The Well-Tempered Chocolatier

Entries categorized as ‘Travel’

San Francisco Fancy Food Show

January 24, 2010 · Leave a Comment

NASFT San Francisco - street signFive years ago, I worked in a fancy kitchen store. The owners would take off every summer for the New York Fancy Food Show and come back exhausted, a little bit pudgier, and full of stories about all the fabulous new things we’d be getting in the store.

Well, last week, I made the visit to the San Francisco winter show…and I came back exhausted, a little bit pudgier, and full of stories. I went down with my sweet tooth, my eating pants, and comfortable shoes. Comfortable shoes, because with nearly 6000 exhibitors in halls of the Moscone Center, it was going to be an intense couple of days.

Amano Dos Rios barI wasn’t all that surprised by any of the chocolate offerings, though I did get a chance to finally try Amano Chocolate’s Dos Rios bar. I tried a (then-secret) prototype of this bar last summer, and even as a prototype it was pretty remarkable: floral, delicate and tasting distinctly like bergamot. The finished bar is redolent with orange and bergamot, with just a hint of spice (nutmeg?) at the finish. Art Pollard, the chocolatemaker, touched briefly on the challenges of processing the beans while preserving the vibrant flavours. I can believe it; this chocolate packs a serious punch.

Poco Dolce double shot espresso toffee Poco Dolce’s double shot espresso toffee squares were stellar. The toffee is crisp and crunchy but doesn’t get stuck in your teeth. The espresso, if you ran into it in a dark alley, would jump out from a dark corner, deliver a swift one-two punch to your forehead, and then run off into the darkness. It’s bold and brash and utterly delicious.

Happy Goat caramelsHidden away in a quiet corner were the folks at Happy Goat Caramel. If the logo and name weren’t cute enough for you, the caramels are really quite good. It’s a caramel made with goat’s milk and real vanilla. The goat’s milk provides a nice savouriness and slight tang to offset the aromatic, sweet vanilla. The finish is definitely goaty, but in a subtle, delicate way.

I also attended a Foodfete event where I met the folks who make Amella Caramel. The lovely 8chocolate reviewed these a while back, and I’ll admit that I was still pretty skeptical. Carrot cake caramel? Really?

Really.

Amella caramelsThe carrot cake caramel tastes like you took a carrot cake and stuck it in a transmogrifier on the “caramel” setting. It’s not too sweet and has a pleasant nuttiness. My least favourite is the black forest caramel, which tastes like a chocolate caramel with dried cherries, but not so much like black forest cake. However, the passionfruit caramel is sharp, tart and almost juicy. It’s definitely my favourite of the bunch. Aside from the fun flavours, the texture of the caramels is perfect – solid enough to provide a thoughtful chew, but without getting all gloopy and glommy in your back teeth.

Aside from sweets, I also ate my weight in cheese. Thanks to Amy for guiding me on my cheese expedition, and for posting her top 10 list of Fancy Food Show favourites.

Categories: Events · Travel
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The Meadow: finishing salt | chocolates | wine | flowers

January 18, 2010 · 3 Comments

The Meadow

This is Clyde's debut appearance in this blog. In 2006, I made him out of felt, some rags, and two buttons. He's always up to no good, but is a great travel companion.

From the outside, The Meadow is rather unassuming. Set back from the street, nestled between a comic book store and a place that sells fancy dog accessories, you might almost miss it. Thank goodness for the bright yellow sign alerting observant passersby to the loveliness that beckons. That, and the enormous, nearly cult-like reverence that Portlanders have for this place.

Once you step inside the doors of the surprisingly small shop, you’re greeted by the fragrance of fresh flowers. It’s a bit of a shock, especially given that when I visited, the temperature outside was about -10 Celsius (28 Fahrenheit). Apparently, the joke in the shop is that nearly everyone walks in and exclaims, “Ohhhhh, it smells so nice in here!”

Now, I didn’t just wander into The Meadow by accident. It was, actually, the entire reason for my trip to Portland. I met Mark, one of the owners, at a conference in early 2009, and we had been talking about this trip since then. With only three weeks left in the year, it was time. That’s a bit of context for you, and also full disclosure. If you’re a loyal reader, you’ll know that I write about things I like, and not things that I’ve been paid to like. If I had gone down and hated the place, I wouldn’t be writing about it.

(And if you’re not a loyal reader yet, there’s no time like the present to get started. Sit back, have some tea, and read. Leave me a comment and say hi. It makes me feel all fuzzy inside.)

As beautiful as the flowers were, I followed my gaze to what was behind the flowers: a towering Wall Of Chocolate. Two floor-to-ceiling shelves of chocolate, full of old favourites and new things to be discovered. My jaw dropped. I’m pretty sure that I squealed. I gravitated to the shiny new things, caressing the packaging, reading the labels, asking a question and not finishing it before eagerly jumping to the next new thing. And then I would pause in front of something familiar just long enough to catch my breath before I moved onto another new thing.

A kid in a candy store, I was. But this was no ordinary candy store. I ripped my gaze from the Wall of Chocolate to see the most impressive salt collection I’ve ever seen, and shelves of French wine and champagne.

I know this all sounds so stupidly gushy and insincere. It was just brilliant, she cooed. Simply mahhhhvelous. But it really was. As I learned over the course of my stay in Portland, the folks at The Meadow have impeccable taste and they’re not afraid to show it.

There’s a kind of store that I always gravitate to. It’s decidedly girly, usually in a heritage building with lots of exposed wood and distressed hardwood floors. It sells a seemingly random assortment of things, from pillows to cards, candles to soap, kitschy fridge magnets to children’s toys. The one thread that holds all these items together is that someone with great taste chose these items specifically. Somehow, by touching the pillows and smelling the candles, you’re gleaning just a little bit of that taste and elegance.

The Meadow is exactly like that. Except instead of pillows, there’s chocolate. Instead of candles, there’s salt. And wine. And flowers.

The Meadow
3731 N. Mississippi Avenue
Portland, OR 97227
503-288-4633

Categories: Travel
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Christmas cookies

December 21, 2009 · 3 Comments

I’m such a delinquent blogger. But see, I have excuses. I disappeared to Portland for a week, which was lovely and glorious and relaxing. There was lots of chocolate. As much as I love these mini-trips across the border, I’m always a bit relieved to get back to Canada. This informative sign was at the Seattle train station. Just in case you wanted to know what you can and cannot bring across the border.

And then I got back and this craziness we call the holidays came at me, starting out like a wee snowball at the top of a mountain. And by the time it got to me, well, it was a not-so-wee snowball.

Mostly, I’ve been drowning under kilograms of flour, sugar, eggs and stuff that needs to be piped. I’ve been making the same two cookies (gingerbread and cranberry shortbread) every year for twelve, count ‘em, twelve years. You’d figure I could get the recipe right, especially having gone to Le Fancy Culinary School. This year, the part of my brain responsible for reading and following instructions just wasn’t working. I have one batch of dough in the fridge that was supposed to be gingerbread. However, it has twice as much butter as it’s supposed to, and no ginger. I’m afraid to bake it. Maybe I invented molasses shortbread?

Speaking of shortbread, I forgot the cornstarch this year but made up for it by putting in twice as many cranberries as I was supposed to. They’re, erm, festive.

At least the macaroons turned out. Oh, and chocolate caramel. The wonders of caramel never cease to amaze me. You can put bacon in it and it’s all wacky and weird and delicious. But chocolate caramel, with its classic simplicity – it hides in dark corners and gives you that look, and before you know it you’re in over your head with dark, delicious chocolate mingled with smoky caramel, and just a hint of salt.

All of these things combine to form Christmas Goodies Fantastico, which contains:

  • “Economic downturn” gingerbread, which feature sad faces and fancy suits. Because, well, we’ve got to keep up appearances in these tough times. But in the crazy market this year, some of these gingerbread folks lost an arm, or a leg…or, a head.
  • The aformentioned cranberry shortbread, looking very festive indeed.
  • Chocolate macaroons, beautiful and classic. In my original plan, I was going to make a rainbow of these (espresso, pistachio and raspberry) but then I snapped back to reality.
  • The much sought-after chocolate caramels. For those of you lucky enough to receive these, you may want to hide these. I don’t want to have to say I told you so.

As I probably won’t be posting before Christmas, have a safe and happy holiday. I hope there are cookies in your future.

Categories: Homemade · Travel
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Strategy and stamina

July 16, 2009 · Leave a Comment

I attended the Seattle Luxury Chocolate Salon last weekend. In principle, it sounds like heaven on earth. A room stuffed to the brim with chocolate bars, chocolate confections, and even chocolate spa products? Good heavens to Betsy, I say.

If you stop to think about it, it’s actually a really challenging situation. There was no way I was going to taste everything, so first I had to figure out which ones were interesting enough to taste. That narrowed it down from 27 exhibitors to about 10.

Still, ten is a lot. Especially considering that most tables were sampling anywhere from 5-15 items.

I started with the bean-to-bar producers, and there were some pretty impressive chocolates in the room. I look forward to the next time that I’m in the same room with Amano Artisan Chocolate, Theo Chocolate and Claudio Corallo Chocolate. Each company has a slightly different approach, and it makes for really interesting conversation – and incredibly delicious chocolate.

Next up, the confections. There were a lot to sample, so I had to be pretty brutal. If I didn’t like one sample, I’d try one more. And if I didn’t like that one, then that was it.

I definitely lingered at the Chocolopolis table, working my way through their guided tasting of five single-origin chocolate ganaches made with chocolate from  different producers. It still surprises me how this seemingly simple thing – cacao, cocoa butter, chocolate – can taste so different, and the tasting definitely drove this point home.

I enjoyed the Saint Basil truffle from Intrigue Chocolates, though some of the other flavours were less remarkable. I’ll keep an eye on them, because I think they’re doing some interesting things.

William Dean Chocolates were showing off their cuckoo creation: a bleu cheese ganache on top of a pecan marzipan, dipped in dark chocolate. I appreciate the effort – and the pecan marzipan was a wise choice – but in the end, I’m not a fan of bleu cheese and chocolate. (For the record, I’m also not a fan of curry and chocolate.)

I also sampled their pate de fruits in raspberry and pear flavours. The flavours are nice, but the textures are a bit firmer than traditional pate de fruits. I mentioned this, and it turns out that it’s intentional. The firmer texture is meant to appeal to the company’s clientele in Tampa Bay. Sigh. At least it’s a case of someone knowing what the real deal is, and then consciously working around it – and not just a mistake.

In total, it took me five hours to navigate the room. Mind you, I wasn’t eating the entire time. I spent a lot of time talking to people, some time in seminars, and some time walking around aimlessly in an attempt to digest faster.

And listen to me, griping on about having to eat too much chocolate. What’s that I hear? Oh, don’t worry. It’s just the world’s smallest violin, whining away in the distance.

Categories: Events · Travel
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What I ate this weekend

July 13, 2009 · 4 Comments

I swear, every time I visit Seattle, I love it more and more.

And this time was no exception.

It goes without saying that I ate copious amounts of chocolate this weekend. No, make that obscene amounts of chocolate. Chocolate bars, cocoa nibs, truffles, single-origin products, blended products, chocolates I loved, and chocolates I…didn’t.

But this post is not about chocolate. Forgive me. Instead, I’m going to tell you about the deliciousness that I ate this weekend.

I went for dinner at Steelhead Diner, which is a gem of a place in Pike Place Market. Platters of oysters on the half-shell, flash-fried geoduck, little battered smelt with hot mustard, mussels with chorizo, crab cakes with crazy giant pieces of whole crab leg…oh, I’m just getting started.

One standout was the caviar pie, a delicious slice of four colours of caviar on creamy mousse (creme fraiche? cream cheese?) on a bed of finely chopped red onions, hard-boiled eggs and capers.

The other one was the house cured beef bresaola, all smoky and rich, served with the season’s first Rainier cherries, goat’s cheese, tangy olive oil, and twisty-turny bread sticks.

As if that wasn’t enough, dessert was – quite literally – the world’s best pie, from the expert herself. I mean, I pride myself on my pie. I’ve been working on the crust recipe for years. But hey, I know when I’ve been beat. Crumbly, sweet, and infinitely delicious, this was The World’s Best Pie.

I also had breakfast at Tilikum Place Cafe. (Hrm, website maybe be broken? It’s not working for me.) Lovely pastries. Beautiful blueberry muffins, still-warm raspberry cake that was positively juicy, all of it washed down with a pot of insanely robust coffee. Whether you pick the house-made sausage, delectable baked beans, creamy baked eggs or the insanely cute Dutch baby, I think you’ll be happy and full.

Both meals were marked by great food, and more importantly, great company. As in, great company. You know who you are – thanks for the good times.

Steelhead Diner
95 Pine Street
Seattle, WA
206-625-0129
Steelhead Diner on Urbanspoon

Tilikum Place Cafe
407 Cedar Street
Seattle, WA 98121
206-282-4830
Tilikum Place Cafe on Urbanspoon

Categories: Restaurant reviews · Travel
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