So this obsession with roasting, cracking, winnowing, grinding, conching and refining my own should have been left on the back burner of my feverish mind for eternity right? No. Thats not how I operate. I go all in, everytime.

I have been scouring the planet for beans. Not literally, just electronically, and the results have been as scattered as the fall leaves on my farm. But once in awhile I get a hold of some exceptional beans and I manage not to burn them. Then my fever kicks in. We spend hours shelling the beans by hand the ancient way. We grind them slowly and melange them slowly with great care. We check temps continuously to insure we arent going to far off the reservation of acceptable technique.

When we deem the product edible and exceptional we temper it and check it’s viscosity and flavor notes. Sometimes, depending on the bean, we let it rest for a few weeks and then temper it again to see how it tastes and reacts to some simple oxidation. Its an amazing science that is easily dismissed by some and under-appreciated by many.

We will never achieve perfection here. What we do achieve, however, is a quality product of our own design. My current Ocumare was recently incorrectly compared to anothers very famous ”porcelana”. I blushed and told them no, I made it myself. But it was a telling moment that some stranger thought enough of the flavor and balance to think it was someone elses Cadillac.

I have no intention of jumping on the current American “Bean To Bar” train. Art, sean, alan, and a few others are welcome to hash it out for shelf space in  the over saturated premium bar market amungst themselves. I wish them well and enjoy their efforts. But I am not to be deterred in my quest for the perfect bon bon. My customers come in time and again want the “new”.

I dont blame them. My staff and myself are tireless perfectionsists always falling short of our goals due to our own overly lofty expectations. Its what drives us. The bons bons we made today from our own chocolate though? Fucking amazing!  Maybe we are onto something.

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Have you ever experimented with blending chocolates from around the world? Sure you have. While much can be stated about the single origin awareness movement and the fine characteristics of species specific cacao;  sometimes a blend is just the right thing. Taking a little of this and little of that in the right combination’s can elevate each individual aspect when taken as a whole.

Last night I encountered the perfect blend of world cultures. I took my entire kitchen crew to see Gogol Bordello. If you are not familiar with these musicians then you owe it to yourself to go out and experience this band live. This is THE BEST LIVE ACT IN THE WORLD. I should know, I see some 50-70 concerts a year. The leader, Eugene Hutz, is  madman/genius whose energy is unstoppable. His stage presence is as large as any other rock star of our generation. Bono? Bowie? Elton? Dylan? Put Mr. Hutz in there right now.

Combing the perfect elements of gypsy tarantella, new york punk, reggae, and Brazilian carnival culture into one act that defies description is tantamount to perfection. We sweated out loud. One thousand rain and sweat soaked dancers pulsing to extremely loud and relentless musical acrobatics for two hours without a break. It was like eating the best chocolate bar in the world, twice.

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Why?

Because Bob Dylan is in Oregon this week! Every couple of years Bob and Crew float through on a tour and BAM! Just like that I am in a good mood. I have a friend who works for BOB and its always great to connect with him if the stars are aligned and we can swing it. This time we could. So we bailed yesterday at noon and drove 150 miles north and were treated like chocolate gods.

The last time I saw this crew I had just started to get going in the chocolate world; imagine their surprise at my offering of 30#’s of our finest and the news I had just been chosen as one of America’s Top 10 Chocolatiers of 2009. I brought this huge bag filled with gift boxes backstage and before you can say thanks we are whisked away to the soundboard for a private seating arrangement–just me and my wife and the lighting and sound guys. 12 inches up on a platform in a sea of people 5o feet back from the stage dead center.

The music was sublime. His current band is  a smoking group  of players who cater to any arrangement the man wants to lay on his audience. We were treated to 4 songs off the new album which is a collaboration with Robert Hunter, the lyricist for the Grateful Dead-one of my other weaknesses. True Americana folk music with a rock and roll edge. Between the classics, the new stuff and a simple twist of fate we were rockin our socks off. About half way through the show my friend sneaks up behind us and palms a present into my hand. It was one of Bob’s harmonicas; well worn in the key of D flat.

The boxes and bars were distributed amungst the band’s tour busses to be eaten on the rest of the tour. This is why chocolate rocks.

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Ok, now you are thinking..”what is this moron talking about? Why cant he just talk about chocolate?” I’m getting to that.

It is because of this rare later moon that chocolate is capturing both of my worlds; the conscious one and the one I relish-the unconscious one. The dreams are now chocomares complete with harried production deadlines, equipment malfunctions, never ending cauldrons of 300 degree sugars spilling out in endless rivers of skin scorching goo. I awake with a start as visions of the melter somehow becoming un-anchored and   500 kilos of melted chocolate covering my kitchen floors in a layer of slippery money seem all too real. I panic at the thought of the mass mutiny of my staff when they come at me in the night with airbrushes and packing tape guns clutched in their sweaty hands snarling like a pack of zombies hell bent on eating what is left of my diseased brain.

This is the stuff chocomares are made of. Almost every chocolatier I have spoken with about this subject confirms it; we are all afflicted in some way by this. Like the seas our lives are in flux and being pulled by the moon. Its an uncontrollable situation that we learn to ride with or go insane because people are counting on us. Not just our loved ones and our employees, but the chocoholics who need their fix. The people whose pleasures are derived from our work. It is for them we endure this seasonal madness and forge through the labyrinth of terrifying monsters of our own design who only come out at night to taunt us.

Beware!

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We are immersed in it. We live eat and breathe the stuff. From making our our own micro-batch “bean to bon bon” pieces to using multiple tons of finely crafted couverture from some of the world’s finest manufacturers to make over 70 different pieces, we are hard at work 7 days a week furiously trying to outdo ourselves.

So stay tuned as I attempt to bring you a varied perspective of the American version of Chocolate Week.

Peace,

Jeff

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