What a spectacularly unique, informative and fun event this proved to be!

On arrival I was surprised for us to be seated around a boardroom table as I was expecting a more informal mingling- type event. However any apprehension quickly melted away as my taste buds were blown away with the assortment of flavours we experienced on our journey through the evening and as I became absorbed in the lively discussions and taste analysis (sharp, muddy, peaty, silky, smooth, spicy, bitter, fruity and so on).  I found myself entering a different realm as I pondered on the length, snap and melt of the chocolates we encountered. I have always enjoyed confectionary but this was a new world venturing into fine chocolate tasting. The task was further enhanced by the coupling of the Ecuadorian, Ghanian and Trinidadian chocolates with suitable spirits. We were served rum from Venezuela (apparently rated as one of the best ten spirits in the world), an incredible Ecuadorian cacao liquor which was like liquid gold for chocoholics and an Ecuadorian sugar spirit (which smelt of rotten fruit). We took a whistle-stop journey around the world sampling exotic flavours both informed and inspired by Steve Chung’s wisdom.  Steve Chung, our teacher and guide for the event, was a superbly impressive and knowledgeable individual with a very understated and likeable manner.   

 Undoubtedly this event wetted my appetite and I will be keeping a close watch for Seventy Percent’s future events which are utterly unique, inspiring and a complete delight. I will be back for more… with more friends next time. In the meantime I will be clearing out my cupboards off all the Thorntons boxes and Dairy Milk Trays and planning my trip to Venezuela where I will be heading for the mountains.

The post Spirits and chocolate matching at the Scotch Malt Whisky Society, Wednesday 14th October 2009 appeared first on Seventy%.

But there was one further event I felt I couldn’t miss: Pacari chocolate at Melt. Pacari is an Ecuadorean producer who does it all: growing, processing, manufacture, in Ecuador. It’s a nice way of keeping chocolate profits in country of origin and, I think helps to build local expertise which could mean both more of these ventures and better overall cacao, as the growers benefit from direct feedback and understanding of what they’re producing.

Santiago gave a talk that really gives hope for the future. He’s got what I think is exactly the right attitude and strategy for chocolate production. In a word, obsess. Pacari looks at bean types, fermentation styles, drying methods, roasting times (or indeed if there should even be a roast), conching times, you name it. They experiment with everything, perfect everything. This is the way chocolate should be done; not only does it help them zero in on an ideal process from bean to bar, while they’re doing it they’re learning how the various factors interact, probably finding out things that the industry doesn’t even know. I’m particularly impressed at their bean selection methods: they’re isolating the trees that produce the best-tasting and best-producing, most disease-resistant beans. This is how you build an industry, and how you set the stage for generations of quality cocoa production. I think this is an ideal model for countries like Venezuela and the Dominican Republic, where the quality is there but local infrastructure is sparse, farming knowledge and skills vary wildly, and indigenous production minimal. It’s thinking into the future as well as the present.

Pacari really engage with the communities they work with, encouraging development, education, long-term infrastructure improvement. Just one example: after a surprising discovery determined that many communities were spending money and effort, as well as unintentionally endangering childern, to bring batteries in for the season, they created a programme that gives the farmers access to solar-powered torches, saving all that expense and danger on toxic, non-degradable batteries. I suspect this is an important aspect of local production that pays unexpected dividends: because the manufacturers are so much closer to the farmers, and embedded in the same overall culture, they can see and understand the issues farmers face on the ground.

That Pacari is organic is yet another feather in their cap, and because of their research methods I think they’re also at the leading edge of developing cacaos that are viable in organic production. Too often organic faces the tradeoff between iffy quality and microscopic yields. Santiago’s philosophy on organic production is even more enlightened: from his point of view, he said he couldn’t imagine endangering the life and health of the farmers by exposing them to poisonous chemicals. It really puts into perspective the reality that so many companies are doing organic mostly for the market position rather than the social benefits, in much the same way that many consumers buy organic more for their own potential benefit than to benefit the wider world. Not that there’s anything wrong with this: indeed, every time a consumer or producer makes an organic choice many people benefit. But we can also take heart in what it means to the farmers upstream from the products that grace our shop shelves, and spare a thought for them as well as us.

The chocolate itself is a quantum leap above what most country-of-origin producers achieve. There’s still room for improvement: tasting a whole bar in either the Manabi or Los Rios reveals an ashiness in the finish that didn’t come through in the obviously smaller samples we tried at the event itself. There the chocolates seemed very nicely interpreted with lots of upfront fruitiness. A shorter roasting time might be in order. In fact, perhaps no roast is the ideal. The raw 70% bar was simply fantastic, either in the small sample or as a full bar. This is nothing at all like the “typical” raw chocolate, usually crudely processed to emphasize its “rustic” nature, often not made with the best beans, frequently packed with other unusual ingredients that mask the chocolate taste and turn it into a confection rather than a chocolate bar. No, Pacari’s is a full-fledged classic chocolate bar, the only difference being that it’s unroasted. Not only is it a spectacular achievement in its own right, it competes with Pralus for the title of best organic bar on the market, and with Domori for the best organic bar ever (Domori’s Chacao is still a chocolate much lamented since its disappearance).

Pacari also enrobe various things: the winner is the chocolate-covered banana bits. Why do so few people combine chocolate and bananas (a natural combination if ever there was one)? It doesn’t seem to find favour with good chocolatiers. Pacari’s got an addictive, irresistible snacking food with this one.

Melt also got in to the act, offering a Pacari Manabi chocolate truffle. It’s interesting what different chocolates can do. This truffle had a flavour very reminiscent of creme fraiche, along with earthy characteristics that avoided being flat and dull. Texture was good if quite fluid. Might Melt venture to produce a Pacari raw chocolate truffle? You could do it by very gently melting the chocolate over absolute minimum heat, then stirring in cream matched in temperature. It would require some careful work, but I for one would be very interested in it.

As for Pacari, overall, a firm with a total vision.

The post Chocolate Week Day 3: Pacari at Melt appeared first on Seventy%.

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.

The post Bean To Bon Bon? appeared first on Seventy%.

A surprise entry – Complete Cooking, turned out to have the best brownies I’ve had other than my own: they were dense and very soft, with a near-ideal balance of chocolate and brown sugar. They might be a little too far on the fudgy side to be ideal for me (I prefer a little more structure), but this is a quibble. These turned out to be a great success later on when I brought them round to friends.

In contrast Paul Young‘s I think push over the edge into fudgy terrritory. They’re just too soft, almost unbaked. The version they had also had nuts, which personally I prefer without: nuts interfere a bit too much texturally and flavour-wise with the brownie’s essential denseness. Young does, however, produce a nutless version, just no samples available, which comes back to the problem I found yesterday at many tables, only selected items available for sampling.

The winner of the day was Paul Wayne Gregory’s mint chocolate (small confectionery, not chocolate bar flavoured with mint). Quite simply put, this is the best peppermint chocolate anything I’ve ever had. Usually producers overdo the peppermint, leaving something harsh and biting. Not Paul. These precisely balance mint, chocolate, and sweetness, leading to something incredibly addictive and remarkably refined. Manufacturers seem divided between peppermint and spearmint for mint chocolates; usually the less-assertive spearmint is the choice for high-end chocolatiers. Paul Wayne Gregory shows that it’s possible to create a peppermint with the same level of sophistication. Actually, I think chocolates should be called “peppermint” or “spearmint” as 2 separate categories; now we have a winner for each. For spearmint, Theo chocolates has long set the benchmark. Now Paul Wayne Gregory establishes the peppermint chocolate to beat.

I did go to the afternoon talks in spite of doing the rounds at the tables. The Askinosie talk was actually by their Swedish? (I think) distributor. The language barrier proved to be something of an issue. I think the rep genuinely didn’t realise the Lost in Translation problem involved when the opening screen features a large caption “For God Smak”. (Although those unfamiliar with Alice in Chains might not realise this phrase carries a rather different meaning than the one intended!) Language aside, he knew his stuff. The chocolate, it must be said, is much improved over Askinosie’s earlier experiments but still needs work. The Soconusco (Mexico) still has a VERY suspect earthy/mushroom component to it, and on the whole they still need to back off on the roast.

Mestizo (an “authentic” Mexican restaurant in London) gave a brilliant talk on Mole. Typically including chocolate as an ingredient this paste in a thousand different variants is a near-staple in Mexican cooking. I didn’t know it can take hours to make done the traditional way! Still, I’m surprised that some members of the audience had no idea mole is central to Mexican cuisine.

In a rather macabre tradition, apparently Mexicans give each other chocolate (or sugar) skulls for Dia de Los Muertos. They showed us a picture of piled chocolate skulls that rather recall images from Pol Pot’s regime. Bizarre. I’m reminded of the talk by Warren Laine-Naida: like the associations with a chocolate gun, what are the associations with a chocolate skull?

The mole (poblano) they sampled for us was absolutely definitive. I think this is something you have to try to appreciate. As it happens Mestizo will make that easy for all of us with a mole festival at the end of this month and beginning of the next – timed to coincide with Dia de Los Muertos. Will they have chocolate skulls?

Last “event” of the day was the live feed at the SeventyPercent table from Ecuador. It was jerky but it worked, and now perhaps this opens the door for farmers to interact directly with consumers. For instance, I was able to ask about cocoa bean selection, and perhaps hint to them about the prospect for careful selective breeding.

One overall theme that came out of the whole 2 days I can’t resist commenting on. Time and again chocolatiers commented on the idea that there is “chocolate for special occasions” and “chocolate for everyday” – to make a broad generalisation of various comments. They often took pains to emphasize their own liking, in the appropriate time, for ordinary confections such as, e.g. Mars bars. However, I find it striking that such confectioners don’t really attempt to make similar such confections themselves. What could we get with a Mars bar made with first-rate ingredients and according to careful craftsmanship, rather than turned out by the millions from bulk chocolate?

The problem here, I think is with consumer perceptions. Good chocolate carries with it a strong scent of snobbery. It’s laudable that chocolatiers don’t subscribe to such snobbery themselves, but to what extent does extolling the simple pleasures of a Mars bar perpetuate the problem? It’s a question of identifying what is better than what. The essence of snobbery is not in making distinctions in level of quality, but in believing that being discriminating makes you a superior person. This is obviously untrue: it’s merely a case of different people with different needs, desires, and priorities. If, then, we compare a Mars bar against a Curley confection, let us be clear: it is not the people who eat the Curley who are better, it’s the chocolate!

But this plays out in the consumer sector in strange ways. First, it means that from a market-position point of view it’s effectively impossible for quality chocolatiers to make Mars-bar-like products profitably, because people simply won’t buy them. Second, it puts a lot of ordinary people off buying good chocolate, even occasionally, because of the stigma of snobbery that might then be attached to them. Third, it places into peoples’ minds again, this rigid distinction between “chocolate for everyday” (i.e. mass-produced confectionery) and “chocolate for special occasions” (i.e. “fine” chocolate).

The best example, perhaps, of this is a simple phenomenon, prominently on display at the show: the prevalence of assorted boxed chocolates among quality chocolatiers. Assortments are frustrating for almost everyone, because you always know there will be some chocolates you don’t like, and some you really like and wish there were more of. Why, then, do they prevail? If I (or most people, I think) go into a chocolate shop to buy chocolate purely for my own enjoyment, I’m going to do it piece-wise, selecting each individual chocolate according to my own preferences. I know what I like. The same is true when buying chocolate for someone I know (say, a loved one). I again will know what they like and select accordingly. Thus the boxed set seems basically designed for a very specific purpose: as a present for people you don’t know especially well. Look at what this says: if most of the quality chocolate is being bought as rather impersonal presents for rather distant acquaintances, how much of its value is being squandered – in missed enjoyment on the part of the recipient (who, we can infer, will have the same frustration with the boxed assortment that we all get), in missed enjoyment on the part of the giver (who if they are buying mostly for others are not actually buying for themselves, or even for people they’re close to, very much), in the sheer sterility of giving something precious over which someone laboured lovingly to someone anonymous? The net result is that quality chocolate is something people buy more to convey an image rather than to enjoy or give enjoyment to others for its own sake. I would like to see this change, because until it does, snobbery will prevail, and good chocolate will be wasted on vanity.

I’ve generalised here a lot, and certainly deliberately exaggerated the scope and class of the problem in order to make a point. No doubt furthermore that I have my own snobbery to deal with. Please don’t interpret what I’ve said as a blanket, categorical statement applying to all people in all situations, or to any given individual in any specific situation. I use Mars and Curley as examples, but please understand that I am not singling them out in any way other than to provide examples which hopefully most people are familiar with. If I manage to offend I am sorry. This just falls into the category of “things that need to be said” for me.

The post Chocolate Week, Day 2 appeared first on Seventy%.

The air is cool inside the workshop, a nice contrast to humid breezes coming off the Caribbean just outside. The factory is on the edge of Punta Gorda, the last major town along the southern Belizean coast before the Guatemalan border. The local produce market bustles along the main street, and a few fishermen pull their boats up to the docks to try and sell the day’s catch.

The Cotton Tree Chocolate factory produces its bars from cacao grown by the farmers of Toledo District, Belize. The chocolate is made in small batches from a single harvest from a single farmer. To keep the connection to the cacao growers personal, each package contains the name of the farmer who grew the pods.

The chocolate company began as a side project to Cotton Tree Lodge, an eco-lodge in southern Belize which brings guests to local cacao farms to pick the pods, taste the fruit, and share lunch with the farmer’s family. Now Cotton Tree Chocolate is a growing operation in its own right, selling bars all over Belize though not yet abroad.

Erin Andrews, who started out as a casual guest at the lodge and then co-founded Cotton Tree Chocolate with Anne Simmons, spent last week in Belize checking up on the workshop. She also met with Traveller’s Liquors, the company which produce’s Belize’s beloved One Barrel Rum, about creating a signature rum-filled chocolate. Here’s what she had to say:

“The taste is so amazing, it’s worth the trip to Central America to get your own. Cotton Tree Chocolate in Belize has been known for our outstanding chocolate bars and work with the local farmers and community of Belize, but now we are taking it up a notch by introducing even more variety.

Cotton Tree Chocolate met with Sustainable Harvest International this week to determine how we can work more closely with the local farmers in sourcing our chocolate ingredients locally in Belize. Look forward to our chocolate bars with coffee coming out soon. We will also be rolling out a seventy percent bar with nibs.

Also this week, we are meeting with Belize’s greatest rum company’s, Traveler’s. Our rum filled chocolates will be debuting this week. We’ve had so many people begging us to sell these that we can wait no longer. Nothing could be better than two of the greatest tastes of the Carribean together at last.

I was in our cool room today tempering chocolate and filling up our rum and barrel molds. The conches are spinning and tomorow we’ll be making more cocoa butter. I don’t think it’s possible to make chocolate in a more wonderful place. Come on down and taste some and I think you’ll agree.”

If you have any questions about Cotton Tree Chocolate, contact Juli Puryear at juli@cottontreechocolate.com. Any questions about Cotton Tree Lodge or traveling to Belize, contact Holly Masek at holly@cottontreelodge.com.

The post In Southern Belize, Every Week Is Chocolate Week appeared first on Seventy%.

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.

The post Chocolate as a Cultural Blend appeared first on Seventy%.

In upcoming months I’ll be creating a new serial blog “In Search of the Ideal” detailing my quests for the ideal chocolate items in a variety of categories (with possibly some non-chocolate digressions), and you’ll see more comments on the whole Chocolate Week experience and my personal chocolate ideology in there. But for now, I’ll stay with my impressions of the Week itself.

So we start with Day 1: Saturday, 10 October. The big thing of course is the new major event; “Chocolate Unwrapped”. But I got in some other chocolate activities as well. I decided to go to Demarquette first thing off the train. They’ve got some new bars to pick up (even though they’re really only remoulded couverture from companies like Felchlin and Cluizel) and it was about time for me to refresh my impressions of their confections.

Demarquette is big on not using liquid sugars but rather honey. It does give a subtle additional flavour – does this interfere with the pure sensation? Not to the extent that it’s problematic, but you can certainly tell it’s there. The plain truffle I had had something of a bizarre, gelatinous texture to it; you get this occasionally in truffles and now I suspect it comes from the honey. The flavour, though, was very nice, nutty and tobacco. It could perhaps have used a bit more intensity, but Demarquette’s firm ganache style already has a higher chocolate ratio than the more typical (and in my view less desirable) very fluid ganaches you find in others, and this high ratio means the intensity is still vastly better than most truffles.

I also got a coffee, a lemon, a plain ganache square, and a Tunisian Bharat. The last is a rose/cinnamon combination: as you can see perhaps Demarquette has a slightly Arab slant to his chocolates. Of these the winner is the lemon; a brilliant, very fresh lemony flavour coming straight from zest. The lemon zest in the chocolate itself meant the texture was a bit bitty but otherwise fine. The rest were nice, but other than the good firm texture nothing really to effuse over.

On to Chocolate Unwrapped. Once you found the salon in the warrenlike maze of rooms underneath the May Fair hotel, there was quite a lot to see. It’s nice also to see plenty of chocolate newcomers, people who either must just have wandered in or who got excited by the press. On the other hand, some of the chocolatiers there weren’t exactly prepared; 2 were unable to provide samples of certain products they had on sale. In my opinion you can’t just offer selected items for sampling; the overall effect of one chocolate doesn’t necessarily reflect what you’ll get with a different one. Another more universal problem was that few of the chocolatiers seemed set up to offer piece selection; most things were pre-boxed assortments. That may be fine if you’re completely new to good chocolate but it’s frustrating if you know what you’re looking for and/or have particular likes and dislikes. Admittedly this is logistically difficult to do for the chocolatiers but my feeling is that it could have been thought out a bit better.

Chococo had a good idea: a molasses truffle. The molasses flavour really stood out, although perhaps overpowered the chocolate a bit. I might use an Ecuador chocolate for this pairing; if I remember correctly they were using a Sao Tome. Still, an inspired idea. Why can’t more chocolatiers find classic, basic truffle flavours like this?

Then there were the 2 talks in my “session”: Paul Young and Warren Laine-Naida. I’ll talk about Paul Young first. High energy; you could see he was excited and in particular really chuffed with his new book which had just been released. Most of the talk, though, was on 2 simple messages: Do it all by hand, and don’t be afraid to experiment. They do all their chocolates without machinery; an amazing (labour-intensive!) achievement in this age of mechanisation even in small-scale production. It might not be the most pragmatic approach for a commercial chocolatier, but it does mean he probably has more valuable advice to offer the home experimenter, who must typically do without expensive gadgets. I’m not convinced, however, that his claim that anything can be made to work with chocolate; what about, for example, onions? Or saffron? In the end, however,  the most convincing demonstration was an absolutely stunning Los Ancones truffle that he sampled to all: water based, and with an intensity that even Michel Cluizel himself might envy. I personally found the texture to be a bit too fluid but you can’t argue with a flavour like that.

Warren Laine-Naida talked to a conspicuously emptier room that Paul Young’s packed talk. Lack of samples probably has a lot to do with that. However, as much a factor might be his own comment that people looking at his work tended to comment that it was ugly. Not, perhaps, the most ringing endorsement for an artist! In spite of that, however, he gave us a thoroughly enlightening examination of the development of chocolate as art. Perhaps his central point; that chocolate art should challenge one’s preconceptions as well as excite interest is well taken, but it’s not exactly original, is it? However, ideas such as “what is the message of a chocolate gun?” are thought-provoking. It also seems clear that his philosophy is that art should represent a repudiation of cultural norms. I’ll come out and reveal my own position: I can’t agree with that assessment. Rejecting common beliefs very quickly becomes making art only for yourself; a narcissistic exercise that conveys little. Not that I’m even remotely implying he’s narcissitic as such, but my view is that art should rather try to find and bring to our attention human universals that find expression in the cultural milieu we inhabit.

I also think that art should embody the intrinsic qualities of the media it uses. Thus, for example, a painting “exists” to be seen. Therefore something of visual beauty and intelligibility should emerge; I can’t find much either beautiful or intelligible in, e.g. Jackson Pollock. Chocolate, again, “exists” to be eaten. Thus a chocolate work that cannot and must not be eaten sort of defeats the purpose of its existence. In like manner another artistic medium typically in my view often poorly interpreted is computer art. Computers, again, “exist” to compute; this is a dynamic process and so a static computer image doesn’t capture the potential of the computer, which could be “multimedia”, interactive, a constantly changing experience. I’m not saying that artistic vision must always emphasize the intrinsic qualities of the media but I do think too often artists working in modern media limit themselves subconsciously to paradigms of “classical” media: Warren Laine-Naida I think may be thinking too much in terms of sculpture rather than chocolate as art itself. It’s clear from his talk, though, that there are other artists who aren’t limiting themselves with chocolate.

Tomorrow: more talks, more philosophies. Lots more chocolate.

The post Chocolate Week, Day 1 appeared first on Seventy%.

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.

The post Chocolate Rocks! appeared first on Seventy%.

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!

The post Chocolate Harvest Moon appeared first on Seventy%.

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

The post Chocolate Across The Pond!! appeared first on Seventy%.