and just sort of been blinded to them as a background piece of holiday tradition and it's been years since I had any (like pre-blog). Luckily I received an offer to give some of their chocolate a try. Feeling guilty (and curious) I couldn’t help but accept.

A few days later a box arrived with an assortment of milk and dark chocolates and a few bars of dark chocolate. When I get an assortment it’s time to get the people I work with involved with the review process so I packed them up and took them into the office. I didn’t get too much into them before I disappeared for vacation, but the consensus on what I did manage to share was very positive. And I liked the rest quite well. The bars were considered not too sweet, nicely creamy, and not to bitter - a good tasty balance. The assortment had a variety of pieces and everything in it was good. I tend to judge an assortment by how many pieces are in it that people are indifferent or negative on and nobody could say anything bad about what they tried (though there was some coconut action and I know a couple of people who don’t like coconut in their chocolate).

And now that the basics are out of the way I need to address one specific piece (of which there were three? I think it was three): the mighty Molasses Chip. It’s a crunchy strip of molasses covered in chocolate. And it is a wonderful and lovely thing. I need more. Tasty!

So I suppose its time for a score. If I were reviewing just the Molasses Chips I'd give them a 9.5 out of 10. They are some darn tasty little treats. And the rest of the box and the bars were all really good as well. I'll call it a nice big 8.75 all around. Lovely snackage all around.

Coming up: watch in amazement as I post something else in less than a week! Been on vacation and had a little chocolate along the way (funny how I don't post until the last night of the vacation) and I've gotta talk about it a bit. Found some fun stuff.

G'night!

Posted by William at 10:26 PM | Permalink | Comments (6) | TrackBacks (0)

From the depths of the Bolivian jungle comes an untamed bean, daring the world to even try to work with it. And it turns out that the folks at Lillie Belle Farms were totally up to that challenge. They took wild criollo beans harvested the jungle and made this lovely 68% cacao content bar of chocolate out of them. They call it The Wild Thing. I saw it at the New York Chocolate Show in 2007 and ended up getting just about everything except for this. When I went back in 2008 I fully intended on making up for the omission and so I took one home with me (among other things).

I'm not going to over think this one. The bar is thick, well-formed with the logo on the face, and has a heckuva snap to it. The aroma is mellow and has a hint of spice hiding behind a nice front of cocoa. The taste is clean and bright. I don't know if I was expecting something raw and brutal - the chocolate equivalent of a slap in the face. What I found was bright and mellow and smooth as the day is long. It's good a good chocolate flavor with hints of some darker things I just can't figure out. They're hints. My taste might be off because I was having this with the last of my wine from dinner (a fruity pinot noir - lotsa berries), but I'm just finding smooth mellow chocolate with a few darker hints around the edges. I feel bad that I can't find more to talk about. Sometimes I just fail. But it's a really good chocolate.

So "really good" is my impression, but that's not a score. If I had to assign a number at this point in the game I'd run with a 8.75 out of 10. It's really good stuff and worth trying out.

Oh, and sorry about the picture quality. Sophie is an action rabbit. Well, when she isn't being an inaction rabbit. But in this case it was hard to get a shot of her with the label not being thrown about. The label was empty because I was eating the chocolate and I didn't want to post a boring picture of an empty label. So you get a sorta-blurry rabbit amidst the giant mess of hay she's made in her cage.

Posted by William at 7:50 PM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)

So I'm digging through a weeks worth of email that I had let pile up and what do I find lurking in the mess? Fabulous good product news regarding the 3 Musketeers bar. First, they're bringing a limited flavor back for Valentine's Day - Cherry! With dark chocolate even! I think I missed it last year, but it sounds like it could be a winner. And speaking of winners one of the best limited edition bars I've ever tried is coming back for Easter - Raspberry 3 Musketeers! Woo! I kept a bag of the Raspberry minis around for a long time so I could savor them even after they had disappeared from stores and now I at last have a chance to get more. This is good news of a yummy nature. Thank you Mars!

Posted by William at 8:55 AM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)

Cyber Monday may be behind us but the savings roll on! Romanicos Chocolate - the ones with those tasty 38 calorie truffles - are offering 25% off and free shipping on orders of $50 or more. Feed the site the code HappyHolidays while checking out and the savings are yours. The deal is for a "limited time" (expect something in the vicinity of a week maybe) so take advantage while you can.

Posted by William at 7:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Tomorrow is the theoretical non-event "Cyber Monday" and I just haven't been seeing many good chocolate sales cross my inbox. So I set out to see what I could find.

Tuesday, which to my knowledge has no special name, does bring us a coupon for big discounts at Dylan's Candy Bar. If you enter the code FRIENDS08 at checkout ON TUESDAY ONLY (and I mean this Tuesday - not like every one from here to Christmas) you will get a whopping huge 30% off! That's some nice savings there.

I also found Jade Chocolates (who I am unfamiliar with so I can offer no guidance) giving 20% off on all purchases through December 7th. All you have to do is throw down the code "recession" when you check out and the savings are yours.

John and Kira's has free ground shipping on a bunch of different items. No word on how long the deal stands, but free shipping is free shipping and there's some great stuff in the items that fall under the deal. Plus they're one of those great places that let you order for future delivery.

Charles Chocolates is offering free shipping on orders over $25 today and tomorrow if you enter the code FREESHIP08. I make no secret of my love for them and highly recommend their products.

Romanicos, the purveyors of the 38 calorie truffles (tasty but pricey) and Miami Sushi (which I haven't tried) have free shipping on orders over $50.

Godiva, the queen of the mall chocolate stores, has free standard shipping on orders of $75 or more with the code FREESHIP. That's a lot of chocolate you gotta buy to get the free shipping, but I suppose that the shipping on $75 worth of chocolate is enough to make it a decent bit of savings.

Vosges also has free ground shipping on orders of $75 or more and is good for up to 10 addresses per customer. The magic code in this case is 2812SHIP and is good through the 2nd.

Recchiuti is also in the free shipping crew with free shipping on orders over $125. No code mentioned and is good "for a limited time" so it could go any time.

Another deal I ran into while sifting through Cyber Monday articles is from our friends at Lindt! It's not a percentage discount or free shipping, but rather a bonus for spending with them. If you order $50 or more you'll get a 50 assorted Lindor Truffles for free. Not a bad little bonus. The deal is going on "for a limited time" so if it sounds good then you might want to jump on it fast.

Not a whole lot going on beyond a lot of free shipping deals (which are still good). Maybe that'll change tomorrow and I'll update, but right now this is what I've found after a bit of browsing about.

Posted by William at 8:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

If you happen to be in New York City tomorrow, Black Friday, if you wander over to one of the MarieBelle locations you can save 25% on Chocolate Nibs and Cacao Beans (double yum), Belle Hellene Bars, and the Duo Gift Set. They have two Duo Gift Sets and they don't say which it is so it might be either, but they both sound good.

Anyway, I'm not big on Black Friday because it usually means monster crowds and limited quantities, but this is the sort of Black Friday sale I could get into. So, yeah, it's not a lot of notice and it's only useful for those of you in the City, but I figured it was worth noting.

Oh, and Happy Thanksgiving!

Posted by William at 9:39 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

The holidays are upon us once again and that means that it's once again time to try and find that perfect gift for the chocolate lover in your life (even if it turns out to be yourself). And honestly, what better gift is there than chocolate? Last year I whipped up a bit of a list of gift ideas, but it happened to end up getting posted a little later than I would like. This year we're striving to improve on last year by getting the list out earlier and adding a bunch of new bits of love to it.

First, a word of warning. I write what I know. There are probably tons of great things out there that aren't getting on my list because I'm just not aware of them. So just because I sing the praises of brand X doesn't mean that it's the be-all end all or anything. It’s just the brand I’m most familiar with and favorably disposed toward. So grain of salt and all that.

Anyway, on with the list!

It's a little early for the sales and coupons to be popping up, but a few have surfaced and I figure with the economy as is we should address them. You can order early at a lot of the online stores (thank goodness - good chocolate has a short shelf life) so while we have coupons it's best we take advantage. Of course I shared our Vosges Haut-Chocolat coupon (2810WB1) with everybody earlier this month and it is still good for 10% off through the end of November. Alternately, if you order gifts for three or more of your loved ones by the 21st of November you can get a whopping 15% off with promo code 2811EM1 (good in stores and online, but this early in the season I'd go for online with a ship date a little closer to the actual holiday of choice). Charles Chocolates has a similar deal going on where you get a 20 Piece box of Pecan Caramels if you order for six or more of your chocolate loving loved ones. Those are the only ones I'm aware of right now, but I'll keep updating this section with any new coupons or deals that I see go slipping through my inbox so check back now and again. Typically you'll see a lot of free ground shipping deals between now and Christmas so I'm sure to find something.

Shopping for the Chocolate Lover
As I stated in last year's lineup, the chocolate lover can be very easy or extremely difficult to shop for depending on their tastes. I know those who are thrilled with a bag of York Peppermint Patties (me included) and I know those who will not be happy with less than high quality artisan bars. Knowing the tastes of your gifting target is the fist step. Once you know what you're aiming for in broad terms you can start to narrow in and I have a few ideas to help with that.

The first option I'm offering is the local chocolatier. If a person doesn't frown on anything not in bar form then it is a great resource and a wonderful way to help out your local chocolate artisans. If you go in with a couple of basics regarding the giftee's tastes (milk, dark, or white, and what fruits, liqueurs and other flavors do they like) you can have a custom assortment whipped together. It's a simple concept - when in doubt ask an expert. This also has the added benefit of zero shipping cost and the chance to see exactly what is going into the box. And, personally, I believe in supporting the little guy. And if you're not sure how good your local guy is, then I suggest you turn to the power of Google or word of mouth.

And in a similar strain we have the mighty Chocosphere. They are the internet kings of bar chocolate. If only the finest bars of chocolate will do then Chocosphere is your hookup. They have an amazing array of bars (and other stuff, but the bars steal the show in my eyes) and they build custom gift bags, baskets, boxes and just assortments and you can even make a special request regarding the contents. So, in theory, you can specify the tastes of the person you're shopping for and they will put something fitting together. Or you can take a look in their "Great Gift Ideas" section for some neat chocolate assortments and they also do a chocolate of the month club and the ubiquitous gift certificate. And if you know what you're looking for you can always order those specific items and do-it-yourself.

Next up is the standard array of online chocolatiers. They are legion and many will have nice deals between now and Christmas. I'm not going to try to list them all here, but a number of them will get mentioned as the list drags on, so keep reading!

Finally there is the last minute gift. If you find yourself pushed right up on the deadline then I say look local. I do not recommend shopping for gift chocolate at the grocery store (most don't have the necessary selection of quality stuff to really get gifting with). I do recommend that you look to the local chocolatiers and the semi-regional stores (like Anthony Thomas in Columbus or Betsy Ann in the Pittsburgh area). If you get desperate you can always grab something at one of the mall stores (Godiva, Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory), but I believe that going out of your way for something more than grocery or mall chocolate delivers a message (and the converse applies as well).

And now for the fun stuff. Returning from last year are the "specialized" categories!

For the Tea and Chocolate Lover

• As with last year I'm opening up with the Charles Chocolates Tea Collection. I ordered a set for myself last winter and enjoyed it thoroughly. Very awesome stuff.
• One of the highlights of the New York Chocolate Show for me was getting to try a bunch of the teas from SeendipiTea. They have a batch of teas with chocolate in them and even have a really nice gift set with individual tins in a nice display box. I will admit I don't know a whole lot about tea, but I loved all of their teas that I tried.
• MarieBelle and their Dark Obsession Chocolate Rose Tea have to get a mention as well. They've got a variety of teas and hot chocolates and you can get a nice combo pack of tea, coffee, and hot chocolate.
• And you can always give tea and chocolate. You know, separate. You don't have to get the one with the other in. Just a thought.

• I still can’t say enough about John and Kira’s punkin figs. They are magic. I was planning on grabbing some at the chocolate show and have instead opted for online ordering which was quick and painless.
• Fran’s Chocolates also does figs as well as dipped apricots, orange peel, and ginger.
• Speaking of apricots, they really are great with chocolate. And the local chocolatiers (and even the queen of the Mall stores, Godiva) are likely to be great sources for fresh or dried fruit dipped in the yummy stuff. And you can get various dried fruit covered in chocolate at some of the “healthier” grocery type stores (like Whole Foods). Dried blueberries and goji berries are quite lovely.
• One of the items I really felt a need for at the Chocolate Show was a tube of the Orange Twigs from Charles Chocolates. They are evil little butter truffles with lovely orange flavor to them. In a less chocolaty and more fruity vein they also do homemade marmalades and Pâte de Fruit which I haven’t tried, but would expect to be just as excellent as everything else they make.
• Recchiuti has some interesting fruit items including Pâte de Fruit and Key Lime Apples and Pears.
  
• MarieBelle, one of my favorite places in New York City, has some gorgeous River Rocks and their Tropical Fruit Caramels.

For the Caramel Lover

• Can I mention the Fran’s Chocolates without mentioning the bump they’re getting by having their name dropped by Mr. President Elect Obama? Fran has been famous for her caramel’s for years now, but now it turns out the Barack Obama loves her Smoked Salt Caramel in Milk Chocolate. But even without the unofficial endorsement of the future President these are caramels to be high on any list.
• MarieBelle, as I mentioned a couple of sentences back, has those Tropical Fruit Caramels to try.
• Another of my favorite places,Lillie Belle Farms, still offers their Scovie Award-winning Cayenne Caramels which I finally tried and like a lot. Better than them, though (in my opinion, of course) are their Lavender Fluer du Sel Caramels. Tres yum! They have a number of other fruit based pieces so take a look at their selection.
• In addition to his fruit offerings Recchiuti also has Fluer de Sel Caramels which I imagine are as good as everything else he offers.

• The be all end all of “hot” when it comes to chocolate are the Maya and Aztec styled hot chocolates one of my favorites being Jacques Torres’ Wicked Hot Chocolate. It’s exceptionally good and just shy of overwhelming.
• MarieBelle also have their own Aztec Hot Chocolate (both spicy and non-spicy versions, but since this section is about the hot stuff, well, we’ll just focus on the heat). More Wonderful Stuff.
• And equally as wonderful is the Spicy Maya Hot Chocolate from Chuao Chocolatier. Their Spicy Maya bar is also great and their Firecracker truffles (Caramel fudge, chipotle, salt & popping candy) are something you have to experience. Wild stuff.
• I can’t talk “hot” chocolates without mentioning the king of the Maya chocolate bars: Dagoba Xocolatl. It’s a bar I keep returning to because it is just so right it’s wrong.
• Lake Champlain have a pretty good Organic Dark Spicy Aztec Chocolate Bar as well.

• Well paired wine and chocolate is a great gift idea and Chuao Chocolatier have a few of them available.
• Vosges also offer wine and chocolate gift sets, but they go one further and offer up beer and chocolate gift sets. How awesome is that? And even better? They have their Caramel Marshmallows paired with Rogue Chocolate Stout! I’ve been munching the Caramel Marshmallows with various stouts lately and they go together wonderfully. Yum.
• And sometimes a beer alone is enough. That Rogue Chocolate Stout I mentioned is just one of many beers with some chocolate action going on. The one thing you need to know, though, is you’re probably looking at nothing lighter than a porter and more likely a stout. Ask your local beer experts for hints.
• And speaking of your local experts, your local wine shop and chocolate shop might be a good source for ideas. If you want to pair dark chocolate with fine wine then ask for a fine wine that will sing with chocolate and take advantage of some local expertise.

• For the chocolate lover who might find themselves in New York City there is the option of a walking tour from Chocolate ZOOM.
  
• If your chocolate lover loves to bake then cookbooks are a wonderful way to go. I have a fondness for one called Chocolate Obsession (for rather obvious reasons), but there are tons of them out there. Check the reviews on Amazon to find some of the better ones.
• Help the chocolate lover on your list make their own chocolate with the help of Chocolate Alchemy. I know it’s something I’m dying to try.

The first place that springs to mind when I think of chocolate destinations is Hershey Pennsylvania. They’ve got the Hershey Hotel with it’s chocolate spa treatments and the whole big Hershey's Chocolate World and Hershey Park for those with kids. It’s simple and probably not too terribly expensive and offers something for the whole family.

The next two offerings are cities that are home to an amazing amount of fantastic chocolate. First up is San Francisco, the powerhouse of American chocolate. Home to Ghirardelli and Scharffen Berger as well as Recchiuti Confections and Charles Chocolates the city has some serious hitters on offer. And for a taste of the international Fog City News is an amazing source of chocolate from around the world. And the annual Ghirardelli Square Chocolate Festival sounds like a winner. There is also the San Francisco Chocolate Salon in the spring (March 21 in 2009). And even if you don't get into town during a big event, it still has more than enough to offer to make it a great chocolate destination. Not to mention that it’s San Francisco! Ignoring the chocolate you still have an amazing vacation destination.

To me New York City is the American outpost of European Chocolate. There are a vast number of European chocolatiers with a presence in the city and on top of that there are some great American chocolatiers to try as well (especially Kee’s Chocolates in SoHo). On top of the straight chocolate there are an amazing array of world class restaurants where you can find something chocolatey to indulge in. And if you’ve got kids in tow then there is the fun with the Hershey and M&M's stores in Times Square (not to mention the giant Toys’r’Us) I still dream of somebody taking one of the little boutique hotels and making it a chocolate hotel with shops and restaurants and such, but I don’t know whether my vision is really all that feasible. Anyway, while there you can wander on your own or take a couple of walking chocolate tours through Chocolate ZOOM as a great guided introduction to the city's chocolate. Time things right and you can even take in the New York Chocolate Show which is awesome fun. And just like San Francisco if you look aside from the chocolate for a second you’ll come to realize that you are in a city that is amazing all on it’s own.

Now to really take things to another level why not take a look beyond the borders of our humble little country? There are cruises offered every so often with chefs on board who do the whole cooking class thing and if you manage to slip onto one where somebody with some chocolate cred is on board (I know that Katrina Markoff from Vosges does one of these from time to time). And I hear stories of evil midnight chocolate buffets on cruises. What better to eat at midnight (ok, at midnight I’ll usually go with pizza or some bar snax, but when on the cruise maybe the whole choco-buffet thing would work for me)?

Taking things one step further is what is possibly the greatest chocolate city in the world: Paris. You can have a chocolate tour led by the legendary David Lebovitz and Mort Rosenblum as well. We’re talking Paris here! And if you get creative you could maybe make it part of a Mediterranean cruise or a chocolate tour of Europe. If you’re going overboard why not go all the way? The only problem I can come up with is that the city might overshadow the chocolate.

The one thing I found myself lacking for last year’s list was a way to go to the source. To visit a chocolate plantation and get involved in the process first hand. This year I’ve got Cotton Tree Lodge, a resort in Belize with an enticing array of outdoor activities offered, but more important they have what they call Chocolate Week. They offer Mayan chocolate making as part of the normal visits, but when you visit for Chocolate Week it takes things to a new level. You get a week full of chocolate making (as well as the other lovely diversions they offer) from bean to bar and on top of it you get to take home chocolate that you made! How cool is that? And to make things a little more enticing they’ve told me that if you mention my blog you can get 10% off of your Chocolate Week vacation. This, to me, is the ultimate in chocolate travel (unless you string together all of the destinations which, of course, is crazy over the top and crazy expensive as well). You get to go to the source of it all and experience the chocolate making process first hand. At a resort. Now that’s a “win win” if ever I saw one. And it’s probably a lot cheaper than Paris.

Now I’m sure that there are more ideas to be had. This is just what I was able to come up with from my experience. The concept is that you think about it and pick the right gift for the chocolate lover you’re shopping for. So take me at my word or use this as a starting point and make the holidays special for those you love.

Cheers!

Posted by William at 8:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Hey, wow. That's a lot of chocolate. Friday I snuck off to New York City for the big New York Chocolate Show and the picture just above here? That's the resultant pile of joy I shipped back to myself. It's missing a few things I had hoped would be in there, but that's life I suppose.

So, the 2008 New York Chocolate show. This year they made a rather big move to Pier 94 which is a mixed blessing. It gives them a great big space in which to have the show which was wonderful, but it isn't quite so easily accessible as the old location was. The walk from Seventh Avenue seemed a lot longer than I expected. But I got there and the venue was big. They were disorganized and there was some annoyance with wristbands, but wristbands are a wonderful thing and allow for re-entry the lack of which was a big drawback of last year's show. So while I was irked at having to wait in the will-call line while I had my ticket in hand (got it weeks ago) the whole wristband thing was a big improvement.

And the vendors this year were pretty impressive. With both Amedei and Domori at the show it was difficult for me to keep from buying nothing but their goodies. I'll go into more detail in another post, but suffice to say that the lineup was great. I was told that John & Kira's had to cancel at the last minute which was a soul-crushing disappointment, but there was a lot of other fabulous stuff to try so I'll live. And place an online order for the goodies I missed.

After the chocolate show I managed to knock about Manhattan a bit and got to have a nice slice and bought some manga and some more chocolate (one of those boxes is from Kee's). There was one other little disappointment along the way, though. Seems that Cluizel isn't in their little nook in the ABC store any more. I was so dying for a Grand Marnier Thistle and was planning on sharing a bunch with some friends, but no dice. The website says they're still there, but I sure wasn't finding them and the ABC employee I asked said they'd left a couple of months ago. Very sad. I was dying to hit them again.

But aside from those two little disappointments the trip went off with very few hitches (like me underestimating how fast I can get around Manhattan and ending up back at the airport early). Sometime this week I will be posting a full writeup of the show, but I'm not sure whether the Holiday Gift Guide will be up before or after the writeup.

Anyway, it was a good show and a good time and it was quite a lovely way to spend my Friday.

Posted by William at 8:02 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

What's better than good chocolate? Saving money on good chocolate! And the lovely people at Vosges Haut-Chocolat are going to help make that happen for you. They sent along a coupon for me to share with everybody for a nice fat 10% off all website purchases from November 1st through the 30th. That's an entire month! And oh, do they have some lovely stuff to save on. My favorites? Their Caramel Marshmallows and their Wink of the Rabbit Caramels. Oh and the Barcelona bar is terribly yummy. Mmmmm....

Magical Coupon Code: 2810WB1

Funny, I was thinking about them when I got their email. I was working on my Chocolate Gift Guide for this holiday season. They make the list and in a few days I'll reveal who else makes the cut.

Posted by William at 7:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)

Usually I'm pretty amped up for post holiday candy sales, but there is just something about Halloween that is killing my enthusiasm. I think it boils down to two distinct problems.

The first problem is the month leading up to Halloween. I've talked to people every year who have a very particular problem, which I in part share. The first week of October one sees the Halloween candy display and grabs some so they'll be ready in advance (or so they'll claim). And a week later one finds themselves needing to replace that first bag that has inexplicably disappeared. And it continues right up until the bags they buy a day or two in advance of the actual holiday. And then there's leftovers. One has to make sure that they have enough candy for all the trick-or-treaters so they bought a lot. And what luck! They didn't hand it all out. By this point one has been eating Halloween candy for a solid month. And the sale on November first? It just seems to lose a little of it's appeal.

Not that it has that much appeal in the first place beyond the savings they represent. The second problem is the approach to Halloween candy. If you wander the Halloween candy aisle you'll notice that it is dominated by all of the same candies as the normal candy aisle. They may get dressed up for the holiday with special packaging or a different shape, but they are mostly just the normal candies in disguise. The gummy-type candies get some extra flair to them (like gummy rats filled with some blood-like syrupy stuff - I don't know if they really make them, but it's just to get the idea across - and if they don't make them they should - that would be a really cool Halloween candy - heck, you can do all sorts of nasty creepy crawlers with different color and consistency goo inside - but I digress - hoo, do I ever digress), but the chocolate candy generally gets a different wrapper (I won't say new since there is probably a lot of design recycling going on). The most exciting chocolaty thing you get in the Halloween goodies is some Peep's Cocoa Cat action and a few caramel marshmallow pumpkins or such (or scary stuff like the Candy Corn Hershey's Kisses - terrifying!). It's doesn't seem like there is enough excitement in the lineup. There will be some new limited editions out in time for Christmas, but Halloween doesn't seem to get the love. It just provides little to be pique my interest.

But if you still have the enthusiasm for it then get out there and hit those sales. They're already doing 75% off at the places I've been - they really want to get their Christmas stuff out. If you get lucky you may just find places where their Thanksgiving stuff (a sadly non-chocolaty holiday) is on sale already as well (I bought something today for half-off and felt horrible guilty for doing so - I was going to buy it anyway and I like the place I bought it and hate to accept the sale price from them - but these days I'm not sure I want to go looking these gift horses in their respective mouths). Anyway, the deals are out there if you are of a mind to take advantage, so go forth and shop! Or not.

Posted by William at 6:32 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I've had trouble coming up with anything chocolate I really considered to be comfort food. In general it's such a normal part of my life that I don't reach for it any more than normal when things get rough. Tonight I figured out that hot chocolate is it - my chocolate comfort food. Things have been more than a trifle stressful of late and I've had trouble getting my mind into the right place to deal properly (raging arrogance seems a good place at the moment). With the weather turning and the stress mounting I absent-mindedly mixed up a dose of hot cocoa and kicked back with it instead of a beer and everything was good. Sure it only works until I get to work the next morning, but it sure drives ones problems away for a bit.

This season I'm going to try to stick to the hot cocoa end of things as opposed the the drinking chocolates. There are a couple of nice benefits to going the cocoa route. If you get the good stuff you get a lovely dose of all those healthy antioxidants and such and you miss out on all that fat and all those calories that come with actual chocolate. Total win all around, right? Sure, a little drinking chocolate now and again is nice, but some of that stuff is just crazy heavy. And even my personal simple recipe hot chocolate is loaded with chocolate and heavy cream. Hmmm... maybe it's time for me to come up with a nice simple cocoa recipe.

Anyway, it's hot chocolate season and it got here just in time. I needed it.

Posted by William at 9:49 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

This may just be too much for me. Honeycomb chunks covered in chocolate. Good chocolate, too! It's Valrhona. And the questionable combination is called Credit Crunch. Fabulous marketing, especially given that premium chocolate sales were up in spite of the real-world credit crunch. The perfect name at the perfect time. I'm just not sure it's the perfect confection, but I'm in no position to try it so I'm in no position to judge. I just find the concept interesting and the name and timing fantastic. Anyway, it's on the shelves at Selfridges in the UK now and available through that link a couple of scentences back. If anybody tries this I'd love to hear how it is.

Now excuse me while I stray a little off topic.....

And while I'm not entirely sure of the idea of chocolate covered honeycomb chunks, I do have to wonder what else could you do that's at least semi-original and still fits the "crunch" in the name? All the standards (krispies, nuts, and to a lesser extent pretzels, potato chips, and corn flakes) are right out unless you combine them or change them up somehow (taking a cue from Charles Chocolates we could do the caramelized rice krispies and throw in some pistachios and a little salt maybe). But the idea is that it's getting harder to come up with something new and different. There are only so many possible combinations of chocolate and associated other bric-a-brac you can create. Admittedly, that represents a LOT of different combinations, but you get what I'm going for here, right? Or am I wrong?

Anyway, I'm tempted to grab a bit of honeycomb and whip up a batch of my own to see what it's like. I have to admit I'm curious.

Coverage From The Press Association

Posted by William at 11:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

This Wednesday, October the first, marks the fourth anniversary of the opening of Charles Chocolates! It's hard to believe that as big and polished as they are they're only four years old.

But birthdays and annivarsaries pass all the time and I don't post word one on them. For me to actually bring it up on the site it's got to offer some benefit for my readers even for one of the companies I like to cheerlead for. Having said that it should be no surprise that they are having a nice set of specials this week - Monday to Friday only - to celebrate! And the deals are good online or in-store.

• Spend over $40 and receive a free jar of their handmade marmalade


• Spend over $80 and receive a free jar of their handmade marmalade and two homemade s'mores


• Place ANY ORDER on their birthday, Wednesday, October 1, and receive a "special present" (mysterious!)

Charles Chocolates Online Store

Happy Birthday Chuck and Company!

Posted by William at 3:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Ok, why has nobody bothered to clue me in to the idea of a chocolate garden? The whole idea is basing a garden around the colors and aromas of chocolate. And I think it's a lovely idea, especially now that I've seen some of the plants that people are planting in their chocolate gardens. I've never really considered a garden with lots of shades of brown (and other colors), but the more I look around the web the more appealing the idea is to me. Some of these plants are gorgeous. And there are ones that actually smell like chocolate. I've been trying to figure out what to do in the way of plants around the condo and didn't want to have the same floods of the same flowers that are so common in my little community. Now I've found something different and wonderful that really rather ties into my interests. I'm not entirely sure yet where/how I would put it (depends largely on size of the plants and what I do with patio design - the patio will probably happen in the spring and I need plants to surround it). But I've got a few months to figure things out (like what I can grow that I won't kill).

Anyway, I love the idea and did a little digging around and found some good articles and pages about chocolate gardens.

This article at the Visalia Times-Delta documents a stroll through a chocolate garden and is the one that clued me in to the idea. A nice read. Pictures would help (my opinion - it helps to see what she's talking about) but she communicates the ideas and experience well enough.

Next is Chocolate Flower Farm, a great place to see some of the cool plants that are finding their way into chocolate gardens. They have a great looking business going with more in the way of chocolate than just their plants. And their "In The News" page has links to some more great articles.

Last up are a couple of major outlet articles from eHow (who I really like) and HGTV. They're just here for more fun.

So, yeah, take a look around and see if you might not be a candidate for a chocolate garden.

Posted by William at 8:59 PM | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBacks (0)

Being caught off-guard and left at something of a loss isn't too out of the ordinary for me. And I tend to end up in such a state most often at those times when I really am certain that I know just what is what. Tonight I again find myself in such a state because I thought I had a good idea what the subject of tonight's post had in store for me. But tonight's subject is a beer from Dogfish Head. They take what I like to consider a "left field" approach to beer a lot of the time. They say the make "Off centered ales for off centered people" which might explain why I'm always interested in what they've got brewing (of my five desert island beers I would place two Dogfish ales - the 90 Minute IPA and the Palo Santo Marron - in their ranks - as a side note the Palo Santo goes amazingly well with dark chocolate). What they've had brewing lately is called, fittingly enough, Theobroma (as in theobroma cacao - the cacao from which our favorite food comes).

Theobroma is based, at it's heart, on history and chemistry. The brew is based on the chemical analysis of bits of pottery from over 3000 years ago and is a direct tie to the first known use of cacao for human consumption (good lord, what else would you use it for?!). Interestingly it was an alcoholic cacao beverage. It would seem the obvious course of action would be to take this bit of chemical magic and make a modern interpretation of it. And that is just what the lovely people at Dogfish Head have done albeit with a little Aztec and Maya twist or two along the way (the most interesting departure - as I understand it - is that the meat of the pod was used long before the seeds were, but the beer is based on the seeds assumingly because that is what we think of as chocolate). The beer is brewed with honey, annatto (a spicy seed), ancho chile, and nibs and cocoa from Askinoise (who I will go into in more depth soon - they have been on my radar for a while now and it's getting to be time I address them). And it's nothing like what I was expecting.

I came into this having never seen chocolate used in anything but porters and stouts. So I expected a dark beer with a nice deep roasty flavor and tons of toasty chocolate mixed in. And was I ever wrong. Theobroma pours a beautiful copper with a good head and nice lace. And while there are hints of cocoa about the aroma there is more of an interplay of honey and spice going on to my nose (not that I'm a beer expert or anything, I'm just a beer explorer). And the taste is really very much an ale. There's more yeast at play than I expected, limited hops, a good bit of the honey, and a nice helping of the spice as it develops. And there is a definite hint of cocoa running through it, more prominent in the beginning so it sort of recedes from the chocolate to the spices. It is not at all what I was expecting, but Dogfish Head have a way of doing the unexpected (in my experience this ranks up there with Raison D'Extra - which I blind tried - for unexpected). The magic of Dogfish is that even when they defy expectations they manage to deliver something that is unarguably good if entirely unusual and unexpected.

So I am ill-prepared to review something like this, but feel some sort of duty to give it a try. It's good. It's different. If you're expecting tons of in your face chocolate flavor then you're bound to be surprised, but if you're like me you hopefully won't be disappointed. If you don't dig craft beers then you're probably better off sticking with more traditional fare. But the deal is I'm into craft beer. Not as much as I am chocolate, but I love good beer. And some of them can be very left field in nature. This one? VERY left field. But it's good. I can't argue with it, no matter how surprised I am by it. From my perspective this is a good 8 out of 10, but I'm one of those rare birds that dig chocolate and craft beer both. If you're a chocolate person with little interest in craft beer I hate to say it, but you're better off keeping clear. The Silver Bullet this is NOT. It's an "off-centered ale" that connects with this blog's "off-centered" author. It ain't for everybody, but if you're of the peculiar mindset that digs on both chocolate and craft beer you may be in for a tasty surprise.

Posted by William at 8:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

So the idea I had when setting up the trip to Vegas was that I would skip New York this year. I needed the vacation and had done New York already so I would do Vegas and forego New York entirely. I immediately felt awful that I wasn't going to get to go to the chocolate show or any of my favorite shops in the city, much less any new ones. I suppose that given my lack of willpower when it comes to certain things (like chocolate) it should be no surprise that I've planned a trip to the Chocolate Show. Between the obscene cost and the fact I just finished getting spoiled with some 5-star Vegas action I decided that I wouldn't stay the night. It's a one day in-and-out type of trip. I'm going to hit the chocolate show, Kinokuniya, BookOff, Michel Cluizel, Kee's Chocolates and if I have time I'll try to hit Marie Belle. It's going to be tough trying to get it all in and I'm not sure I'll even have time for food (not that I can't grab a slice on the run - this is New York City, after all). But I really didn't want to miss the show. I'll consider doing a full scale run on the city in the spring when the Comic Con is on, but for now it's just a really fast run.

One of the really cool things about the trip is that the Chocolate Show has moved from up to pier 94 and I'm interested in seeing what the new digs are like. Not to mention there are more than a few exhibitors I am looking forward to visiting. I plan on spending rather a painful amount of money at the show and that brings me to a little issue I'm facing: transport. The plan is to only bring a carry-on so I can bust out of the airport on the quick and get myself to the show. There is absolutely no way they'll let me through security with a bag stuffed full of chocolate so I either have to check my carry-on on the way back, have a separate bag to check packed in the carry-on, or ship the chocolate back to myself before heading to the airport to head home. There is a UPS store between Kee's and one of the likely subway stations so it's likely that I'll be going that route.

But the long and short of the whole thing is that I'm hitting the show, hitting it hard, and taking pictures galore while I'm there. And buying and trying a ridiculous amount of chocolate. Should be a very busy, very tiring, very fun day. Now I just need November to get here faster.

Posted by William at 8:37 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I've been in hardcore vacation mode for the last ten or so days and have been ignoring anything that didn't involve total leisure. Just really needed a break from everything and couldn't wait for November and the New York Chocolate Show to roll around. So I decided to go to Vegas. The cost of a three star hotel in New York in November is still more than the cost of a larger room at a five star hotel in Las Vegas. So off to Vegas I went with all these ideas for chocolate stuff to do while there. There was the Jean-Philippe Pâtisserie, the Ethel's Factory Tour, The Chocolate Swan, Vosges Haut-Chocolat, a Teuschers, and probably a couple of others that I'm forgetting. So I go to Vegas and of all of the places on that list what do I hit? Jean-Philippe since it's in the Bellagio where I stayed and Vosges. I had big plans to take all sort of pictures on the Ethel's tour and to review some of the chocolate from there, but in the end I just succumbed to the siren's call of relaxation. A very nice way to go.

So most of the chocolate I had was just stuff that happened to be on the dessert menu wherever I was dining. That and a chilled Bianca from Vosges (very yummy - the spices go very well with the white chocolate). I just didn't feel like going to the effort to find chocolate. I never got around to trying any Ethel's until I was in the airport waiting for my flight home. Still a really great vacation even if it was light on the chocolate.

And just for fun I'm going to hit a meme I ran into on Columbus Foodie. But that goes after the jump since it's pretty big.

Continue reading "The Chocolate Vacation That Wasn't" »

Posted by William at 7:37 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Sometimes a product comes along that just leaves me unsure how to rate it. The latest of these products are the M&M's Premiums which I got to try recently. They're premium because they have special fancy flavor, special fancy paint jobs (they look amazingly cool), and none of that pedestrian candy shell (the thing that defines an M&M in my opinion). Oh, and they have a premium price attached to them as well. Really premium. How premium? We'll get to that later.

First I want to talk about the products themselves. I picked up two varieties when I was in the store: Triple Chocolate and Raspberry Almond (the other three in release are Chocolate Almond, Mocha, and Mint Chocolate). They come in curvy vertical cardboard boxes with resealable bags of candy within. The cartons are attractive and have a neat shape, but the resealable bags are the big win on the packaging front. I have a tendency to open a bag of something, eat some of it, and then transfer the rest to a zipper bag so being able to just reseal the bag they come in really works for me.

Triple Chocolate: The triple chocolate has white, milk, and dark chocolate in a swirly purple color scheme. The pieces are a bit bigger than a regular M&M much like a Peanut M&M and look really neat. They're really good on the taste front, too. It doesn't taste too cheap and the whole thing has a nice interplay of flavors. I do have one issue with it, but it's a personal preference/mental block sort of problem. There is no candy shell so there is no crunch and the entire M&M experience is missing. Without the shell it just doesn't feel like an M&M to me. Personal bugaboo sort of thing, but it's the defining characteristic of the classic as far as I'm concerned.

Raspberry Almond: The Raspberry Almond has white chocolate, a little dark chocolate, raspberry flavor, and an almond. As expected from a raspberry confection they went with a red color scheme on these and they're very cool looking. And they taste good, too. I don't know what is different between the raspberry flavor they use in these and the flavor they used in the Razzberry M&M's they did a while back (chock full of extreme Z's), but it tastes a lot better. The chocolate is good and having an almond in it gives it that crunch that I was missing so bad in the Triple Chocolate version. And I am currently addicted to these in a bad way. I won't say they're perfect or anything, but they hit the spot when I want a little treat.

Now we come to the ratings. I don't want to under-review the Triple Chocolate because it's lacking in the crunch I expect from an M&M. I don't want to over-review the Raspberry Almond either since my general addiction level isn't an indication of how good they are. I get addicted to less than perfect stuff all the time (Chewy SweeTart Minis). And then there is the issue of price. They retail for $3.99 for 6oz and that's a trifle pricey. This past weekend I found them for $4.49 at Giant Eagle and was floored. That's pretty steep for snooty M&M's. Is it worth it? That's a personal call. I'm not buying them unless I find them on sale. They look more premium than they taste and they cost more premium than they look. Ignoring the price I'll go as far as a 7.75 out of 10 for the Triple Chocolate and a 8.25 for the Raspberry Almond. Subtract for the premium price as you see fit.

At it's full retail I'm not rushing to buy more. At the inflated price Giant Eagle is selling them at you can forget me ever buying more. Hopefully they're still on sale at Kroger. I'll probably be there for lunch tomorrow and can check then. This might be one of those lucky product launches like the Starbucks Chocolate where the stores end up with way too much and put it on clearance. I'd love to pick these up for a buck a pack. Here's hoping!

Posted by William at 8:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

It is entirely possible that the title of this post will mean absolutely nothing to you. The short version explanation is as follows: Xeni Jardin is a journalist and blogger who I first became familiar with through her co-editor role at the superblog Boing Boing, Pesco (David Pescovitz) is another of the co-editors at Boing Boing, TCHO is one of the new bean to bar chocolate makers, and BBTV is the video end of Boing Boing. Putting it all together we have some BBTV videos featuring Xeni and David visiting with TCHO and getting to see some of the art and science (TCHO really seem to be into the science) behind chocolate and getting a taste of TCHO's philosophy and chocolate. It's fun and painlessly educational stuff.

I'm not going to go in depth about any of these parties. I could gush about Boing Boing (and Xeni and David) at some length (the blog is a mind-bender and mind-expander), but that just isn't fun. You can check it out for yourself and make your own mind up. I could talk about TCHO for a bit, but I hate to talk much about them without having actually tried their chocolate yet (when the weather cools down from this lovely summer heat I plan on ordering from them) so aside from pointing out the heavy use of words based on "obsess" at their website I'm going to let them speak for themselves.

Anyway, give them a watch and enjoy! Oh, and I hope this embedding works. I'm never sure whether these things will actually fly when I get my hands on them.

Part One - chocolate origins

Part Two - magical machines, mysterious molecules

Part Three - the taste test trip

In case the embedding action failed here are some direct links:
chocolate origins
magical machines, mysterious molecules
the taste test trip

Sometime this fall I'll follow this up with some taste testing of my own. There are a number of new players in the bean to bar world and I'm excited to see what they're all up to.

Posted by William at 9:11 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Ok, more mystery health fun. Still bothering me on and off, but I'm tired of it being such a distraction. So it's review time!

This won't be a huge review because there isn't a whole ton to say. The York Peppermint Wafer Bars (in the 100 calorie packaging) are really simple little critters. There is a layer of York stuff between chocolate sugar wafery type wafers and the whole thing is covered in chocolate. There are two reasonable sized sticks per 100 calorie packet and seven packets to the box. They've been on sale at $2.50 per box since I've started buying them so that works out to about $.36 per serving which is pretty good if you look at a KitKat which is twice as much candy for somewhere in the neighborhood of twice the price.

So that's all well and good, but none of it matters if the product isn't great. Luckily these are just excellent. The wafer has that nice sugar wafer crunch and the mint stuff is properly Yorky and the chocolate is, well, candy-grade chocolate (Hershey's - can't have everything I guess). And it all comes together just beautifully. I'm really pretty in love with these. The mint is a little subdued compared to your normal York Pattie, but that's to be expected given there is more here than just York stuff and chocolate.

So, I'm sure you can guess I'm going to score this pretty high. It keeps me from shoving an absurd amount of candy into my face and what I do shove in is just lovely. They aren't fine cuisine or anything and they certainly represent little more than empty calories and fat, but they're tasty and a lot fewer empty calories than grabbing a candy bar from the vending machine. And the pricing doesn't seem too terrible (while it's on sale - not that I won't buy these when they're not on sale). I hate to give a "candy" product a really high score, but these are great enough that I'm going to give it a full 8.75 out of 10. I love 'em. I've bought three boxes so far and I'm sure there are more to come. They're my after lunch snacky item of choice for the moment.

Oh, and sorry there's no pic. I don't have any of them here at home and just wanted to get the review together. I might update tomorrow or something.

Posted by William at 7:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)

Ok, I disappeared again. It's getting to be a bad habit, but when I become worried or stressed the blog is the first thing to suffer. And I've had a number of strange and unexplained things wrong with me and it left me rather stressed. And of course in the face of stress I turned from straight up chocolate to pastries again leaning heavily on sugar cookies for my sweet fix. The past week I've felt pretty good, but when I haven't posted in like three weeks it is hard to get started again. Kind of stupid that I don't post because I feel guilty for not posting, but if everything we did made sense this would be a really strange world. Stranger, at least.

Anyway, this past week I've tucked into the new M&M's Premiums (so far I'm pleasantly surprised) and also found an unexpected bit of magic in the 100 Calorie York Peppermint Wafer Bars (reviews of both forthcoming). I normally sneer pretty hard at the 100 calorie products. They're usually just small servings of familiar products. And I haven't done the math or anything, but I'll bet you pay a stiff premium for those slimmer portions. But these York critters are (can't say magic - I used that a couple of lines ago) fabulous stuff. And they were on sale, too!

So at some point this week I'll try to post something of substance (most likely involving York Wafer Bars and maybe a trip to the Suisse Shop which I had no idea is only five minutes away from me). In the meantime I had a great article by Kate Shatzkin float into my inbox that I felt I should share. It's from the Baltimore Sun and it's about the Wacky Cake. I had no idea what it was until she referred to it as the Three-Hole Cake. I knew immediately what that was. I know I've made this recipe before, but I just can't get remember when or with who (so I was probably little). Anyway, it's a magic little recipe that is great for kids, easy to whip up with stuff you have around the kitchen already, and vegan to boot. And there are variant and complement recipes, too! Check it out.

Posted by William at 8:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (6) | TrackBacks (0)

Ok, I'm finally going to address these Starbuck's chocolates that I have yet to do and since there are five different items to cover I'm going to do a short little blurby bits for each one. That way I can (try and fail to ) keep from rambling and being at this all night and ignoring the rabbit (she gets fussy when I pay more attention to the computer than her). First up are the Chocolate and Tea Tasting Squares.

Chai Milk Chocolate: A combination of Tazo Chai tea and milk chocolate (as if the name didn't give it away). Chai sometimes turns me off when in chocolate because it can overwhelm the chocolate and leave you with nothing but the chai. In this case it turns out to work well. The whole thing smells lightly spicy and the taste delivers on the smell's promise. It's a nice comfortable spicy and balances with the chocolate nicely and the tea lends it a little texture (not quite grainy and not quite crunchy). This is by far my favorite piece out of today's items. 8.5 out of 10. Tasty.

Passion Dark Chocolate: While the Chai was my favorite, the Passion is my least favorite. I complain about what I perceive to be out of balance a lot and this - while I do like it - is way out of balance. The Passion tea is based around hibiscus with citrus, rose hips, mango, and passion fruit. I find the whole thing to be like flowers and strange fruit (I don't eat a lot of mango or passion fruit so to me it's all strange). The aroma is about half and half floral and citrus and the flavor is mostly floral with a little of the fruity twang around the edges and little explosions of fruit in the cruncy little bits in it. And talk about grainy. You'll note that I've yet to mention the chocolate. The chocolate is easy to miss in the whole overwhelming assault of flowers and fruit. I want to like it. I like the flavors. I don't mind the grain (I like different textures in my chocolate). I just think that the tea should be toned WAY back. It completely overpowers the chocolate. I can't go much above a 4.5 on this one. It's too one sided.

Citron Dark Chocolate: This is more like it. The Citron tea is based around ceylon leaves with lemon oil and pairs well with chocolate. The aroma is mostly a hint of lemon and not much else. The flavor is nice with the tea, lemon, and chocolate playing well together. The thing that had me scratching me head (and running to other blogs for confirmation) was the weird nature of the lemon flavor. It tastes like lemon, but with no twang. It's like a non-citrus lemon. I know they're doing the whole name brand thing here, but they would be better served to pair ceylong tea leaves and lemon zest in the chocolate (though that would probably limit shelf life in a big way compared to what you want in a mass market product moving primarily in the drug and grocery stores). Honestly, I'd rather see a ceylon and lemon zest truffle, but I'm just the consumer here. As might be expected there is a grain to this one as well, leaving me trying to lick my teeth clean afterward. It's not a terrible grain or anything, but it's a trifle annoying. Still, the piece does more right than wrong and I enjoy it to the tune of a 7.5 out of 10.

It's kind of funny. I was really up on these after first trying them and when I go back to actually evaluate them I find that I loved one, liked one, and was really disappointed with one, but it was the one I liked that made the lasting impression. Strange. Well, it's certainly worth a taste if you are so inclined, though the price might be a little high for 2.64oz of chocolate. I can't give it a wholehearted recommendation, but I think it's interesting. If you really like the idea of tea and chocolate then I have a couple of recommendations I'll make in the near future.

Now, on to the truffles!

Chai Truffles: Well, here we are again with the Tazo Chai, this time in a truffle. Well, given how much I liked the tasting square it seems like a foregone conclusion that I would be all about this. Well, I do like it a lot, but I really prefer the tasting square to the truffle. I think it's to do with the filling. It's a non-chocolate filling which, in theory, isn't necessarily a bad thing (I have a bugaboo about calling anything a truffle if it doesn't have a ganache filling), but in this case I just don't like it as much as I do with just the tea and chocolate. It's still pretty good, though. I'll call it a 7.5 out of 10. Good, and something I'm likely to try again (especially if I find it on overstock clearance again).

Caffè Mocha Truffles: These are pretty straightforward. The truffle itself is designed with a couple of raised bean shaped bits on it which is cute and even in the wrap I can tell from the aroma there is some coffee action going on it it. Flavor-wise, well, it's tastes like your standard café mocha confection. It's tasty. It could stand a little more punch to the flavor, but it's pretty good. I generally avoid coffee (caffeine issues and a general avoidance of hot beverages in anything but the coldest months), but when I indulge I want some serious flavor. This comes close. I like it enough to call it a 7 out of 10.

So I've gone through a number of the Starbucks pieces now and the trend is generally positive. I think that the choice to go with something more than just the straight-up Hershey's chocolate was a good one (the read-between-the-lines answer to the chocolate is that it's Scharffen Berger). I think that a number of these pieces would fall flat with the normal Hershey's and Special Dark (which I hate). So Starbuck's first excursion into the world of chocolate seems to be working to varying degrees. Of course it all comes down to personal taste and whether one is willing to support both Starbucks and Hershey's, but if you don't mind the source then you just might find something to you liking.

Posted by William at 8:59 PM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)

Bleah. Came down with something last week which rendered me with zero appetite and a whole lot of general purpose discomfort. Most of the weekend was spend in bed. So I've been ignoring my chocolate and beer and all the lovely little things that make life lovely. I'm feeling somewhat better now (than goodness) and am thinking chocolate again (also thank goodness).

So while I've been off my game what has been going on? Well, the last event prior to my sickening was a trip to Kroger for a sammich for lunch. On my way to the u-scan I couldn't help but notice the ginormous display of Starbucks Chocolate. And there was this funny sign on it that said "Overstock Sale - 75% Off" or something to that effect. Can anyone guess what I do when presented with chocolate I haven't tried at a steep discount? Yeah, I bought a bunch of truffles. I even managed to eat a couple before totally losing all interest in food. I figure I'll lump a review of them in with their Chocolate And Tea Tasting Squares sometime in the next couple of days. The short version is as follows: tasty! And at 75% off? Cheap!

Father's Day is Sunday (as I'm sure you're all aware from the monster advertising blitz that began, oh, the day after Mother's Day) and I've been getting lots of email from the chocolate makers making sure that everybody knows that chocolate is an absolutely fitting gift for Dad. I agree with them. If I'd been in less of a daze last week I'd have posted some of the free shipping deals and sales that have been around. It's getting a little close to the wire for online chocolate but don't let that discourage you from seeking out that lovely local stuff (support your local chocolatier!).

One of the absolute coolest things I've seen lately was an email from M&M's. They've come up with yet another way to customize M&M's for whatever use and it's a really cool one - a definite step beyond simple color, text, and logo customizations. They now allow you to order custom M&M's with a picture on them - like one you took. Their initial pitch is for faces, but I'm sure there are other good pictures you can get on your M&M's, too. Anyway, it's really cool. Call me easily impressed, but I like it.

I'm still running at half-speed, but chocolate is back in the diet so expect something in the next day or two. Sorry for yet another lapse, but it's a one man show here and when I'm spending all day in bed it's pretty unlikely that I'm going to be writing about chocolate.

Posted by William at 8:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

Hey, I'm back! Not that I really planned on going anywhere, but I had a nice little week of vacation during which I didn't do a whole lot of anything. Mostly I did some spring cleaning type stuff, got caught up on a TV series I missed out on when it ran, searched high and low for a specific size and style of cooling rack, and vegetated. It was a pretty quiet week and most of my chocolate consumption was in the form of pastries again (hit The Hills a lot).

There was a bit of interesting chocolate in there, though. I went to Philadelphia for a day and stopped into the Reading Terminal Market for lunch. It reminds me a lot of our North Market here in Columbus, only bigger and featuring lots of Pennsylvania Dutch cooking (oh so good). And it just happens to be home to an institution in the world of sweet stuff: Bassetts Ice Cream. They've been at it since 1861 and seem to know what they're doing. They're another one of those places that I first ran into on either Food Network or the Travel Channel (I have a habit of watching any show having to do with bbq, ice cream, and of course chocolate). And they seem to be worthy of the hype. Very good stuff in my opinion. I had a couple of scoops of Raspberry Truffle which was quite lovely.

Another place of interest in the RTM is Chocolate By Mueller. In addition to being known for good chocolate they have a couple of items that they offer that are a bit... interesting. The first is the anatomically correct chocolate heart. They have a lot of molds - some quite unusual - and one of the most interesting is the heart. The other item that really turned my head was the chocolate covered onion. Not a terribly appetizing combination, but it does make for a neat gag gift. I tend to be pretty open minded about combining things with my chocolate, but I think I draw the line at onions. I just ain't right. Nope. But it certainly does capture the imagination and makes people talk.

So, while it wasn't a chocolate vacation like New York was (and will be again) there was some tasty chocolate happening along the way. And now that I'm done with the whole organized laziness I can get back to the normal laziness. I have a couple of items on deck including the promised thoughts on pairing beer and chocolate and I should be getting to them this week.

Posted by William at 7:12 AM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

I never really know quite what to do when it comes time to review something that I dislike. It doesn't happen a lot. I'm disappointed and unimpressed on a regular basis, but for me to try something chocolate and just plain dislike it is rare. It always takes me by surprise and the reaction I have in real life is far from what I feel I can allow myself to post. If it isn't offensive then it generally channels something from one of my terrible and oft geeky loves. This reaction did amuse me, though. I can sum up my impression of the bar just as I did the first time: "Wicked nasty Snickers!" I'm not saying it's awful, I just don't want it in my mouth again. Ever.

So what is this bar to offend my delicate palate so? Simply put, it's a Snickers bar with some coconut flavor and supposedly some exotic spice. It's a limited edition affair put together as a tie in for the upcoming new Indiana Jones And The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. The bar looks normal enough, but I could smell a whiff of coconut about it as soon as I cracked the wrap. The coconut took a moment or two to actually show up in the taste, though. And those exotic spices? I'm still waiting for them to show up and it's been a few days since I washed the taste of this thing out of my mouth.

So what's my problem with it? It's just a Snickers with a little coconut flavor along for the ride. What could be wrong with that? Well, call me an insane purist, but to me EVERYTHING is wrong with the concept. I do not want coconut in my Snickers. It has no place there thank you ever so much. I like chocolate and coconut together and even chocolate, caramel, and coconut together (as in those evil Samoa cookies the Girl Scouts are trying to kill me with), but I just can't reconcile nougat and coconut. It feels wrong. Taste-wise it isn't terrible or anything, it just isn't my bag. I like normal Snickers and the coconut, to me, ruins a good thing. I can't say it's bad, it just isn't an improvement or even as good as the normal one. It's a moderately interesting variant, but it does nothing for me.

So, falling back on the concept that this entire blog is a work of opinion, I present the score as I see it - how it rates on my personal scale. I consider a normal Snickers to be a good 7.5 out of 10. This isn't as good. I'm calling it a 5 out of 10. That's not to say that you won't like it. If you like the idea of coconut in your Snickers then it's a good bet you'll like it. Me, I'm just not liking it and am going to give away my remaining bar.

Tomorrow I'm going to discuss the Vosges Calindia bar in all it's cardamomiful glory (it's like a cardamomarama). After that I'm going to discuss my irrational love for the Starbucks Chocolate Chocolate And Tea Tasting Squares. Then maybe I'll hae some sort of coherent thoughts on the subject of beer and chocolate as opposed to just a couple of pairing that I like.

G'night!

Posted by William at 8:52 PM | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBacks (0)

Hey, I finally found some of the Mint Crisp M&M's action (more candy - real chocolate will be posted this week - I promise)! Packaging feels kind of busy with a background of some ruins and the logo and Green and Indy. For those who haven't had a chance to try them yet what you have is a batch of slightly larger than normal green and white M&M's with a single big rice crisp in the middle of each. Oh, and they're minty (like you couldn't guess). They have a nice minty aroma lurking about them and a nice mint flavor. There isn't a ton to say about them beyond they're being crispedy crunchedy M&M's with a nice hit of mint. Not mint like the York Sensation or anything, but a nice quality mintiness. My only gripe is that the chocolate is kind of backseat on this ride and when you go to the effort of trying to notice it it just doesn't seem all that remarkable. Still, not bad. And overall they're a nice snackedy snack kind of deal so I'm giving some decently high marks. Solid 8 out of 10. Tasty.

Coming up: More Indiana Jones promo limited edition chocolate! And then a little cardamom (and I'm having a tiny bit of trouble coming up with a good adjective to describe having the flavor or aroma of cardamom - cardamommy don't work - caramomacious? cardamomiful?).

Posted by William at 8:03 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Ok, I'm taking a new tack on things. The mini-reviews that I have done in the past are now being sort of formalized into a regular sort of thing. It's not necessarily that I feel a product isn't worth a full review. Sometimes it might be, but sometimes I might just not have a lot to say about something. Or I might just be feeling lazy (most likely). Anyway, the idea is this: don't read too much into me giving something a Quick Hit as opposed to a full-blown review.

First of the quick hits is the first piece of the Starbucks Chocolate collection that I've sampled, their Vanilla Bean Truffles. The description from the label reads as follows:

Sweet and dreamy vanilla from Madagascar meets exquisite dark chocolate in a lovely pairing

Posted by William at 7:51 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Well, I thought I had my computer working right again. I was wrong. I overestimated the manufacturer of the hard drive thinking that they had improved their game since the last time I bothered trying one of their drives. The track record now stands at four faulty drives - two of which were completely DOA. The longest any of the lasted before acting up was two days. The only drives from them that I haven't had problems with were the replacements for the ones I did have problems with. Way to go <insert name here>. And now you can't return your faulty hard drive to the store anymore. Oh no, you have to RMA it. What a pain. Well, I finally got frustrated and resurrected one of the old hard drives I had slagged and made it my system drive and when the new drive at last arrived I just set it up as a massive data store. I'm going to run full diagnostics on it before I put a lot of faith in it. And trust me when I say I'm done with this company. Sick to death of fighting to get my computer back together and sick of a company with such an amazing failure rate.

While it was working, before the drive went away again, I had worked on some stuff for the blog. Yeah, those things are gone now. I'll try and get things back to normal this week. In the meantime....

So this weekend has been one of those "don't leave the couch for anything" sort of weekends with a geek twist to it (watching a large chunk of a "drama" which isn't really a drama and will not be named here) and munching on tasty stuff. But for this to work right I needed something to eat for dinner and I needed dessert. So I made a brief run out for supplies for my little geek holiday. And I realized on the way home that what the little holiday really needed was brownies. So I swung by Sugardaddy's for to pick me up some treats. And the signage in the window confused me. There was a cheesecake in one picture. And truffles in another. Seems that they have some new products in Sugardaddy land. The cheesecake tastes quite nice and the truffles, based on their brownie flavors, sound quite good. Haven't tried them yet, but trust me I will (got one of each of their eight varieties - I'm weak like that). I didn't take home a cheesecake, though. I had some Graeter's Black Raspberry Chip ice cream in the car and wasn't ready to commit myself to that much overload in one weekend. It's chocolate obsession, not chocolate overdose.

*EDIT*They're BROWNIE truffles. Sort of a magical hybrid of brownies and truffles. Hrm. Truffownies? Brownuffles? Yeah, I suppose brownie truffles works.*EDIT*

Chocolate Overdose. That would be a good domain. Hmm... I've been thinking about picking up a few new domains lately. It all sort of started out of an idea for a April Fools thing. I didn't want to simply rickroll everybody, I wanted to do something fun. Next year, oh yes, next year I have some fun planned.

And I tried this wine today. It's red wine with "the flavor of dutch cocoa" or something similar. It's got a mouthfeel like Bailey's, but the taste is a little different. Kind of a slightly alcoholic hot chocolate that isn't hot. And it has a slight cherry undercurrent to it. Pretty tasty, but reading the back revealed the horrible truth: no chocolate at all. The wine was wine and the cream was cream, but the flavors were artificial. Tsk tsk.

What else? I still can't find those darn Mint M&M's. Nowhere I look. It's getting depressing. I suppose when the movie comes out I'll find them everywhere, but for now I can't find bag one. It makes me sad. Haven't seen the Starbucks chocolate yet either. Need to find and try.

Administrative Professionals week is this next week. If you got an admin in your world hook 'em up with some of the good stuff. Most people appreciate chocolate. It tastes better than flowers.

Saw this recipe float through the in box and had to share. It's got bacon. And chocolate of course. But bacon. In cookies no less. Sounds interesting. And I'll try most things at least once.

If you live in the San Fran area you NEED to get on the Charles Chocolate mailing list. There have been a couple of great in-store events that have crossed my inbox in recent weeks and if I lived out there I would have gone for sure.

It's not chocolate, but there are these Cinnamon Fire Twizzlers running around out there and if you like the whole hot cinnamon candy thing then these are really pretty darn good. Very pleasantly surprised by them.

Ok, that's all I've got for now. I have to attack my email sometime (running it from my iPhone has limits). I promise to talk chocolate and beer soon, but the subject frustrates me. And some reviews are due along the way. I'll see what I can work up. The computer still needs some work before it's up to where I want it to be and in theory I'm on vacation next weekend, but we'll see what I can fit in.

Oh, and there is another local brownie I need to address. I picked up one of theirs at my favorite gourmet market (ooh, it sounds so snooty when I say it - and the place is anything but snooty) and quite liked it. I need to be trying more.

Here's to hoping I haven't made any glaring spelling or grammar errors, cause I certainly am NOT going to proof it. The couch: she beckons.

'nite all!

Posted by William at 6:16 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

"The best laid schemes o' Mice an' Men, Gang aft agley" Robert Burns

But there's been stuff going on! All sorts of stuff all over the place. Stuff that needs addressed.

First up there is this study that was conducted by the University of Illinois in conjunction with Mars Inc. that shows that the CocoaVia brand chocolates can lower both your cholesterol and blood pressure due to them being fortified with plant sterols. Normally I'd sneer at any study conducted in conjunction with the manufacturer of the product being studied, but I doubt that the U of I is in the business of selling itself out. I've known whether to take the product seriously or not. I tried some (it was free) and found it ok, but I did like the idea that they guarantee a certain level of flavanols. Turns out that those plant sterols might be something special as well.
Medical News Today
Food Production Daily

What would you do with 20 tons of chocolate? That is the question facing the individual or individuals who stole a trailer full of Hershey's products this week. The theives made off with the trailer and ditched the tracking device. The trailer has since been recovered. The chocolate has not. 20 tons is a lot of chocolate. What the heck do you do with that much chocolate? I can't imagine you could sell it all to one buyer. If you did you would have to split it into separate lots and move them separately with appropriately forged paperwork in case the driver is stopped. Hmmm.... how do you move 20 tons of chocolate? I suppose there are a number of people on both sides of the law pondering that question about now. I suppose I'll leave them to it.

Hershey's is launching a new line of chocolate snacks called Hershey's Bliss which comes in three varieties: Milk Chocolate, Dark Chocolate and Milk Chocolate Meltaway. They are apparently - and this is entirely the wording from the press release - "targeting female chocolate lovers" and letting them sign up to host one of ten thousand Bliss launch parties nationwide. You can sign up to get in on the free chocolate action by visiting this site. I'm impressed with the way that they're socializing the whole luanch. This is a neat experiment in marketing and social networking as they give you online tools to send invites and share pictures and stuff as well as giving you the snax and some host gifts (so, yeah, you want to be hosting the party). So sign up and give it a shot! Or not if Hershey's isn't your thing.
Press Release
Signup Page
Product Page

A lot of stuff that people send me seems to get caught in the old bulk mail bucket and the bits that don't, well, I'm not as diligent as I should be in answering all of my correspondence or addressing everything that happens across my inbox. One of those things that has floated by recently is Chocolate Expert, a site with a nice selection of reference articles and recipes on chocolate. Seems to be a pretty decent sort of place so I figure they are worth a mention.

Another of those things that showed up and wasn't given quite the interest it deserved was the site The Chocolate Life. It's a community-based site for those with a love for that most perfect of foods. It's one I'm going to have to give a closer look at. I like the community idea thang they have going. And I received a question in a recent email that would be a lovely topic for discussion over there.

I'm hoping that I'll get the M&M's review that I promised a few days ago up tomorrow and a review of the Amano Cuyagua bar if I can find the darn thing. It was on my desk and I was eating it just a few days ago. I can't figure out where the heck it's disappeared to. Of course the last week has been chaotic on my desk with all the computer work so its only natural that it would be a little harder to find. I think it's out on the kitchen table from when I was taking pictures of it. Anyway, I plan on finally reviewing it this week. Really I do! I also plan on talking about my painful experiences with extremely high cacao content chocolates and the potentially difficult combination of chocolate and beer. Assuming this cold goes away and I don't spend any more days in bed.

Posted by William at 9:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (5) | TrackBacks (0)

So I'm at the grocery store last night picking up some green leafy stuff for the rabbit and I happen to wander by the promotional aisle where all of the Easter stuff is. Well, I figured it was worth a look to see if there weren't some good post-Easter deals to be had. The deals weren't bad, but what I really got excited about was finally finding the Wildly Cherry M&M's! I didn't have the highest of hopes for them, but figured what the hey, they're new so I might as well try them, right? Imagine my horror when I found myself liking them! I need to go back for a second try, but I'm afraid that I actually like these. For some reason the Razzberry M&M's didn't click that well with me so I sort of expected these to miss as well. But I'm afraid that I might just like these. I'll put up a full review later this week, but right now it's looking pretty positive (not that it isn't subject to change).

Posted by William at 8:05 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Yeah, it’s been about forever since I last posted. Something stressful has been going on and I’ve been in comfort food mode which generally means very little in the way of chocolate. Not that it wasn’t there. I just sort of turned my attention to the baked goods and there was quite often a chocolate component to the particular baked good. It just wasn’t the sort of thing I was going to be posting about. Chocolate mousse cake and beer sort of thing. And if it wasn’t a baked good then it was more likely than not whatever I could find at the grocery store (which really wasn’t a whole lot - the bar I wanted just wasn’t on the shelf).

The stress has died down a bit compared to what it was and I’m really kind of getting things back to normal and getting some chocolate back into my life. So this is sort of my getting over my non-posting guilt and serving notice that I’m sort of back more or less. I’m itching for some good chocolate and will be heading down to Jungle Jim’s to look for some stuff to snack on and I’ve still got an item or two collecting dust around the home or that I’ve eaten and not really talked about.

So, yeah, sorry I’ve not been posting, but life is like that sometimes.

Posted by William at 8:02 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

So somehow Sugardaddy’s Sumptuous Sweeties was lurking just miles from my apartment and I was completely unaware of their presence. It wasn’t until after I had moved and I was looking for a Big Green Egg that I saw their little sign and realized that there was a place making lovely brownies less than a half mile from my door. **sigh** I disappoint myself sometimes. But I made up for it before haring off to NYC by stopping in and getting a fat pile of brownies to snack on.

For those who have yet to hear about the Sugardaddy action they are a company that makes gourmet brownies for whatever gifting, snacking, or entertaining occasion you may come up with and make them available over the web and phone. They are also available to those of us in Ohio at their humble factory store (where you get them really fresh). They have landed themselves all over the web and TV and have done battle with Bobby Flay on his Throwdown on Food Network and emerged victorious. They make good brownies.

The first thing you notice about a Sugardaddy’s brownie is that it’s round. They cut them round and package the edge bits as separate products (Pocket Change) for them as likes the edgy bits. Me, I prefer an edge free brownie so I’m all for the Sugardaddy approach. Next is the selection. My experience with brownies has generally involved the cardboard boxes from the grocery store so my vision of a brownie is that it’s a nice chocolaty brown and nuts are optional. Well, they have an array of “traditional” brownies (which they refer to as brunettes) and blondies (referred to as blondes) and the flavors run the gamut.

Auburn Original (brunette)
Bittersweet chocolate, espresso powder, and walnuts (it is also available without walnuts if you are the “no nuts in my brownies thank you” sort of person) make for a tasty combo. A nice dense brownie with a little coffee along for the ride. Very tasty.

American Beauty (brunette)
Chocolate and peanut butter with a nice layer of peanuts on top. Normally I avoid peanut butter with any sort of added sugar (I don’t like sweet peanut butter treats), but this is good. Not my favorite, but not something I’d turn my nose up at. Far from it.

Nutty (blonde)
Blonde brownie with a heaping load of – you guessed it – nuts (cashews, almonds, and pecans)! Of course, as a blondie, there is a distinct lack of chocolate. But it turns out that blondies are actually fantastic even without chocolate and they’re even better when they are loaded down with nuts. Good stuff.

Strawberry (blonde)
Blonde brownie with peanut butter and a nice strawberry swirl. I have not tried this one yet. I will correct this oversight soon.

Dark Berry (brunette)
An Auburn Original without nuts topped off with a nice little swirl of raspberry. I love me some raspberry and dark chocolate action and this delivers it just how I like it.

Cinnamon (blonde)
The coffee cake of blondies. Brown sugar, cinnamon, and a little nutmeg and ginger make this the perfect breakfast brownie and its available with or without pecans. I’ve had it without and was completely unaware that it was available with. This I also need to try. Without nuts it's fantastic. Probably my favorite of the batch.

Rich Mint (brunette)
Chocolate and mint is one of those perfectly natural combos and this brownie brings it into play in the form of a mint sandwich with mint buttercream icing between two brownie halves. I was expecting this to be my least favorite of the brunettes, but I came away very much in love with it.

Tahiti (blonde)
Tropical paradise in blondie form. Cashews and coconut, white and bittersweet chocolate chunks, and a little bit of pineapple. This really hit the spot, though I didn’t notice any pineapple while I was eating it. I guess I need to go back and revisit this one too.

Dark Citrus (brunette)
A seasonal selection featuring orange zest and extract in dark chocolate with some milk chocolate chunks thrown in for good measure. Quite the tasty combo.

To sum up, Sugardaddy makes a darn good brownie. Actually, they make nine darn good brownies some with optional nuts. If you’re on the north end of Columbus they’re a little west of the Polaris Fashion Place mall on the backside of a strip mall. If you’re in the area I highly suggest giving them a try. Odds are you won’t be disappointed. I’ve yet to be.

Posted by William at 9:06 PM | Permalink | Comments (6) | TrackBacks (0)

Well, I promised that I would get to Sugardaddy's this past weekend and what did I do? I went to Sugardaddy's! I followed through, really I did. It's just that they were already closed when I got there. Oops. But what I was up to before heading for my brownies was in the pursuit of chocolate as well! I needed chocolate and focaccia and beer and hot sauce so there was only one place for me to go: the North Market! I love the place to death and they had everything I needed. Grabbed some focaccia at Omega Artisan Baking, Some Scorch hot sauce from CaJohn's, a bottle of an interesting sounding holiday brew (with cocoa no less) at Grapes of Mirth, and a small assortment of truffles and a little bar from Pure Imagination Chocolatier.

Pure Imagination is Columbus' own artisan chocolatier and their chocolate is available at their little shop in the North Market as well as Whole Foods and Wild Oats. They do everything from chocolate covered potato chips to inventive truffles and according to their website they use only Fair Trade ingredients! My usual approach to them is to get an assortment of whatever sounds good at the time and this trip was no different. What I ended up with is (left to right top to bottom) a Jack Daniels Caramel truffle, a Grand Marnier truffle, a honey au chocolat truffle, a Midnight Extra Dark Bar, and a truffle that I want to say was Blueberry and Gouda. There is no doubt about the blueberry part, but I'm not sure what the cheese was and it isn't on their website so I can only take that stab at it.

So, yeah, they're attractive little critters, but how are they? Well, hmmm, where to begin? The Grand Marnier truffle was more subtle than many I've had (and the ones I've made) but nicely balanced all the same. The Blueberry and Gouda (maybe) was good. Blueberry and chocolate is my current favorite taste combination and the cheese just added an extra dimension to it. Very nice and inventive. This is my third round of cheese and chocolate and I've liked all three now. The Midnight Extra Dark Bar was good, but I have good chocolate bars all over the place and this wasn't a serious standout. Pretty and pretty good, but not amazing. The Jack Daniels Caramel, on the other hand, was borderline amazing. Very tasty. You get a nice undercurrent of the whiskey in the caramel and it goes quite nicely with the chocolate. And as good as that was, my favorite, as it has been every time I've gone there, is the Honey au Chocolat. There is just something special about the two flavors together. I don't know what it is or how to put it in words, but it just sings to me. Love it.

So now is the part where I normally assign a score, but I'm a little reticent to do so tonight mainly because I didn't have a wide enough variety of their pieces to offer a blanket endorsement. In the past, though, I have had nearly every one of their truffles. But I can't base it on those because something invariably went wrong with those (I'm not sure if it was my fault or theirs, but there was a renegade flavor in the truffles when I got to them). So I'm going to offer a score based on the few pieces I've got here. And I'm going to ignore the bar when I do it, too. The truffles are the main attraction so I'm going to focus on them. Every piece was well executed and some were standouts in terms of composition. Taking that and the fact that it's a local joint I've got to go with an 8.75 out of 10. I'm biased toward them because they're local, but the truffles are good. So there you go.

I'll get the brownies this weekend. I know when they close so as long as I remember to go before then it'll all work out.

Posted by William at 8:06 PM | Permalink | Comments (7) | TrackBacks (0)

Throughout the holiday season I tried a few seasonal items here and there to see how they were and in general I was really pretty disappointed. I think it’s a matter of my tastes not lining up with what I was trying, but things just didn’t click for me on some things.

First up on the hate parade of holiday chocolate goodies is the Christmas Cocoa Jones Soda (which I can't find any links to aside from a review or two). I had high hopes that this might live up to my beloved Whooppee (that I can’t find any more). Something in the taste just didn’t sit right with me. It’s not that it was bad – it hit cocoa from a packet on the head pretty well – there was just something in it that I didn’t really like. So I poured the rest of my bottle down the drain and gave the remainders to my family to try. Hopefully they liked it better than I did.

The next item that didn’t live up to my high expectation was the Lindt Excellence Holiday Spice bar (which I can find no links to anywhere at all) I found at Target. Based on the ingredients they seem to have chosen cinnamon and coriander as their holiday spices. I can agree with the cinnamon, but coriander? Maybe it’s just beyond my experience. Anyway, something in the flavor was just off. Everybody I gave a piece of this bar to panned it, so I’m not alone. I think that if they had a different set of holiday spices that it could have been really good. I love their normal Excellence dark chocolate bars so I can’t imagine that it wouldn’t be good with the right spices.

Not all was disappointing, though. I had a really nice Raspberry Hot Chocolate from Nordstrom of all places. And the horrifying mess I made trying to make liqueur filled chocolates was absolutely wonderful stuff. I got some chocolate covered pretzel sticks and some buckeyes from my sister’s family (my nephews make some good chocolate treats) and these are always a nice thing. I also had some really nice brownie action from Sugardaddy's, but that's a topic for another day. Probably Sunday since I won't be able to get back there until Saturday.

Posted by William at 10:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBacks (0)

Once upon a time chocolate, to me, was an afterthought. It was something in ice cream (and as far as ice cream is concerned I really prefer vanilla bean), the occasional York Peppermint Pattie, or possibly a (box of) cherry cordial(s) if I was in the mood. And then one day I found myself watching a show on chocolate on Food Network and somehow my curiosity was piqued. I needed to find out more about these truffle things they were talking about on the show. Well, one of the places featured on the show was Betsy Ann Chocolates which was in the Pittsburgh area. It turned out that I was heading to the Pittsburgh Comicon and there was a Betsy Ann in the mall right next to the show so I figured I would stop in and get some truffles.

And that was how it all began. The world of chocolate opened before me and I quickly became enamored of it. I sought to stretch my chocolate horizons and began trying chocolates from all over. But each time I hit the comicon after that I would go to the mall for more Betsy Ann truffles. They were the go-to chocolate for me. They make those offensively large truffles similar to the beasts you get at Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory and the ganache is always wonderfully smooth and nicely flavored. Lovely stuff.

With the shuffling of jobs last year and general life chaos I've managed to miss the Comicon two years running and so I never really have the opportunity to get back to the place that started it all for me. Each time I missed the show I sort of shrugged over the show - I can live without the comics - but I always sighed a little sigh that I wasn't going to get my truffles.

And out of the blue the week I was madly preparing to go to New York I arrive home to find a big and completely unexpected box on my front porch. I checked and lo and behold it was from Betsy Ann. This is the blessing and curse of blogging about chocolate. Stuff sometimes just shows up with no warning. I didn't start this blog to get free chocolate and I always feel guilty receiving it, but sometimes it's a real joy to find a little surprise on the front porch.

And, true to form, I took the bounty of chocolate goodness to work with me. I believe that the best way to make the experience of eating chocolate better is to share it with others and whenever I would go to Betsy Ann I would always bring it all in to work with me to chop up and share around. Anyway, as they had been in prior years at the prior employer, the chocolate was a hit. The big and flavorful truffles are a wonderful experience and it was nice to seef my initial wonder over them reflected in others.

I tried to avoid the truffles myself and stick to the other items in the assortment. The truffles had opened my eyes to the wider world of chocolate and so I always consider them my gateway drug so I wanted others to try the them as much as possible. But I wasn't going to pass up the opportunity to have a raspberry truffle (and a couple of others - sharing can be hard sometimes). It was the one that opened the door for me and I really wanted to go back to that first special bite. And it was as good as the first time - rich and creamy and a perfect marriage of flavors.

Betsy Ann may not be a high-end super-fancy chocolatier, but they are that most special of breeds - the local chocolate company. They turn out wonderful quality products for the local market (and further through the power of the web). I love to find these little(ish) semi-regional chocolate makers as they make chocolate without pretension and simply load up on flavor and love.

There isn't a whole lot of point to this post and I'm sure it sounds like a bit of a shill, but to me chocolate is an experience and going back to the beginning was just a lovely experience for me. I suppose the only other thing I really wanted to say was to seek out and support your local chocolate shops. There are some real gems out there.

Posted by William at 9:34 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

In an elevator? And that's Michael Recchiuti as in Recchiuti Confections and the frabnabulous cookbook (with the wonderful name) Chocolate Obsession. And he's teaching you how to make truffles. In an elevator.

I have to wonder what series of events brought The Man (and he deserves the capitals on that) to be teaching how to make truffles in an elevator, but that really is somewhat beside the point because the whole thing is up on YouTube for everybody to enjoy!

You can follow this lovely link to get to the videos (two parts) or you can view them here on the front page (assuming the embed thing works right).

As a total aside I just realized he has a blog! Cool!

Enjoy!

Posted by William at 7:26 AM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)

Well, another Christmas is behind us and that can only mean one thing - sales! It's time to start looking for the post-holiday bargains and I plan to do just that. I have more candy than I need already, but have a hard time ignoring chocolate at a steep discount. Not that I plan to buy much - I never really do - I just like to find a little bargain item here or there. It's fun. So far I've been to one place with no prices marked down, just a sign that select Christmas items were 50% off. They only had one thing I would have bought and their normal price for it was too high so I gave it a pass for now. In another couple of days when it's 75% off I might go back, though.

But sales aren't the only thing the passing of Christmas means, at least around here. I've been caught up in my holiday prep for the past couple of weeks and, as such, have been distracted from posting as much as I'd like. But I have a number of topics I need to touch on that came up as far back as the week before I went to New York (early November!). A few things to expect over the next couple of weeks:

• A little more holiday chocolate talk
  
• Betsy Ann Chocolates
  
• Sugardaddy's Sweeties
  
• Patric Chocolate's Madagascar bar
  
• Amano's limited edition Cuyagua bar
  
• Lindt's Intense Orange bar
  
• Charles Chocolate's Tea Collection
  
• Jones Soda Christmas Cocoa

Hope all of you had (or a still having) a good holiday!

Posted by William at 12:47 PM | Permalink | Comments (7) | TrackBacks (0)

It's the most wonderful time of the year! Christmas is probably the premier chocolate holiday and I always like to look at all of the lovely chocolate products that they come up with each year. It just makes such a great gift (or a little something to keep to oneself while shopping). And on the subject of gifts....

As is obvious we have this lovely coupon from Charles Chocolates for everybody to use and I think that they have a lot of items that would make wonderful gifts, but they may not have something for everybody. And so I'm putting together a quickie list of gift ideas and people who are having promotions or sales and might make somebody happy this season. The list will be horribly incomplete and will, sadly, only feature places I actually know. If you think something else belongs on the list by all means leave a comment! Your ideas may be tons better than mine!

When It Has To Be Chocolate
The chocolate lover on your list can be one of the easiest or most difficult persons to shop for depending on their tastes. For some only the finest dark chocolate will do and some just want to try everything and others like to stick to varietals for their fix. It can be difficult to get things just right for some people, but I have a few options that should help with any taste.

The first and possibly easiest option is Chocosphere. They carry an amazing array of chocolates from around the world and do up custom gift bags, baskets, and boxes with the option to make special request as to their contents. So you can specify the tastes that the person you're shopping for has and they can fill the order appropriately. They can make it easy to shop for even the most discerning chocolate connoisseur or just somebody who loves to taste chocolates from around the world. Of course, if you know exactly what they like you can order the specific items and build your own special package. They also have a great section of gift ideas including some great samplers, gift certificates, and a chocolate of the month club.

The next option is to go to any of the chocolatiers with a solid online presence and see what they have to offer. It might pay to go with one in your general region to help guarantee delivery at this semi-late hour. I’m not going to go over all of the options as there are a million and a half. I will hit a few who have specials going on, though. Vosges (Chicago) has some fantastic gift items available with free ground shipping through the 15th, John and Kira’s have free shipping on orders over $75, See’s ships their gift cards for free, if you’re in the UK then Charbonnel et Walker give you free drinking chocolate with each order over £30 and free shipping to boot, and there is always the 15% off from Charles Chocolates (San Fran).

The online chocolatiers are great and all, but there is a lot to be said for the local chocolatiers. If you can give a good and thoughtful gift and support the little guy (or gal) then by all means do so. You don’t have to worry about shipping, you get to see exactly what you’re getting and more than likely pick out exactly what goes in the box.

And, if things come down to the wire then there are always the mall shops (Godiva, Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory) and semi-regional stores (Betsy Ann in the Pittsburgh area, Anthony Thomas in Central Ohio) to fall back on. And they can be fantastic options, too. Whenever I have brought Betsy Ann around to work people have raved about it. The thing is this: buying chocolate at the grocery store doesn’t say much. Buying from a specialty store does. Nuff said?

And now a few, erm, specialized categories.

For the Tea and Chocolate Lover

• I already mentioned Charles Chocolates but I feel I should mention their Tea Collection. For the dark chocolate and tea lover there really aren't many ways you can do better than this. I have heard wonderful things about it though I have not yet tried it (I used the coupon to get myself some), but given their track record I expect it's fantastic.
  
• MarieBelle, who some may remember from Hot Chocolate Week last year, have their own ideal gift in this category: Dark Obsession Chocolate Rose Tea. The actually have a lot of teas and hot chocolates and offer up a nice combo pack with tea, coffee, and hot chocolate.
  
• And that's not all! SerendipiTea have a lovely box set of Chocolate Tea that they offer. It's actually a really beautiful set that comes in a nice wooden display box with separate canisters for each of the six teas it comes with.

• I can’t say enough about John and Kira’s figs. They are magic.
  
• Fran’s Chocolates also does figs as well as dipped apricots, orange peel, and ginger.
  
• Charles Chocolates has their Orange Twigs (yummy) and marmalades.
  
• Recchiuti has some interesting fruit items (Key Lime Apples?).
  
• MarieBelle has Tropical Fruit Caramels.

For the Caramel Lover

• Fran’s Chocolates is right there at the top of the list. She is famous for her caramels.
  
• As I just mentioned, MarieBelle has those Tropical Fruit Caramels.
  
• Lillie Belle Farms has some Scovie award-winning Cayenne Caramels that are supposed to be out of this world.
  
• The fabulous Recchiuti also has Fluer de Sel Caramels available.

• For the chocolate lover who might find themselves in New York City there is the option of a walking tour from Chocolate ZOOM.
  
• If your chocolate lover loves to bake then cookbooks are a wonderful way to go. I have a fondness for one called Chocolate Obsession (though I consider Cocolat from Alice Medrich to be the prize of my collection and almost always the first book I consult).
  
• Help the chocolate lover on your list make their own chocolate with the help of Chocolate Alchemy.

I have another list of sorts, but it’s beyond the realm of typical gift giving so I’m going to hold it for a separate post.

Posted by William at 8:59 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Here it is, the wrap-up I promised some days ago. I’ve gotten caught up in holiday stuff and life in general and just haven’t had the time to put it together. Until now.

After Monday I had class for the rest of the week so my only real option for getting more chocolate was the two hours between when class ended and most places closed. I planned to use those two hours as best as I could. So Tuesday when class finished up I jumped on the subway and headed down to Union Square to visit Max Brenner and Michel Cluizel.

Max Brenner is an actual restaurant with a bit of a chocolate shop in the front. They were giving out samples of some fabulously evil nuts that they did something to (looking at the website I think it’s “Caramelized pecan rolled in praline cream and fine cocoa powder”) and I could easily eat all day. With that in me I decided it was time to get something more inside of me and see how other things are there. The restaurant was pretty crowded so I just ordered a Dark Chocolate Granita (a frappe) at the drink bar and then grabbed some chocolate from the shop. I don’t remember much of what I got beyond what I think was a blueberry truffle. I do know I enjoyed everything I tried and the Granita was great as well.

With my chocolates secured and my drink in hand I walked the short distance to ABC Carpet & Home where the Michel Cluizel store is located. Lurking in the back of the store and down a few stairs is the only Michel Cluizel store in the US. And to me it’s like some sort of magical paradise. I didn’t know it at the time, but the chocolates I picked up there were some of the best I would get during my trip. The highlights were a number of excellent liqueur bonbons, a Grand Marnier Thistle (white chocolate filled with Grand Marnier – has a wonderful crunch to it and a lovely liqueur hit), and the mighty Cacaoforte which is a 99% cacao mass slab of goodness that has to be tried to be believed. I tried the Cacaoforte that night back at the hotel and fell in love with it on the spot. I really wish I had tried more of the pieces while I was there so I could have bought more to bring home, but I was really eating a lot of chocolate from a lot of places and I figured I would cut things short and not overdose.

Wednesday night I went to see Young Frankenstein the Musical (one of the few shows not shut down by the stagehands strike) and didn’t really have a lot of time for chocolate. The show, being a adaptation of one of my favorite movies, was great fun for me. I love the energy of a Broadway show and this one was ideal for me.

Thursday night, my last night in the city, I had been planning to go up and hit Serendipity3 for the Frrrozen Hot Chocolate since I had missed it earlier in the week, but, as I had mentioned earlier, they got closed down for some vermin issues. I had planned on hitting Dylan’s Candy Bar and Bloomingdale’s while I was up there and when I realized that Serendipity3 was off the menu I just forgot about the other places and changed my plans to going back to Cluizel for some more Cacaoforte for my rabbit sitters and myself and then tracking down some dinner. I rather overdid dinner with some fish and chips from A Salt And Battery down in the Village (best meal of the trip) and picked up some beers at Whole Foods to enjoy with that night’s big football game back at the hotel.

The next morning I got hauled off to the airport and headed home.

And immediately started to miss New York.

Anyway, the summary is what we’re after tonight. The places I really wanted to hit and didn’t get around to actually visiting:

• Bloomingdale’s (so I could try some Martine’s)
  
• Dylan’s Candy Bar
  
• Chocolate Bar NYC
  
• Economy Candy (forgot about it entirely in the rush of planning)
  
• The Chocolate Room
  
• Bierkraft (they have chocolate as well as beer)
  
• Cocoa Bar
  
• Christopher Norman Chocolates
  
• Room 4 Dessert
  
• Shake Shack
  
• Varsano’s Chocolates
  
• Lombardi’s Pizza
  
• All the museums

Things I learned:

• The Chocolate Show is very crowded on Sunday. Friday may be the best option.
  
• There are no ATMs at the Chocolate Show and there is no re-entry once you leave.
  
• Some of the exhibitors at the show are set up for credit cards. This is good.
  
• The Subway is awesome.
  
• New York City has an amazing array of chocolate to sample.
  
• Being in New York City during both a writers strike and a stagehands strike is a terrible thing.
  
• Even if everybody is on strike it is easy to have a great time in New York City.

Can’t wait to go back.

Posted by William at 7:57 PM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)

Well, I lost what I had started on the final full day of freedom in the big city, but I will not allow this to stop me! Starting over!

Day two was looking pretty ambitious as far as what all I wanted to get done. I had three Japanese bookstores to hit in addition to Nintendo World (to try Mario Galaxy out), Saks, Rockefeller Center and, oh yeah, there were about a dozen chocolate destinations I wanted to hit as well. I had this great plan all laid out with my subway directions and where and when to break for lunch and hauling stuff back to the hotel and I actually followed through on a lot of it.

The first stops of the morning were at Kinokuniya and Book-Off for some manga. The opportunity to get my hands on some of the manga I was missing was too much to resist so I had to go. But once I was done with them it was off to find chocolate! After going to Nintendo World (they actually had wii in stock - I so should have bought one or three and mailed them back to myself). I figured I'm a big kid at heart and a minor Nintendo fanboy so I more or less had to go. They had just had their big Mario Galaxy premiere party the previous night (which I had considered attending) and I figured that they would have it out for play and they did. Messed around with it a little and decided that it was time to move on.

My next stop was one of the places I had really been looking forward to visiting - La Maison du Chocolat. They have quite the reputation going for them so I really wanted to stop in while I was in town. After a bit of really confused searching (I came close to walking into Godiva and asking for directions to their competition - that would have been awkward) I finally found the place and sat down for (what else) some hot chocolate. They have a more bitter European style and a sweeter American style and I immediately opted for the European and turned down the cream on the side. I wanted it straight up and was really glad I got it that way. It was good strong stuff. After a few minutes of watching them shuffle around the new shipment (they get weekly shipments from the home office) I decided that the remaining half of my hot chocolate would really go nicely with a macaron. So I got a raspberry macaron and enjoyed it with the rest of my hot chocolate. The good, "bitter" (I didn't consider it bitter so much as just not overly sweetened) hot chocolate was really good with the nice sweet macaron. Having blown a good bit of money on chocolate the prior day and on manga that same morning I decided to limit myself to no more than $10 per chocolatier and my hot chocolate and macaron put me up to the limit for La Maison. I had decided, though, that at some point in the future I would have to go back to work over their selection of chocolates. This time around I was more there just to be there and try a little something. And having done so I moved on.

Next on the list was a side trip to another Kinokuniya just to see if they had anything different that I wanted but once done there I quickly moved on to Saks. And while Saks may sound like a normal touristy shopping destination I was there for more than just the enormous Jhane Barnes section (not that it wasn't worth the trip - I love Jhane's clothes). I was there for Charbonnel et Walker who lurk on the top floor of the store. They have a nice bright café with this cool single strip chandelier thing going around the counter area and a conveyor belt of chocolate dessert fun to boot. Of course they also have the all-important chocolates. I got a Pink Champagne Truffle and a Buck Fizz Truffle and pushed on. Both were excellent. I’ll definitely go back next time I’m in town.

The next stop had me sort of backtracking across the street to visit Teuscher. Their store was quite friendly and fun with lots of neat stuff to check out on the way to the counter where the real fun happens (at least to me). I’m pretty sure that they had a good bit of holiday action going on, but I sure can’t tell you if it was Thanksgiving, Christmas, or both. I was really mainly worried about picking just a few pieces of chocolate from the case. This actually turned out to be pretty easy. I just went with what sounded good to me. A Champagne Truffle, a Zebra Gianduja, and some raspberry log thing (I think it was). All were tasty.

Next on the list was Richart, another place I had been looking forward to visiting. They have a really nice relatively simple store with a few pieces from a couple of artists adorning the walls opposite the counter. They state on the website that the stores are minimally designed so the focus is naturally on the chocolate. I really don’t remember at all what I got there, but I know that I picked up three different pieces and I’m betting money one of them had raspberry happening in it somewhere. I remember liking them, but can’t for the life of me say what they were. Sorry, it’s been too long and I’ve had too much going on.

I can tell you exactly what I got from my next stop, though. The final pre-late-lunch stop was Pierre Marcolini, where I ended up talking OSU vs Michigan while trying to decide what I wanted in the way of chocolate. I ended up with a Coeuer Framboise (bitter chocolate raspberry ganache in white chocolate all in the shape of a heart), a Citron (Earl Grey with lemon and lime zest coated in dark chocolate), and a Thym Orange (with thyme and orange peel). All were very good, especially the Citron.

At this point I wanted some lunch and I figured it was enough past the lunch rush that I could get a seat at Serendipity3, home of the Frrrozen Hot Chocolate and some insano expensive desserts with gold spoons and the like (I try to ignore that sort of thing – I’m more about the food than the money). I’d heard good things about the Frrrozen Hot Chocolate and so I figured it was worth a stop. I got seated immediately (they had a little table fit for one so I got right in) and started looking over the menu. Figuring that I’d been eating mostly chocolate all day I figured it was time to order a sandwich so I settled in on a spicy black bean and salsa burger and figured I’d chase it with the Frrrozen Hot Chocolate. And then I saw another table get served their FHC (tired of typing it again and again). The thing was huge. It was a dessert fit for four and I really wasn’t ready to face it down so I just ran with my sammich (which was pretty good and satisfying). Sadly (or not?), I was going to go back for the FHC on Thursday after class, but stopping in my room first I saw on the news that they had been shut down due to flies, mice, and roaches. I’d seen nothing when I was there, but my eye was sort of caught by the lovely décor (decked out for the holidays) and the crazy big desserts they were serving up. I hope they can get their stuff together. I like the style of the place with all it’s Tiffany Lamps. The worst things I could really say (given the limited tasting of their menu that I had) was that the place was super crowded and cramped and seemed pricey to me, but most of New York seemed pricey to me so what do I know. Anyway, I had my lunch and left.

After that I walked right past Dylan’s Candy Bar and Bloomingdale's and started to head downtown to unload my stuff back at the hotel. Bloomie's and Dylan’s could wait. I had three more nights in the city and would, in theory, make it in. If you’ve been reading this whole travesty then you’ll have spotted the pattern. I did not make it back. I didn’t make it in due to a combination of Serendipity3’s infestations and my love of Michel Cluizel who I’ll talk about more in the wrap-up sometime in the next couple of days.

Posted by William at 9:26 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I really wasn't entirely sure how to proceed with the next part of this. After the Chocolate Show I cut back on what I was spending at each individual chocolatier to the point where I only picked up a couple of pieces from each one (with certain exceptions). And I made my way through the city at a pretty quick pace so some of the places sort of jumble together in my mind. I figure the best I can do is to try and just give my impressions of each place as best I can and call it good enough.

When the Chocolate Show got to the point where it was just too crowded for me to enjoy myself any more I decided it was time to head back to the hotel to unload my haul of chocolate. Once I had unloaded everything I figured that I might as well take the opportunity to head down to SoHo since I had missed out the previous night.

So it was time for me to finally face the subway. I had read all sorts of things about the subway, both positive and negative, and therefore had no idea really what to expect. But I bought my MetroCard, swiped through the turnstyle and jumped on the train as it pulled up all quite painlessly.

A few minutes later I emerged from the Houston Street station and started hoofing it over to Jacques Torres Chocolate Haven. The place feels really comfortable and relaxed while at the same time maintaining a casual class about itself. I had been partaking of chocolate all day (and was planning on having a hot chocolate at my next stop) so I only bought some pieces to go as opposed to kicking back and having a Wicked Hot Chocolate (which I love). I figured I'd have all week to head back for one so why rush to do it all on day one? Of course I didn't make it back. In the end I had a few pieces from the case and a package of dark chocolate covered marshmallows (which I could eat all day).

After a bit of routing trouble with the entrance to the Holland Tunnel I managed to make my way over to MarieBelle (who just opened a new place up on Madison Avenue - cool). I'd say it's a bit more elegant than Chocolate Haven, but still manages to be relaxed and comfortable. In the back of the store, behind the main counter, is their Cacao Bar and Tea Salon, which is where I had been planning on having a cup of their Spicy Hot Chocolate or at least a cup of their Dark Obsession Chocolate Rose Tea (ooh, that sounds all kinds of tasty), but they were crowded. Lots of people in the store and full up in the Cacao Bar. So I added it to the list of places I would return to later in the week (and the list of places I would fail to return to) and pushed on empty handed (noooo!). I wanted to take pictures, but the place was pretty crowded and while it's one thing to take pictures of a business and the people working there it's quite another to take a picture of the place and all the customers as well. At least to me it is. So I didn't even bother asking if photos were ok because even if they were I would have been unhappy taking pictures with lots of innocent people who have nothing to do with my blog.

The next stop was, in theory, Kee's Chocolates, but I got sidetracked by the art vendors along the street and ended up buying a piece (which was brutalized in my luggage on the way back home - the glass in the frame was shattered and there is a small dent in the picture itself which is a watercolor of a bunny - decor for Sophie's room). Alas. In the course of buying it I needed to get some cash (since the chocolate show had taken it all away) and some lunch so I stopped by Famous Ben's Pizza of SoHo and got a slice of white pizza (which was good - not great, just good - but not the way I like my white - I like garlic and fresh basil on top and this was bare) and hit the atm.

So, full of pizza and loaded with street art and a bit of cash, I turned my attention to finding Kee's. The shop itself is really simple as I remember it. Brick walls leading back to a small case where the chocolate is. And the chocolate looks fabulous of course. This was one of my primary destinations for my trip so I got a box of a dozen assorted pieces from the case (somehow I missed the macaroons - I don't remember seeing any at all and I would have probably bought some if they had registered in my brain at all). Everything I've had from it was really good, but the standout piece for me was the Pistachio (a white chocolate and pistachio truffle). I need to go back at some point and get a selection for tasting with a eye toward time and careful thought as opposed to the grabbing a piece from the box when the fancy takes me (which is how the box I bought went). Very pleased that I got to visit.

The final stop on my quick run through the streets of SoHo was Vosges Haut-Chocolat. At this point I was ready for that hot chocolate that I had missed out on back at MarieBelle so I ordered their Aztec Elixir which is the hot chocolate that I managed to forget to order for hot chocolate week last winter. Quite good. Drinkable (as opposed to some of the thicker hot chocolates out there) and nicely spicy. And, since I had been dying of curiosity (however it's spelled), I bought a box of the Itialiano Collection to try out. After seeing how well the combination of cheese and chocolate could be from the Smokey Blue Truffle I was really looking forward to trying the Rooster. At that point I still had the strange misconception that it was a chunk of cheese covered in chocolate (they show those spikes of cheese and a rooster next to it and my mind rushes to the wrong conclusion). After I let one get up to room temperature back at the hotel I was pleased to find that it's a truffle and a really neat tasting experience.

At this point my rush of planning fell apart. I had planned a good bit of what to do when I made my SoHo run, but since I had planned for it to be my first night in the city I had also added onto the end of it some optional places to go to top off the night and one of them was Alison Nelson's Chocolate Bar NYC. I had every intention of going there the first night and once I got past the first night and out and about town I forgot it entirely. So that's one more place I missed.

It was late afternoon at this point and I had a full load of stuff again so I hopped the train back to the hotel and went in search of dinner and found my way to Whole Foods for some dinner (where I skipped the chocolates in the case - Knipschildt I believe - I just don't trust that they'll be fresh from a display case like that). And then I settled in to relax a little (with a little chocolate) before setting out to wander the city a little more on foot (I did this a lot - it's a fun place for people who like to walk). And that's pretty much where day one ended.

Most of the write-up for day two is done so it should show up tomorrow. Then I can wrap up the whole mess and turn my attention to some items that have been happening since I got back. Not to mention holiday chocolate.

Posted by William at 7:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

Two long posts and I still have things I need to address. Here goes.

First, in the first part of the show report I mentioned the artist doing collages who I couldn’t figure out who was. Finally got it! She is Christina Stahr and her chocolate work is called (ready for this) Chocolate Obsession Collages! I love the name (of course). But I love the idea and it's well executed too. So glad I actually looked at the program for the show or I'd never have figured it out. Couldn't remember the Chocolate Obsession connection. I'm bad.

Movin’ on!

I was glad to see Dagoba had a booth and I was especially glad to see that they had a number of bars that I had read about but never had a chance to try yet. So I took a stack of bars home with me (the classic Xocolatl, Lemon Ginger, Seeds, Superfruit, and Prima Materia with 100% cacao content!). I was tempted by the Xocolatl Nibs, but will try them later (I can’t get everything all at once).

Another company in attendance that I was familiar with was Theo Chocolate. I’d only had one of their bars before and they had a pack of their five Origin bars so I grabbed one to give it a shot (I was going to buy just a couple of bars until they realized that with the price they had posted it was cheaper to buy the bars individually – glad the mistake was caught and I was able to get more for less). As I said, I haven’t tried a lot of their chocolate, so I’m interested in how these bars are.

Bits and pieces….

Picked up a Nocturne bar from E. Guittard which I don't think I had never seen before. 91% cacao content on this one so it should be interesting.

Got to pick up one of Amano’s new limited edition Cuyagua bars. I love the small batch producers because they have the ability to take a small batch of really special beans and make a small run bar. There may be variance between individual bars and individual batches, but that’s one of the charms of the small batch. Each bar is an adventure.

Oliver Kita had some really great looking chocolate Buddhas. Very cool. And sadly that’s about all I remember from that booth.

Coppeneur had a really nice booth and I swear that they were talking up a brand new NYC location but I can’t seem to find any evidence of it. This bothers me. Anyway, I tried a bar with ginger and banana and it was pretty darn tasty.

After researching Coppeneur I find myself wanting to visit Fog City News in San Francisco.

Capital One? You can’t go anywhere these days without somebody trying to get you to accept a credit card. And Marriot Vacation Club. Why? I realize that they’re paying for space, but can we focus please? This is the New York CHOCOLATE Show.

Mad Mac! Macarons and Madeleins by the box. The looked lovely and I need to look into them in the future. I like macarons. They is yummy. And the Mad Mac ones looked very pretty and very tasty.

The chocolates from Anna Shea Chocolates were beautiful. I should have bought some.

Chocolate Bar NYC. I was planning on visiting so I just sort of looked at the pretty bars and shirts and stuff and moved on. I never got to the store/café so it’s on my list of things left undone (to be handled on my next trip to the city).

Cosmic Chocolate had some very attractive chocolate hearts (hand painted) and I grabbed some since I had never heard of them and would likely never have another shot to try them before Chocolate Show 2008. Their other big deal item was a small set with celebrity faces on them. A uber-gimmicky product like that makes me worry for the quality of the hearts, but they get the benefit of the doubt for now.

Mars had Java Twix samples, but they weren’t passing them out while I was in the area and the show got to be too crowded for me to be happy there any more so I went without.

There are a number of places I don’t even remember seeing (and some I know I saw and just can't remember) and I’ve got to get some of their chocolates at some point. No rush, I suppose, but I feel like I may have missed out on something somewhere.

Ok, I think that will do for now. Next up is a quick rundown of my quick tour of the city's chocolatiers. The ones I managed to hit.

Posted by William at 8:52 PM | Permalink | Comments (5) | TrackBacks (0)

Ok now, where was I?

Ah, yes. I had just partaken of the goodness that is the Smokey Blue Truffle. A pretty amazing little treat. Just a few short feet away was the booth from the lovely people from SweetRiot who make chocolate covered nibs in varying levels of dark chocolate and packaged in those little art covered tins. I had been hoping that the cinnamon version that they had for the holidays last year might be back, but no such luck. Still, it was nice to get a taste of an old friend.

Across the way from them was the booth for Chocolate Moderne, one of the chocolatiers I had been hoping to get a taste of while I was in the city. They make some very attractive chocolates with some very good sounding flavors. I didn’t pay them quite the attention that I felt they were due as I was planning to grab something from them later in the week as I worked the city over. In retrospect I really wish I had given them some more time as I never got around to finding any of their collections around town. Ah, hindsight.

I knew I was planning on hitting Cluizel and Torres actual stores while I was in town so I kind of breezed past them as well. Lindt kind of falls into that category as well, though I did spend some time talking cookbooks there (I need to add their cookbook to my collection). And on the subject of cookbooks the Barnes and Noble booth had a pretty impressive collection of them including a lot that I had never even seen and one that I had been trying to find a good copy of for a long while - La Maison du Chocolat. I’d seen a copy or two before, but they always tended to be in less than wonderful shape and now I finally got my hands on a nice clean copy.

Back around the corner, in the booth next to Lillie Belle was Fairytale brownies and I had a nice sample from them. They do a good brownie and are somebody I need to look at again in the future. Before I get to them, though, I have some local brownie action I need to address.

Chuao had a nice booth with samples of their bars. There are a couple of their bars that I hadn’t had the pleasure of trying before and this was a nice opportunity to remedy that. The Earl Grey was good, but the bar I was most surprised by was the Spicy Maya. I had tried the Spicy Maya hot chocolate last year and loved it and the bar was (at least to my memory) exactly the same as the hot chocolate. They are both fantastic. I’m looking forward to trying more from them.

Another “old favorite” I got to visit with was Charles Chocolates. Prior to this I had only had the opportunity to try their bars, but this time I had the opportunity to try a couple of their other pieces. First up was a Mojito Heart which, like it sounds, is a mojito chocolate in the shape of a heart. Quite tasty if you like mojitos. The crowd seemed to have a very mixed reaction to my eyes, but I enjoyed it. I also got to try one of their Orange Twigs which are, frankly, awesome. I missed out on the Caramel Almond Sticks, but I’ll get to try them, and the Tea Collection (tea and chocolate is my latest love) later on. Oh, I also got to say hi to Chuck Siegel, the man behind it all. Seems a nice guy.

The next of the places that I really fell hard for was John and Kira’s, from Philly. I feel bad that my attention was so easily captured by their cute ladybug (in mint, raspberry, and honey lavender) and honey caramel bee chocolates. My attention shifted quickly, though, and it was the figs that finally caught my eye. Their normal fig is filled with ganache and dipped in chocolate and look and sound great. The one I got to try was their Fig “Pumpkin” Bonbons. They have a whiskey clove ganache and a (orange colored) white chocolate coating. The coating and the stem protruding from the top make them look just like little pumpkins. And they taste amazing. One of my very favorite items from my trip. I’ve got to order more. They’re just fantastic.

The last place I’ll cover today is Mary’s Chocolate. They make the trip from Japan for the show and do I ever feel blessed for their attendance. First, their booth was one of the cooler booths at the show. They were actually coating and decorating chocolates in the booth and, even better, they were very accommodating to people who wanted to take pictures. And they were generous with the samples. They were handing out their Green Tea, Dark Sesame, and (apparently) Passion Fruit ganaches. The Green Tea is another of my favorites from the show. Fantastically smooth and tasty. The Dark Sesame is also great. While I was there I got (what I think was) a Toasted Sesame Truffle which was also very good.

Tomorrow I’ll finish yapping about the show itself with some talk about the booths that I sort of breezed through and some of the things I need to address next time I go (hopefully 2008). Then I’ll talk a little about the chocolatiers I visited in the city and wrap up the trip with some of the items I need to address next time I head for the big city.

Posted by William at 4:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

First off - I added some more pictures to the set - they're all in the same set as the previous entry and are tagged with "round2" for easy filing (a sad workaround for not being willing to go pro on Flickr just yet). The whole mess is found here as before or you can go down to the prior entry and use the cool little PictoBrowser thangaroo. There are no descriptions or real titles yet, but hopefully that will change in short order.

And on to the content!.

Sadly things weren’t timed quite as well as I would have liked them to be and I didn’t get to New York until Saturday evening so my only shot at the chocolate show was Sunday. So, after rambling about the city on foot Saturday evening, I got up bright and early and started my walk down to 18th to where the show was. I figured it would be nice to start things off with a bagel so I stopped at a place I had noticed the night before and got a shmear and sat and enjoyed it for a bit. When I had finished with my bagel I turned my nose back toward 18th and pushed on. Ended up getting there with more than a half hour to spare so I decided that I would switch gears to my original breakfast plan of hitting City Bakery, which, I had heard, had some of the best hot chocolate in the city. Got a cup with a fresh marshmallow and enjoyed that while killing time. Got to say it was one of the better cups I’ve had (and if you were around for hot chocolate week last winter you’ll know I’ve had a few). Not too thick to drink, not so hot it burns. It was pretty darn good and as the marshmallow slowly shrank it added a little extra sweet creamy something that was quite the nice addition.

But a cup of hot chocolate just can’t last forever and when it was gone I decided to add myself to the queue for tickets to the show. I hadn’t bothered with getting my tickets ahead of time so I was forced to wait in line. The line moved pretty quickly, though, and they gave out these little Valrhona chocolate stick things (and who doesn’t love free chocolate - good chocolate at that) so I wasn’t too worried about the line. Getting in to the ticket desk brought up one of my major complaints about the show. Tickets were cash only. And guess how many atm machines there were to help out those who found themselves short of cash during the day. ZERO. Bad form. Tsk. Cash only tickets aren't so much a problem if there are ample atms around, but that, alas, was not the case.

So, with ticket in hand I was able to finally get into the chocolate show, just a year later than planned. The first thing that greeted me was a nice little art exhibit of something I had been thinking of doing myself: sort of collages made of chocolate bar wrappers. I love the art and style that goes into a lot of the packaging and these showcased some very nice wrappers in a nice classy manner. I wish they had the appropriate info on the Chocolate Show website, but they don’t have it filled in so I can’t give props where due and that disappoints me. I’ll keep trying to figure it out.

**EDIT**
She is Christina Stahr and her chocolate work is called (ready for this) Chocolate Obsession Collages! I love the name (of course). But I love the idea and it's well executed too. So glad I actually looked at the program for the show or I'd never have figured it out. Couldn't remember the Chocolate Obsession connection. I'm bad.
**EDIT**

Anyway, after that we had some more chocolate art, which I took a couple of shots of. It’s nice. Reminds me of Ikebana which I quite like. I afforded it less time than I really should have, though. I was in a hurry to get into the show and make sure I managed to get my hands on a certain something before it disappeared.

After trying a generic mass-produced truffle (the kind you can buy a jillion of in a little box at the grocery) from someplace I will never remember the name of I quickly made my way to the Lillie Belle Farms booth where I got to chat a bit and try the award winning Smokey Blue Truffle. For those who are unfamiliar they took the award winning Rogue Creamery Smokey Blue Cheese and made a truffle with it and toasted almonds. It is pretty amazing that chocolate and blue cheese could go so well together, but it really works beautifully. It’s smokey, creamy, tangy and all around wonderful. One of the two best things I tried at the show. And one of the three best I tried while in New York. I bought a package of the truffles and a package of chocolate covered dried pears (I love dried pears) and when these are gone I’m going to have to order some more. They are one of those items that are just too good not to share.

More to come..... tomorrow most likely. I've been a bit busy baking today.

Posted by William at 6:51 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

Friday evening I finally returned home and Saturday morning I had recovered the rabbit and settled in for a bit of rest and the big game on the tube (OSU v Michigan of course). I've got to admit I was (and still am) exhausted. It wasn't until yesterday before I even tried to get my thoughts organized as to how to address the whole adventure. The only thing that makes sense to me is to break it all up into smaller more digestible pieces. There is a lot of ground to cover and a lot to organize and I even have a lot of pictures yet to take. But I need to get started at some point, so this is it.

The first thing I'm going to do is to get the initial batch of photos uploaded. A lot of them didn't turn out as well as I'd like so a good number of them just didn't make the final cut. I really wish I had more decent shots from the Chocolate Show, but things were getting too painful there for me to stick around. But I did manage to get some worthwhile pictures and have shuffled them off to Flickr and into a new set for the whole Concrete Jungle Chocolate Safari (I do like the whole safari thing I've been doing with Jungle Jim's so why no carry it over to NYC). I'll be adding comments as I go, but for now the least messy of my pictures are up for perusal. The actual show report will follow shortly and will likely be spread over a couple of nights followed by the SoHo report and the Midtown and Union Square trips. And somewhere along the line I need to do some sort of basic wrap-up report.

Anyway, I'm back and finally getting started on getting it all out of my head (and camera) and onto the blog.

Here is an experimental PictoBrowser for you to play with or you can go to the actual set right here.

Posted by William at 6:18 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

Got into my hotel a little later than I had hoped and my plans of heading do SoHo to hit the big four down there kind of hit the skids. So I went for a walk instead. Up almost to Central Park and then down to 18th to check out where the chocolate show is and then back up to my hotel at 34th. I like the ability to walk all over the place. It works for me. But I wasn't wearing my walking shoes or socks so my feets were less than thrilled when I got back to the hotel. Eh, who cares. No pain no gain. And no blisters to speak of either, which is great.

So the only chocolate I managed on my first night in town was a Chocolixir from Godiva.

I think I made up for it today. There was, of course, the chocolate show. But even before than I headed over to City Bakery for a hot chocolate. Once I was done there I headed in to the show and was floored by some of the amazing chocolates (more on them in the big wrap-up post in a few days). Got to try the Smoky Blue Truffle (amazing) before they sold out and that was my big goal for the show. My other goal was to get over to Mary's Chocolates (from Japan) and give them a try and am I ever glad I did. I left with a lot of chocolate. And I headed back to the hotel.

And then, like the nutjob I am, I jumped onto the 1 Train down to SoHo so I could get into the places I missed out on yesterday. Hit Torres' Chocolate Haven, MarieBelle (which was insano-slammed - no space in the chocolate bar at all), Kee's Chocolates, and finally Vosges. And I even had time for a slice from Famous Ben's Pizza while I was at it.

So I got off to a good start. Had hot chocolate twice, a proper bagel once (reminds me of my favorite bagels from home), pizza twice, Whole Foods salad bar once (I gotta eat at least a little healthy here and there), Godiva once, bought a little bit of street art, and hit four Chocolatiers ignoring the ones I hit at the show itself.

Not a bad 24 hours.

And guess what: I was a good little blogger and took pictures! I got back to the hotel and took more pictures of my loot. And then I realized: I forgot my usb cable. Unless I buy an sd reader of a cable my pictures are trapped on my camera. le sigh.

I'll post pictures later. I promise nothing in terms of quality and not huge numbers when it comes to quantity, but I did take pictures where and when it seemed prudent (I didn't in Vosges and MarieBelle because they were super crowded and I wasn't allowed at Kee's but I got some nice pics at Torres Chocolate Haven and some nice shots at the Chocolate Show).

Gotta run. My salad is getting warm.

Posted by William at 7:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

Chocolate Show Update:
I got approved for the class and had my hotel and flight all lined up so there wasn't much left that could go wrong, right? Ha! It only took 24 hours for things to go pear-shaped. The date they've been listing for the class and emailing to me wasn't quite right. It starts a day later (I think they're just now hammering down their November schedules and realized there was a teacher availability conflict). I've been worried all along that something would derail somewhere along the way and I would end up having to come up with alternate plans (I refuse to cancel this year - did it last year and can't very well back out again, can I?) and already something has gone wrong. Eh, what can you do? We're working on trying to shift the flight and add an extra night to the hotel stay (one more day in the city is a nice thing) and hopefully once that is taken care of things will be all right (or am I putting a big fat jinx on myself?). I'll just cross my fingers and wait and hope that nothing else breaks down between now and then.

Chocolate Show Planning:
How I do love the internet. I figured it was time to try and figure out just what I'm in for with the whole Chocolate Show thing and try to decide if I can do it all in one day or not. Where better to look for scoopage than flickr? And after about ten minutes of cruising through the pictures I've come to one simple conclusion: I'm in trouble. There is just too much chocolate going on. I can tell already that I'll be spending a fortune there and I don't doubt that I'll be trying more than a few things as I make my way through the show (free samples will be the death of me). At the end of the day I probably won't even be able to move due to over-consumption and an unshiftable load of chocolate to take back with me.

I think the key to making it through the show without going broke, insane, or both is going to be to set very simple and clear rules for myself. Anything I can get through chocosphere I do not purchase at the show. Things from out of towners who have come in just for the show are to be sampled and purchased. Things from chocolatiers in New York can be skipped in favor of visiting their actual shops. I think if I keep to these basic guidelines I won't get into too much trouble there. Hopefully. Maybe.

Too much chocolate or not (and I really struggle with that concept), I am enthused to have the opportunity to try so many things that are new to me. I love the inventiveness that is constantly brought to chocolate. I really enjoy the things that come completely out of left field and surprise me (like, oh, I dunno, CHEESE) and I especially like them when, after a bite, I can understand just what the creator was thinking when they made it. There is excitement and discovery in trying new chocolates and that is why I love to just go out and lazily shop about trying things at random. I think I'll be doing rather a lot of that in New York and I really can't wait. It should be a good time.

Closing Thought:
I just realized: I've been more skeptical of mixing a dairy product (cheese) with chocolate than I was of mixing a meat product (bacon) with chocolate. That's a little strange. Eh, whatever. I'll still try it.

Posted by William at 8:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)

Chocolate used to be simple. The most exotic thing you'd find in it was a bit of fruit or a nut. Oh, how times have changed. Spices are everywhere and the old school fruits have given way to the superfood fruits like goji and people are adding things like olives and bacon into the mix.

And now cheese.

Yes, cheese. On a certain level it makes sense. Milk and chocolate are a natural combination. And what is cheese but old milk? Ok, it's a lot more than just old milk - theres rennet and stuff and I don't know hardly a thing about how they make it but at the beginning of it's life it's a dairy product, right? So in some ways it's not that far a stretch. In others.... well, it cheese for goodness sake! I mean, yes, there are cheeses that work with chocolate after some effort - nothing wrong with chocolate cheesecake - but in general it just isn't the sort of combination I would come up with myself.

All confusion aside it should come as no surprise that Vosges Haut-Chocolat, the people who brought us the fabulous Mo's Bacon Bar, are behind this new taste sensation. They have a nice Italian themed box of chocolates including the following:

• rooster: Dark chocolate with taleggio cheese, walnuts, and Tahitian vanilla beans (cheese!)
  
• olio d'oliva: Dried olives and extra virgin olive oil in white chocolate (this one frightens me somewhat)
  
• balsamico: Balsamic vinegar, roasted hazelnuts, and dark chocolate (this sounds great to me)
  
• sale del mare: Pine nuts, burnt sugar caramel, and sea salt in milk chocolate (also sounds fantastic)
  
• finocchio: Fennel pollen, anise, and dark chocolate (this sounds like it could be really good - maybe)

Posted by William at 8:24 PM | Permalink | Comments (13) | TrackBacks (0)

♫ New York, New York! ♫

Well, last year's planned New York City Chocolate Crawl dissolved in the face of uncertain rabbit health. I fully expected to stay home this year since I just bought a new home and just bought my car and it didn't seem the right time to take an expensive vacation. But today I got approval for a training class I've been wanting to take. It just happens to be in New York and just happens to butt up against the Chocolate Show. So... I get to bundle up a bit of training and a bit of vacation and should be able to be there for at least a couple of days of the chocolate show. Nice.

I have a ton of planning to get done most important of which is getting the rabbit sitter lined up. I suppose it's time to get the old map up to date, too.

Fun fun fun! I hope.

Posted by William at 8:40 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

It's kind of hard to write about chocolate when I'm not eating much of it. But there are things worth discussing here and there. I'm currently taking a bar of chocolate to work with me and eating a little after lunch each day. It means I'm getting some chocolate in me, but not a whole lot. This past week it's been the E. Guittard Quevedo bar I've been munching on and while it isn't as deep an experience as some of their other bars it is a great bar for snacking on. It's simple and good and doesn't do anything wrong. I've also snuck a Edy's Slow Churned Nestle Crunch Ice Cream Bar in (it's summer - ice cream is a necessity). It's nice and tasty and not too big a serving.

What I really want to try this week is the new Limited Edition Razzberry M&Ms (I'm really interested in seeing if they use real raspberry flavor). What I find interesting about it is that I usually see raspberry paired with dark chocolate and these are the normal milk chocolate M&Ms with raspberry flavor.

And while on the subject of M&Ms.... I'm used to the cartoony Red, Yellow, and Green M&Ms from the commercials. I'm used to the fact that an M&M only has eyebrows, not actual hair. And now there's all these M&Ms with hair running around on the commercials and it don't sit well with me. It just doesn't seem right. Looks wrong. Unnatural. It's probably just me, but I don't like it. Nope.

Ok, enough M&M angst.

The big news of the past week or two is that Campbell's is possibly looking to unload Godiva. It's going to be interesting to see who goes after them. I've seen all sorts of speculation flow through my inbox about who might and might not be interested. There have been mentions of Lindt, Nestle, Wrigley, and (of course) Hershey (who are turning into the Microsoft of chocolate - they're buying everybody). I kind of think that if the hints I've found on the internet are right and Godiva gets their chocolate from Barry Callebaut then that might be a really good fit if they can afford the expected $1Billion pricetag. It could be seen as a problem, though, as they would suddenly be in direct competition with other chocolatiers that they supply. Anyway, it should be interesting to see who wants to pony up the cash if Campbell's actually goes through with it.

One of the great things about getting newsfeeds about chocolate in my inbox is the great sounding recipes that show up (amidst all of the stupid chocolate cellphone news - so glad it's dying off) all the time. One of them that caught my eye recently was Banana Bread with Chocolate Chips and Walnuts over at Epicurious. I love banana bread and the only way I know to make it better is to add nuts and/or chocolate. Mmmm....

That's about all I have for now. I'm not sure what bar I'm eating this week, but if it isn't something I've previously covered I'll try and write up a review. Good night all!

Posted by William at 8:52 PM | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBacks (0)

Yeah, it’s been a while since I last updated. I feel guilty and stuff. Sorry. I got sidetracked when my new nephew hit the scene and did some family stuff and on the tail end of that I ended up with more health problems. And life has been somewhat less than wonderful for a couple of weeks.

But somewhere in there I ate some chocolate. Not a lot, but I did eat a couple of things of note.

Elvis Reese’s Cup: Finally found some Elvis action at the grocery store while picking up some lunch. And it was good. The banana wasn’t too sweet and actually tasted like banana and not the fake banana you get in some candy either. It was good. Somewhat related to my all time favorite sandwich – the peanut butter, banana, and chocolate chip sammich (I was going to fry one up in honor of The King, but I’m not frying things right now or eating large amounts of peanut butter so It’s kinda indefinitely on hold). Such the perfect combination of flavors. Anyway, I’ll give the Elvis Reese’s Cup an 8 out of 10. It’s not fine fine chocolate or anything, but it’s top-notch snacky stuff. And I would not be at all surprised to see it return as a non-limited-edition. It’s too good to go away permanently.

Nestlé 100 Grand with Coconut: For some reason this showed up in the vending machine at work and I really couldn’t help myself. And you know what? I’m glad I couldn’t help myself. I love the normal 100 Grand and I love coconut so I figured this would be something fun. And it was pretty good. Not sure I like what it does to the texture of the original, but I like the addition of coconut to the taste. And I can’t help but think about Samoa Girl Scout Cookies, which are about the greatest thing in the universe (at least as far as cookies are concerned). Good stuff. Lets say…. 6.5 out of 10. It’s yummy, but not a religious experience.

I’m actually going to try and start posting again, but there may be more of a shift back to the early days of the blog where it will be more about news and recipes and new products than reviews. There will still be reviews, but probably not a ton or anything. I’m cutting back on chocolate intake. Not that it was all that much to begin with, but I’m cutting even the little bit I was eating back to just a tiny bit a day.

So, next up will be a review of the pair of bars I have from Charles Chocolates. They’re some good stuff.

Posted by William at 8:49 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Yeah, I haven't been posting. I've kind of been ignoring actual chocolate in favor of beating the heat with ice cream. My vice of the moment is Ben & Jerry's Vanilla Caramel Fudge though I've also been enjoying some Edy's® Nestlé® Drumstick® Sundae Cone (I was amused by all the trademarks lurking in the name) which, as I found it, came in a package looking very little like the one shown on the site. Whatever. The skinny on it is that it makes up for the one flaw I found with the Ben & Jerry's Stephen Colbert's AmeriCone Dream by adding the nuts that I felt it needed, but lacks the caramel that made the AmeriCone Dream so good. I just can't win. Well, without buying a jar of caramel to pour on my Edy's. Or some nuts to add to my B&J's. Anyway, I've been eating chocolate in a more frozen form. I'm snacking on a little real chocolate on the side, but it's kind of fallen by the wayside in the heat of summer.

Oh, before I forget....
PIRATE PEARLS SIGHTING
I was over at the local Big Lots looking for cheapie decorations for my new place and wandered over to the candy aisle to see if there were any limited editions lurking in the racks that I had failed to try before they disappeared from the shelves. And what do you suppose I found a large supply of? Yep. Pirate Pearls. I've said it before: close out stores are your friend. If you're one of the people who are still looking then I can tell you, they're still out there. You just have to look for them. Close out stores and drug stores are probably your best bets these days, though the internet is always an option. But they're still out there for the finding.

So, during my period of chocolate inactivity I actually did eat an entire bar of chocolate - something that would generally get stretched out over an extended period of time. I managed to devour my Chuao Caracas bar with barely a thought toward reviewing it. I brought it to my desk thinking review, and then proceeded to tear it to pieces over a few days and was left with an empty box and no review. I hate to write a review without a good sized chunk in hand for reference and a solid pile of notes from two or three separate tastings and I just don't have either. Until I get another one (which might be as soon as Friday) I'll leave you with some impressions. The top of the bar is well formed. The bottom has a texture like a gravel road. There are huge nutty protrusions everywhere. The nuts extending from the bottom of the bar nearly double the height of the bar. And there's loads of them in there as well. Tasty and crunchy and good. I may expand on this after I get another bar.

I also managed to try a "mystery bar" that I found in the cupboard when I reached in for a little taste of chocolate. The outer wrap was missing and only the foil and chocolate were in the bag I grabbed. I popped it open and took a bite. Very nutty. Very nice. I thought it would be really good with some fruit in the mix. And then I tasted the fruit. And it dawned on me. It was the Charles Chocolates Hazelnut and Candied Orange Peel bar. It's wrapper had suffered a mishap while waiting for my attention so I chucked the wrap and tossed the bar in a zipper bag and threw it in the cupboard and forgot where I put it. And, surprise surprise, I found it. Quite tasty stuff. I might be getting another bar of theirs in a couple days so I'm going to hold off on the review until I know for sure whether I'm reviewing one or two bars.

I've had my eyes open for the Elvis Reese's Cups, but haven't seen any in the wild yet. Still looking, though. Thrill of the hunt and all that. When I get some I'll probably end up doing a little more of the chocolate mad science thing (like with the Peeps and the whole Caramel Marshmallow and bacon experiment) in honor of the King. I've got an idea. A very bad idea. It should be fun.

And that's about all I've done with chocolate lately. I'm really slacking. I was thinking about making some truffles while I'm on vacation (I've got an idea I'd like to try that I haven't seen in retail yet and I know it's only a matter of time before everybody does their own version), but I just haven't felt motivated to do it. I'm relaxing for a few days and that's about it. The biggest thing I've done so far has been to get my oil changed. I do think I'm going to drive down to Jungle Jim's on Friday, though, and I might grab a few ingredients for experimentation while I'm there. At worst I'm going to stick my nose in the door at Godiva to try one of their new varieties of Chocolixir (Dark Chocolate Raspberry - yum!) so I'll at least post about that. Oh, be sure to stop by your local Godiva sometime between 7/27 and 7/29 - they are going to be giving out Chocolixir samples.

It just sort of feels that summer is more about ice cream than chocolate. I just have to work on getting in a little chocolate with my ice cream.

Stay cool everybody!

Posted by William at 7:54 PM | Permalink | Comments (8) | TrackBacks (0)

I’ve had my eye on the Caramel Marshmallows from Vosges Haut-Chocolat for a while now. I’m not sure when I first ran across them, but every time I did I wanted to try them just a little more. But I prefer not to order my chocolate online. I like to go out and buy it myself and, sadly, I haven’t been back to Chicago since I started the blog. So I just haven’t had an opportunity to try them yet. And then they came out with Mo’s Bacon Bar and I had a lot more reason to place an order with them. I was still torn due to the high cost of shipping chocolate in the summer, but I got an unexpected check in the mail and decided that I may as well use it on a little chocolate. And I couldn’t order something from Vosges without getting the marshmallows.

First things first: these are no ordinary marshmallows. You have a marshmallow (made with real vanilla) topped with caramel mixed with walnut and pecan bits, which is then coated in chocolate and topped with caramel toffee. Yep, they are anything but ordinary. The packaging is lovely (as is always the case with Vosges) with a nice outer wrap surrounding a silver-stamped box.

Yes, it has attractive packaging (which I always focus on for some reason), but it’s what’s inside that really matters, right? Well, inside that nice package are nine chunky caramel marshmallows, each about an inch tall and an inch and a half square. They’re not one-bite marshmallows, not by a long shot. The chocolate has a good solid snap and is thick enough to give the whole thing a nice structure. I don’t know what really to say about the taste. It’s definitely greater than the sum of its parts and everything plays really well together. I’ve certainly torn through the box pretty fast.

These are flat-out awesome and well worth the seemingly high price of $27. For somebody like me with the full trio of weaknesses for chocolate, marshmallow, and caramel it’s a fantastic and addictive treat. I’m giving it a solid 9.25 out of 10. I was planning on having my sister bring me a box of truffles when she comes back to town next month, but now I might have to have her bring these instead (or, more likely, in addition to).

But we’re not done! Returning to the packaging that I was so enamored with there is a little section on the top that reads as follows:

THE VOSGES ANSWER TO A BAD DAY
Sandwich 1 caramel marshmallow between 2 fresh potato chips and bite … bite 1 caramel marshmallow following a foamy sip of a Belgian wheat beer … place 1 caramel marshmallow on 2 strips of sizzling bacon, slice and savor.

So, for the second time in a week, Chocolate Obsession is venturing into the realm of smoked pork products. I didn’t want a whole package of bacon (I don’t cook meat much because it scares the rabbit) so I swung by Whole Foods on the way home and grabbed a few slices from the butcher counter and headed home to give it a shot.

I will not eat bacon without trying to swab off as much of the grease as possible with paper towels and I think it lost a bit of heat in the process because the caramel relaxed, but didn’t quite melt.

Posted by William at 11:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (6) | TrackBacks (0)

Friday, in a fit of despair over my missing chocolate, I headed down to Jungle Jim's for the first Chocolate Safari of the year (which is to be the subject of a separate post) and came home with some interesting new treats to fill the hole in my chocolate supply. I was still feeling pretty good Friday night so I proceeded to tear into some the remaining boxes (over 50 boxes to tear through - *groan*) that had yet to be explored in the post-move environment and, shock of shocks, there was still no sign of the missing chocolate. I didn't leave it in the apartment when I left. I didn't leave it in the car either - I had the seats down and there was no place for it to hide. That left one possible hiding place and it was the one I feared the most: The Garage. When I wasn't supposed to be lifting boxes (I probably shouldn't still, but rarely do exactly what I should) I had placed a number of the final boxes to leave the apartment in the garage. With temperatures that had been up into the high eighties in the time since placing them there I had little hope for the survival of my chocolate. Of course it was in the first box I opened. And, strangely enough, there was no sign of melting or leakage at all. I rushed the chocolate into the kitchen and carefully popped open a piece of Domori. There was no bloom! No melting or deformation either! The chocolate had survived! I don't know if all the chocolate fared as well as the Domori did, but so far it looks like the chocolate in the garage (which seems to be relatively cool compared to the outside temperature) fared better than the chocolate I brought back from Cinci (there were minor casualties on the car ride home). I've gotta say, that was a pleasant surprise.

Posted by William at 8:36 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

I've managed to unload a few boxes and have cut the tape on a bunch more and found chocolate! Not my stash of the best I had, but still a good array of bars. So, tonight I opened my first new chocolate bar in my new condo. The bar of the night was a Jacques Torres Milk Chocolate Brulée bar. Very tasty bar. Smooth and creamy with crunchy little caramel bits running through it. I'm really not giving this one a lot of thought. It's a good chocolate for snacking and as such gets a good solid 8.25 out of 10.

Somewhere in all of the boxes that are scattered through the condo are a ton more chocolate and I'm talking good stuff. I'm starting to get into more of the boxes and I'm hoping I'll find it this weekend. There's also a chance I'll head for Jungle Jim's and grab some new chocolate so hopefully I'll be posting some more.

While I'm actually posting I had a really tasty sounding recipe hit my inbox recently and figured I would share. Epicurious has a recipe for a Bittersweet Chocolate Irish Whiskey Cake! This would have been a good recipe for Saint Patrick's Day, but it might be a nice first recipe for the new kitchen.

Posted by William at 9:51 PM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)

This lull has gone on too long. I’ve got a mess of things demanding my attention, but I can’t keep ignoring the blog like I’ve been doing. But I don’t have a whole lot to post about right now. Most of my chocolate is lost somewhere in the multitude of boxes scattered around the condo and as I’ve been ordered a number of times to try and stay off my feet and to not do any moving of boxes or unpacking. And there is stuff in there I’m dying to try and it’s driving me nuts knowing it’s somewhere in there and I just can’t have it. I really hope it’s not out in the garage. I think I would have seen the spreading chocolate puddle if it were, but until I get my hands on it I’ll keep worrying.

On to happier subjects. Well, maybe not so happy. I said a while back that the Pirate Pearls were back. Well, I think I may well have lied. Sure I saw a few hundred pounds of them at the store recently, but I haven’t seen a single one at any other store anywhere else. And to make things worse M&Ms are running a Shrek The Third promotion now and the M&Ms Pirate’s site hasn’t been updated for the new movie either. Things are looking kinda bleak especially since M&Ms have a promotion going on with Dreamworks now instead of Disney (oooh, Disney can't be happy). So things aren’t looking too hopeful for a return of white chocolate M&M’s in the form of Pirate Pearls. Hopefully they’ll launch them as a normal product this summer like they did the dark chocolate last year, but until they do it looks like it’s back to being a lost cause.

Next is definitely a happier subject. I’ve been slowly tearing apart a Vosges Haut-Chocolat Goji Bar which has goji berries and pink salt in dark milk chocolate. I’ve been eating it even slower than I usually eat a bar because I can’t tell whether chocolate is making my semi-mystery ailment worse or not. But I’ve been eating it bit by bit and I gotta say, it’s good stuff. The goji berries are nice and tasty and the salt is a nice contrasting flavor. I’d like it a little less salty than it seemed to be, but it’s still a really tasty bar. While I’m not really doing a full review I’m still gonna give it it’s score – an 8.25 – just because I deserves some praise.

On Mondays at Whole Foods they have a thing where they give out samples of all sorts of stuff and it’s good fun to just browse through the store (pun very much intended) trying different things. Well, the Monday prior to Valentine’s Day they did chocolate and lots of it. That was a nice night. And they even brought out the special limited edition Chocolove Chilies and Cherries in Dark Chocolate bar for the occasion. I had been looking for it since it was announced and was happy to get to try it (the cherries weren’t too sweet and the chilies weren’t too hot – nice bar) and asked for a bar to take with so I could do a proper review. They reached down behind the table and fished out a bar and I went happily on my way. The next night I pulled the bar out to review and discovered that they had handed me a Cherries and Almonds in Dark Chocolate. It’s a nice bar, but I was really pretty disappointed. I went back to the store and there were none to be found. And it was that way for over a month. Finally the bar reappeared! Only now I think it’s gone from being a limited edition to being a regular offering. On their website they show it with the standard Chocolove seal and not the Limited Edition mark and no longer mention the fact that it was a limited edition Whole Foods only affair. So if you weren’t able to get it in the Valentine’s window take a look around and you might get lucky (and I know that Chocosphere has it now). I know they have a lot of them at Whole Foods these days.

That’s all I’ve got in me for tonight. I’ll try to start posting a bit more even if I can’t be eating a lot of chocolate right now (I promise!). Maybe I’ll bake something. I know where my baking chocolate is so I can at least make something tasty.

G’night!

Posted by William at 9:37 PM | Permalink | Comments (5) | TrackBacks (0)

Well, I'm back. I'm moved out and somewhat moved in. Somewhere in all the mess of moving I managed to end up with a medical issue that I think I now have under control. The medical issue seemed to be made worse by consumption of chocolate so I've been avoiding it for a couple of weeks, but now I'm back in the saddle again and the chocolate life may resume.

First order of business: FDA Proposed Changes to Chocolate
I've been kind of distant from chocolate and haven't spoken up on the subject and feel like I've really been shirking my duties because of it. It's been all over the internet and on the network news and in the papers and you can't avoid it. I'm talking about the scary attempt to re-define just what chocolate actually is from a legal standpoint. The main thrust is the ability to swap out the good and wonderful cocoa butter for vegetable fat (think Crisco) and still be able to legally call the product chocolate. All because vegetable oil is super-cheap compared to cocoa butter.

The long and short of it is this: they want the right to legally pass off an inferior product as chocolate.

You can guess my feelings on this whole mess. My one consolation is that as long as they don't get bought out by one of the monsters of the chocolate and candy world we should still be able to get our quality real chocolate from those companies that are dedicated to the art of chocolate.

If you aren't up to speed on the subject or want to know how to make your voice on the subject heard by the powers that be, you should head over to Candy Blog and check out Cybele's coverage of the subject. She's all over it and it would be silly of me to try and repost all of the content and repeat what she's already said so well so I'm just going to point you toward everything she has on the subject. She's leading the charge and bless her for doing so.

And Boo! on the FDA for even considering this stupidity.

FDA on Candy Blog

Posted by William at 11:51 AM | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBacks (0)

*Ahem*
Chocolate Obsession is pleased to announce...

Pirate Pearls are BACK!

Just thought y'all might like to know.

Hmmmm..... I should have looked to see if they changed the packaging any, but I was in a hurry to get home to the rabbit. She gets grumpy if she is forced to wait for her dinner.

Posted by William at 9:52 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

All the madness of trying to pack up my universe for the impending move is starting to slow down. Most of my stuff is in boxes and ready to go. The biggest task left to go is the cleaning (ugh). This means that I have some time to spare for chocolate again.

Possibly the most fun out of the whole packing business has been finding random, half-eaten bars of chocolate and trying to figure out what they are. Some are pretty obvious from looking at the bar itself (which I've tried to avoid - it takes the fun out of guessing) and some I can only stare at blankly until I taste them and, hopefully, figure out just what it is I've got in front of me. Some bars are easier to guess than others because of their ingredients. Some have an unmistakable aroma (Sao Tome I can spot by taste and smell now). Some I really have to sit and taste and think about. They're the most fun for me. When I can only carefully consider the taste of the bar to determine what it is I really find myself challenged and I think it's a good learning experience. I'm getting to the point that I can spot a few regions by taste and I can at least narrow down to the producer of the chocolate in most cases pretty quickly. I may make an ongoing game out of this for myself (it almost already is one) and randomly bag and tag small pieces of chocolate (carefully adjusted to have no sign of the company logo or any trademark shape) and every so often just grab one and take a shot at guessing it. Right now I'm working off of memory and the bars themselves. Having an answer key to refer back to would be nice.

Beyond sneaking bites of random bars that I've found (everywhere) in the process of cleaning and packing I've mainly been looking for the Ben & Jerry's Americone Dream ice cream (with chocolate covered waffle cone bits in it! and caramel!) and snacking on whatever I find at the grocery store when I don't find the ice cream. It's really beginning to frustrate me. I've been to about a dozen stores looking for it and can't find it anyplace. I'm beginning to think that Columbus just isn't getting any (which is a distressing thought - I want to try this!). I've got a handful of stores left to try but the map at the no fact zone reports sightings at both Wal-Mart and Weiland’s here in town (I figure if the Wal-Mart in Grove City has had it then it's worth a shot to try the one up the road from me) so I've still got a shot. I'm going to hit one tomorrow and the other probably Thursday or Friday. After that I'm stuck with the unpleasant prospect of having to head for the nearest Ben & Jerry's Scoop Shop (which is in Dayton, I think) to get a taste and if I'm going to go that far then I may as well just head for Cinci and hit Jungle Jim's and one of the B&J shops down there.

Beyond the ice cream the only things of note that I've eaten lately are a Hershey's Cacao Reserve Arriba (Ecuadorian single origin 50% cacao dark milk chocolate) and a Ghirardelli Intense Dark Mint Bliss (60% dark chocolate with, of course, mint). I'm pretty impressed with how far Hershey's has come in the past year. The ingredients list is very simple and straightforward and the chocolate is pretty nice. The most interesting thing about it (to me, at least) is that it is manufactured for Hershey's by a third party in Germany (one possibility comes immediately to mind). I'm half surprised that they outsourced and didn't outright buy another chocolate maker to take care of their new lines of chocolate. Hershey aside, the Ghirardelli was pretty ok. Not amazing, but they also went light on the mint. Kind of surprising to find subtle use of mint oil, but they did it. It's a decent snacking bar, but out of their Intense Dark line I prefer the Citrus Sunset (with orange bits and caramel crunch). It came from the regular grocery, though, and it's nice to find something better than the standard Hershey bar there.

Easter is this weekend! And that means Monday is SALE DAY! Not planning to buy much (since I'd just have to move it to the new place in a couple of weeks and I don't want to have to move anything else) but I'll probably nab a couple items here and there. Keep in mind that the best sales will start somewhere around Wednesday. What they can't move at 25% off they'll start to push at 50% off or more!

That's all I've got for now. I have a new Vosges Goji Berry bar that I'll probably review this week since I've been curious about goji berries for a while now. Then a little post Easter action is likely and then I'm moving. This will probably be a very slow month here at the blog, but I'll hopefully pick things back up once I'm all moved in.

In case I don't get the Vosges review up this week I'll take this opportunity to say "Happy Easter!" and to (once more) remind everybody that rabbits are not toys nor are they disposable. Give chocolate!

Posted by William at 9:35 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

Easter is fast approaching so it's about time for me to pull out the old soapbox and once more talk up a good cause (using the mighty copy and paste).

The message of the Make Mine Chocolate campaign is that rather than dooming more rabbits to shelters (often leading to euthanasia) or abandonment in the wild (which is a death sentence) people should consider giving a traditional chocolate bunny for Easter instead. And if somebody absolutely has to buy a live rabbit as a gift then for goodness sake adopt one.

Give chocolate and save a life.

Make Mine Chocolate
House Rabbit Society Easter Message

Posted by William at 11:34 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

So I'm in the process of going through my apartment and throwing out the items that I don't want and boxing up the items I do want in preparation for a planned move next month and I just can't get my mind around the amount of chocolate that I'm finding. EVERYWHERE. Because I consider a tiny amount to be a proper serving (a little chocolate goes a long way) I have a huge number of partially eaten chocolate bars all over the place. I had a bunch in a bag on my desk (for munching while on the computer), maybe ten in a drawer in the kitchen, another few in a bowl on the kitchen counter, and a couple just laying on the counter hiding under the chaos that ensues when preparing to move. I have nearly as many half-finished bars as I do whole bars!

And that's another problem. I have so many bars begging for my attention but I'm spending most of my spare time boxing up my life (and throwing away the bits that aren't worth moving). When I reach a stopping point I'll crash with a little chocolate that I have trouble enjoying because the rabbit, possessed of a sweet tooth even worse than mine, jumps in my lap to try and get a taste. God forbid I eat something sweet and not share, but I can't share the chocolate because it's bad for her. She has to settle for a raisin. But the end effect is that I get a bite or two of chocolate before I have to put it aside again. I'm just not getting my normal chocolate intake and it's making it hard to blog.

I do, however, have ample opportunity to savor a little chocolate while I'm at work. It isn't the best environment for reviewing chocolate since I don't have the luxury of sitting back and writing down my thoughts like I would at home, but it does allow me to get some chocolate in me and there is always a lot of chocolate out there to try. It's just more likely to be candy or what the grocery store near work tends to think of as quality chocolate. It may not be the best chocolate in the world but I do get to try new things like the Hershey's Cacao Reserve. It's not Valrhona, but it's certainly better than I used to expect from Hershey.

So things are likely to be slow around here for a bit, though I do have a few things in the works. It's also getting close to Easter and that means I have some holiday-related business to take care of.

Posted by William at 8:24 PM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)

So, yeah. It's Valentine's Day. Whether or not you are a fan of the holiday I think we can all get behind the sales that follow in it's wake. I think that with the rapid-fire nature of the Christmas-Valentine's-Easter candy crush it adds an urgency to the sales between them. Once Christmas is over they want that candy off the shelves fast to make room for the Valentine's candy. And once that's over they need shelf space for Easter candy. And so you get some serious sales prices. That's my theory, at least.

I'm not sure how well that theory will hold up this Valentine's Day, though. At least here in the wake of a couple of days of nasty weather. The snow has been hitting hard and there are a lot of people who are just plain staying off the roads. The city closed down early on Tuesday in anticipation of the freezing rain that was on the way and this morning everything was just a mess. The county to the north of me was in a "Level 3 Snow Emergency" and it was actually illegal to be out driving. There really didn't seem to be a lot of people out today. So Valentine's Day candy probably didn't sell anywhere near as well as businesses may have hoped. If they sold less than anticipated and discount everything they have too far they'll be taking some serious losses so they might not be cutting prices quite as hard as they usually do. Or they could cut it harder than usual to get rid of it all. I guess we'll see over the next couple of days.

Anyway, Happy Valentines Day and keep your eyes open for the inevitable sales!

Posted by William at 7:52 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

I always feel guilty when I ignore the blog for a few days, but this time I have a more valid excuse than usual. I’ve managed to pick up my annual winter cold and when I’m sick I just don’t really eat a lot of chocolate. It just isn’t on my list of comfort foods. And the more I think about it (and I’ve been thinking about it a lot the past couple of days as I’ve been dealing with this stupid cold) the more I’m sure that I couldn’t fit anything but chocolate confections or candy on the list. My sense of smell is poor at best and right now it’s non-existent. Over the past year I’ve come to expect more from chocolate and I don’t think that I could really appreciate good chocolate right now with my sense of smell more impaired than usual. A brownie or a chocolate chip cookie (fresh and hot – mmmm…. I think I need to bake) I could work with but really good chocolate would be totally lost on me right now. It’s kind of sad that as important as chocolate is to my daily life I can’t seem to fit it in while I’m sick. The only chocolate I’ve had since the cold set in has been some Mint Dark Chocolate Kit Kat Minis. Which brings me to a mini-review! One without a picture. Sorry about that.

Mint Dark Chocolate Kit Kat Minis
It’s interesting; Kit Kat is apparently spelled with a space in the US and without a space in the UK. This is based entirely on observation of the US and UK Kit Kat sites. I just noticed when I was trying to figure out whether I should stick a space in there or not. Anyway, on to the candy. These are cute! I haven’t tried any Mini Kit Kats before but I like the size of them. It’s a good two-bite snack size. The wrappers aren’t anything terribly special or anything, but it’s what’s inside that counts. The actual Kit Kat is, of course, darker than the standard milk chocolate variety and it has a nice minty smell to it. With the minty aroma I was worried these would be overly minty (or worse; overly sweet!) but while it is fairly strong it isn’t too strong (or too sweet!). The mint chocolate on the outside is nice and plentiful but kind of distracts from the cookie a little, though not enough to make me dislike it. I still prefer the original – it is one of my perennial faves – but this is a very good limited edition. I’ll score it a 7.75 out of 10. This may be a bit hard to find now (I waited until the holiday clearance and paid a whopping 75¢ for a bag) but if you hit the bargain stores you might find some being closed out.

Posted by William at 10:42 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

It’s funny. As excited as I get at the prospect of the post-holiday sales it took me until Saturday to finally get out and start looking for some bargains. I didn’t end up buying much. I got a bag of Mint Dark Chocolate Kit Kat Minis, a bag of Reese’s Miniatures (guilty pleasure of mine), and a half dozen Russell Stover Marshmallow Caramel Santas (which are wonderful in spite of bearing little semblance to Santa - apparently the non-caramel ones look more like Santa but these are barely recognizable as human). And that’s it. The only other chocolate I picked up this past week was a tin of the York Mints that I ran into at a gas station while out hunting for Amish furniture. They’re pretty good though I find them a little less minty that I would like (I’m an Ice Breakers addict so I like my mints really really minty).

But the biggest thing I found while out shopping this week was a cache of M&M’s Pirate Pearls! Three big bags of them, which, sadly, is all I’ve seen for months. There seemed to be no push to coincide with the release of the Pirates DVD and no matter where I looked I was unable to find even a little tiny bag. The ones I ran into this week were at a Drug Mart (Sawmill Rd up near Powell in case anybody in the Columbus area is looking). I’m thinking that drug stores, closeout stores, and the internet (hit up Amazon, Yahoo Shopping, and froogle) are probably the best bets for finding them now. I wish I had good news, but I’ve been looking for weeks and haven’t had a bit of luck until now.

Aside from all of that I’m trying to resurrect my recipe for raspberry truffles. I wrote down some notes when I made them the first time, but I can’t believe the notes I wrote are even close to correct. They call for a whole stick of butter, which I find very hard to believe. Anyway, these were some dangerous truffles. I wanted to get back to the base recipe I once had and share it with everybody, but I’m kind of starting from square one again. So, if I ever get it back to a point where I consider it acceptable I’ll be posting it. In the meantime I have a few items that I need to talk about.

Anyway, Happy New Year all!

Posted by William at 9:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

Happy belated holidays!

For the past week I’ve either been scrambling to get ready for Christmas, celebrating with the family, or recovering from all the scrambling and celebrating. The whole time I was trying to figure out just where chocolate fit into the whole mess. It really doesn’t feel like there is a whole lot of chocolate in our holiday tradition. There are cookies and candy canes and eggnog (even eggnog soda) but aside from the odd cookie there really isn’t a lot of chocolate in the mix. We have never had a yule log so any chocolate that gets involved (usually lurking in a cookie, as a present, or in the form of Hershey’s Kisses in stockings) is lucky to do so. The biggest role chocolate plays in our tradition is the presence of York Peppermint Patties which have been a part of Christmas in our family for as long as I can remember. In my experience Christmas just isn’t much of a chocolate holiday.

December 26th, however, is all about chocolate. I don’t know a thing about Boxing Day beyond what I just read over at Wikipedia, but I do know for fact that it is one of MY chocolate holidays. In stores and on websites all across the country all that lovely holiday chocolate is put on sale at half off! That, my friends, is a reason to celebrate. And it only takes a day or two more for the chocolate to drop to 75% off! What could be better than cheap chocolate? Ok, I’ll admit that cheap good chocolate and free chocolate are both better, but sometimes you have to take what you can get. Most of the time, actually.

So in the end while Christmas itself isn’t that much of a chocolate holiday (in my experience), it does usher in one of the biggest chocolate holidays of the year in my book. Go forth and partake of the great bargains. I know I will.

Anyway, I hope everybody had a good holiday, whatever it may have been. I’m still working on a little gift for my readers that may or may not happen. It requires equal parts luck, skill, and memory and I’m sorely lacking in all three.

Posted by William at 9:35 PM | Permalink | Comments (6) | TrackBacks (0)

After fourteen days of non-stop hot chocolate you would think that I couldn’t help but learn a thing or two. And you know what? I actually did! I learned that I should never try and do a fourteen day run of straight reviews. Not that I can’t or don’t want to. It was a little stressing, but the real problem is that as things progressed I was much more prone to errors and was really at a loss for what to say. The biggest two mistakes I made (aside from thinking I could make and try six Aztec/Maya hot chocolates in one day) in the process were forgetting about Vosges when ordering in my hot chocolates and not ordering the SPICY Aztec Hot Chocolate from Marie Belle. I think the Vosges and the spicy version of the Marie Belle have a serious shot of giving the Jacques Torres Wicked a run for the money. Ah, hindsight. How you cause me to kick myself.

Errors aside, I also learned what I look for in a hot chocolate. Most of the time when I’m drinking hot chocolate it’s to get warm and relax at the end of the day. For that I tend to like a more liquid hot chocolate and a reasonably large serving size. So most of the time I wouldn’t want something like Wicked, which is a smallish serving of a somewhat pudding-like consistency. Thicker hot chocolates in smaller serving sizes seem a perfect morning starter. What’s better than a shot of spicy hot chocolate first thing in the morning? It’s the sort of thing that will get your day started on the right foot. It's sure to wake you up.

Well, it was an interesting experiment. I’m not certain I want to try something like that again anytime soon, but I can promise that I’m not done with hot chocolate. It should only be a matter of time before I get the Vosges in here. But for the moment I’m going to switch focus a little. There’s a little question of holiday chocolate to be dealt with.

Posted by William at 10:51 PM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)

It’s day twelve of Hot Chocolate “Week” and I’m taking the night off from doing reviews and looking back at the Aztec/Maya hot chocolates I’ve covered this week. And the first thing I notice is that there is at least one important contender missing from the lineup: Vosges Haut-Chocolat. The have their own take on Aztec hot chocolate with their Aztec Elixir and it sounds like it’s another winner. They appear to take the thick approach like Jacques Torres and Marie Belle do but they use “maize powder” (which they say is cornmeal) instead of the cornstarch that the others use. I really feel like the entire showdown is incomplete without their offering and I have a suspicion that there are more excellent contenders out there that have just managed to slip below my somewhat limited radar.

Ignoring the shortcomings of my selection I have got to say that I have gotten to try some fabulous hot chocolates and these Aztec and Maya styled ones have been some of the very best I’ve had to date. But now I’ve got a problem. I promised a “showdown” and I’m therefore somewhat obliged to deliver on that promise in at least some manner. Honestly, each of the Aztec and Maya hot chocolates that I tried are excellent in their own way. The Green & Black’s Maya Gold, Dagoba Xocolatl, and Lake Champlain Spicy Aztec are all easy to make and the Chuao Spicy Maya, Marie Belle Aztec, and Jacques Torres Wicked deliver serious chocolate. In the end, though, I have to give Jacqus Torres the top spot in the showdown. All of the hot chocolates I’ve tried have been great, but Wicked is an experience.

So my Hot Chocolate Week has run twelve days now. I think that this late in the game it would be a crime to not take it out to a full two weeks. I’ve got a few things held in reserve that are deserving of my time (and it’s not like I wasn’t going to drink them anyway).

Posted by William at 10:48 PM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)

At long last I’ve reached the end of the list of Aztec/Maya hot chocolates that I had foolishly thought to review over the course of a single day. This last one is another that I’ve had around the apartment since last winter and have enjoyed on more than one occasion. Up for review tonight is the Aztec Spicy Hot Chocolate from Lake Champlain Chocolates.

Lake Champlain take a reasonably traditional approach to the Aztec hot chocolate with the inclusion of hot peppers but taking a look at the ingredients we find it strays a little by being the only one of the hot chocolates in the showdown that has no chocolate in it. This one is made of sugar, cocoa, vanilla, cinnamon, and cayenne pepper. No chocolate, but do I love a nice, simple list of ingredients like that. You always know exactly what you’re dealing with. And what we’re dealing with tonight is a hot chocolate that is very easy to make. Since there is no chocolate to melt microwave preparation is very reasonable and they do include instructions for it. Not that I used them. No, I opted for the stovetop again. I followed the normal instructions and put 8 ounces of milk and a heaping tablespoon of mix in a pan and started heating it up. It mixed up to a very attractive deep, dark brown and held a good bit of froth when attacked with a whisk. Flavor-wise it’s pretty mellow. The cocoa is nice and not overly sweet and doesn't seem to suffer from not having actual chocolate in it. The spices are nice and the cayenne adds flavor but no heat. It makes for a really nice, comfortable hot cocoa that is great to just sit down and enjoy at the end of the day. It’s quite good and easy to make and as such it earns a 8.75 out of 10. It also goes great with a couple of snickerdoodles.

Woo hoo! That’s the end of the long list of Aztec/Maya hot chocolates (excluding the other Marie Belle I have yet to try). Now all that remains is a nice wrap-up post. And once that’s finished I have another couple of hot chocolates to push things out to a full two weeks.

Posted by William at 11:17 PM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)

At long last the end is in sight. I am pleased to say that tonight is the next to last review in the Aztec/Maya showdown. Tonight’s selection is Maya Gold Hot Chocolate from Green & Black's Organic. I bought this last winter and have been enjoying it since then when the weather allowed. I’m not sure I have another hot chocolate review in me, but I’m going to give it a shot.

Green and Black’s take a less spicy route than some of the Aztec/Maya hot chocolates I’ve sampled but they bring a nice shot of orange to the mix and wrap the whole thing up in organic and Fair Trade certifications. On top of that it’s an easy one to prepare (put 4 teaspoons of mix in 9 ounces of hot milk) and one that can reasonably be made in the microwave. And the ingredients are almost as simple as the preparation: cocoa, chocolate, powdered orange peel, orange flavoring, cinnamon, nutmeg, and black pepper. The first thing I noticed is that there are no chilies in it like the other Aztec/Maya style hot chocolates I’ve tried this week which is a nice change. To prepare it I opted for heating the milk on the stovetop (of course) and soon had a steaming cup of lightly orange scented, mellow brown hot chocolate. The chocolate is smooth, creamy, and easily drinkable and has a nice current of orange flavor lurking just beneath the surface. The cinnamon and nutmeg are more background notes to the flavor, but they’re there and a nice complement to the chocolate and orange. It’s a very mellow and relaxing hot chocolate that is a nice treat after a long day. I’ll give it a 8.75 out of 10 and put this review to bed.

These reviews are getting progressively more difficult to do. You have no idea how glad I am that I only have one left before I can wrap things up. Of course I’ll probably have to find something else to post to stretch it to complete the second week.

Posted by William at 10:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)

I’m getting close to the end of the long list of hot chocolates I set out to try just over a week ago and I’m beginning to feel a little bit burned out. Or maybe it’s just my throat. Tonight, to continue the woefully prolonged Aztec/Maya showdown, I mixed up a cup of Dagoba’s Xocolatl Hot Chocolate - and it’s some potent stuff! Not only is it potent, but it’s organic and Fair Trade Certified - bonus!

Unlike the hot chocolates of the last couple of days that are almost entirely chocolate this one has cocoa and chocolate. The full list of ingredients is evaporated cane juice, cacao powder, unsweetened chocolate, chilies, cinnamon, and of course, love (their words, but I take them at their word). The cane juice, cacao, and chocolate are all certified organic (their website says that the chilies are as well – my canister is a little old so it may have changed). Now I have to say up front that I did NOT have instructions for this. There might have been instructions in the Limited Edition canister when I got it but if there were then I've somehow managed to lose them (it's the sort of thing I'd do). I did, however, find the right proportions on the mighty interweb. So I heated up a cup of milk and added three tablespoons of the Xocolatl mix. It looks beautiful and doesn’t smell too spicy, but there is a bit of bite to the taste when you take a sip and when you go to swallow… well, it steps up to be more than just a bit of bite. You feel every sip in the throat. But between each toasty swallow there is a lot of very nice flavor. The chilies are more the stars than the spice in this one but both are wrapped up in a lovely chocolate flavor that can't help but steal the show. It’s a very nice combination and earns the Xocolatl a 9.25 out of 10. You just have to watch out for that burn.

One more down and only two more to go. Odds are that triple-overtime won’t get it done, but I'm thinking that quadruple-overtime should get us there. It’s beginning to look a lot more like a Hot Chocolate Fortnight than of a mere Hot Chocolate Week.

Posted by William at 10:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)

Ok, so Hot Chocolate Week is moving into overtime. I have a pretty decent array of Aztec style hot chocolates still waiting for my attention and I’m finding I can’t handle trying all of them in one day – it’s just too much. Even I have limits. But tonight I am going to manage sampling two of them. I had to do both of these at the same time if only because the cans are so similar. The two hot chocolates on deck are Chuao Chocolatier’s Spicy Maya Hot Chocolate and Marie Belle’s Aztec Hot Chocolate.

Chuao: Chuao is a SoCal chocolatier that I was unaware of until my most recent trip to Jungle Jim’s (yeah, I’ve been lax in posting the Safari info – there were a couple that were really pretty much non-events). I was checking out the hot chocolate section to see if there was anything that would be a good fit for Hot Chocolate Week and there was their Aztec hot chocolate begging me to buy it. I’m weak willed so into the cart it went. All that background stuff aside, lets get to the review. The ingredients are simple enough: chocolate, sugar, dehydrated milk, chilies, and spices. You put three tablespoons of mix (they give you a little spoon for it - thoughtful!) into a half cup of boiling water, get it back to a boil and whisk it for 30 seconds. It’s thick, but liquid enough to drink without the need of a spoon. And it’s spicy. The chilies give it a nice kick of serious heat and help balance the other spices. Overall it’s really good though some might find it a little on the hot side. I’ll give it a 9 out of 10 and have to say I am looking forward to trying some more of their products (I have a bar of their chocolate waiting for me on the kitchen counter).

Marie Belle: Like Jacques Torres, Marie Belle is one of the places I really wanted to visit in New York (I’ll get there eventually) so when it came time for me to do the whole Hot Chocolate Week thing it was a natural for me to order some from them. The ingredients are, like most of these hot chocolates in the endgame, relatively simple (and multi-purpose – they use one can for their various Aztec hot chocolates). It’s got chocolate, cocoa liquor, cocoa butter, sugar, milk, cornstarch, soy lecithin, and natural flavorings (which may include coffee, chipotle, ancho chile, cinnamon, and nutmeg). The primary instructions (there are two alternate preparations on the can) call for you to add one cup of mix to one cup of boiling water. Yes, that’s a full 1:1 water to chocolate ratio. Even without the cornstarch in it this would be thick stuff. And it is thick stuff. Very like the Jacques Torres (which also had cornstarch) in terms of thickness so it was more suited to eating with a spoon than drinking. Any spices in it are much more subtle than the Chuao or Torres offerings so the experience is more chocolate with maybe some spices along for the ride. It’s excellent stuff and a more laid back approach to Aztec hot chocolate than some others. It’s wonderful enough to also get a 9 out of 10 and has me looking forward to trying the dark chocolate version of their hot chocolate (which I happen to have as well).

So that’s two more down and only three left (four if I include the other Marie Belle and don’t try any alternate preparation methods). Luckily the remaining hot chocolates should all be a little thinner than what I’ve had these last two nights and I should be able to tackle them in short order.

Posted by William at 10:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

All right, I can admit when I’m wrong. I bit off more than I could chew.

I decided that I would give up my aim of hitting all six (seven actually – nine if you count different preparation methods I wanted to try) of the Aztec/Maya hot chocolates I have lined up and shoot for three. I could do two separate rounds of tasting and then write up a separate post summing things up. It was a nice simple plan and like most simple plans it was doomed to get complicated.

The first hot chocolate I picked to try was one that doesn’t declare itself as Aztec or Maya but falls firmly into that same group based on the spices involved: Jacques Torres Wicked Hot Chocolate. This is one of the things I most wanted to try in New York. I’ll allow the description from the Jacques Torres web site to speak for the chocolate and it’s ingredients:

Try the Wicked Hot Chocolate that features allspice, cinnamon, ground, sweet ancho chili peppers, and smoked, ground chipotle chili peppers!

So, where does this leave the rest of the showdown? I’m not sure. I’ll add more as I can, but I don’t quite know how long it will take. A number of these look like they’re similar to this one so it could take a while.

Aztec/Maya Showdown Round 1 Results – Jacques Torres: 1 - Me: 0

Posted by William at 7:37 PM | Permalink | Comments (6) | TrackBacks (0)