This past weekend, Dan, Eric, Angie and I trekked (in the car, that is) two and a half hours to the Berkshires of Massachusetts to make a day out of two stops (three if you count McDonalds on the way - which is a road trip staple, in my opinion): The first was the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art in North Adams. The second was Chocolate Springs in Lenox.

Chocolate Springs is an artisan chocolatier that I discovered a few years ago (in Boston you can get their chocolates at Formaggio Kitchen). This past Saturday was the first time I visited their chocolate cafe. The beautiful cafe (which is also where they make their chocolate confections) offers countless varieties of handmade truffles that range from classic to quite curious, pure chocolate bars and chocolate dipped goodies , lovely cakes and confections, truffle and nougat bars, mini chocolate sculptures, the ideal hot chocolate, and other chocolate treats too numerous to name. And it's a cafe, so that means that there are tables where you can sit with your friends. And we did, for around 2 hours.


Chocolate tasting with good people is, without a doubt, the very delicious reason that I got so into chocolate in the first place. Here's a great idea for a fun afternoon for four friends:

• Go to the nearest chocolate boutique that offers table seating
  
• Select 10 chocolates (to start) and grab a bottle of water for each of you
  
• Cut each truffle or chocolate into 4 pieces
  
• Taste each chocolate as a group and have a fabulous, magical afternoon
  
• And then get a light dinner somewhere after (Optional, but highly recommended)
  

Creme Brulee: A white chocolate ganache sprinkled with flakes of burnt sugar and dipped in dark chocolate. Wonderful texture, at once smooth and creamy and a tiny bit crunchy sweet.

Rose Tea: A black tea truffle. The tannins from the tea leaves come through in a very interesting way in this tea truffle (as well as other tea truffles that we tried), leaving that sensation on your palette that you have when you've just had a cup of tea.

Venus: This milk chocolate ganache with a touch of rum was an all around favorite. On a side note, we all noticed that this truffle looks somewhat... female. And then Joshua told me that truffle is, indeed, a nipple-inspired design, hence the name Venus (originally "Venus' Nipple").

Mint: Oh fresh mint leaves. Why are you not utilized in more desserts? (Garnish doesn't count.) This truffle was so fresh and delicious. Another instant favorite.

Jas-tea-sia: This was the one that blew us all away. They didn't have any Jas-tea-sia truffles left, so we would not have had the chance to experience this chocolate miracle if Joshua had not popped by our table offering a tiny vessel of freshly made Jasmine tea ganache and 4 spoons. Utterly fascinating. The tannins came through alongside all of the subtleties of gentle, complex Jasmine green tea.

A few more pics from our daytrip on are on flickr.

This past Saturday, me and Dan met up with my friend Jeff and one of his friends at a Fluff festival, and then bumped into our friends Eric and Angie, who bumped into a friend of theirs, and then Jeff and his friend saw two of their friends, and we all ended up at the bar next door eating gourmet Fluffer Nutters (which I'll probably post about later).

Coincidentally, Jeff also brought me some chocolates that he got in Australia made by a company called Haighs.

So there I was in a bar with a pretty random group of people with a box of chocolates in my bag. Dan suggested that we open it up and try some. It was kind of sad though, because we came up with that great idea right after my friend Jeff left - my friend Jeff who actually gave me the chocolates. So he didn't get to have any, but a bunch of his friends did. We hung out in the back corner of the bar and tried 4 or 5 odd-tasting filled bon bon-type Australian chocolates.

The chocolates featured 3 native Australian flavors: Quandong, a desert fruit that was present as a dried fruit paste in one of the chocolates. It was sweet, kind of like a combination of dates and dried apricot. The wattle seed chocolate was sticky, kind of like toffee with a little bit of nuttiness maybe. It had a "w" on it for "wattle" (see pic above). And another chocolate we tried was called "Lemon Myrtle." Lemon myrtle is a bushy rainforest tree that produces flowers that have a lemon limey flavor. And the Lemon Myrtle chocolate tasted just like that - lemony, limey, and floral. And super sweet. All of the chocolates were sweet and chewy-sticky. Curious, but not quite my style. What was good was the company. It was fun to pass the box around and have people taste the different chocolates and talk about them.

When I go out, I meet a lot of people who want to talk to me about chocolate and who want to be invited to my next chocolate party (that I have at my house every so often.) From my own experience, chocolate is a pretty sweet way to connect with people. That's one of my favorite things about it. This post on my friend Toby's blog inspired me to not only talk to strangers, but to invite them to taste some chocolate and then see how many new friends I can make that way. Coincidentally, I also met Toby in a bar. Though I did not have any chocolate with me at the time.

Here are a three points about why you should have a mini chocolate tasting in a bar with strangers. Note that these are all based on my personal experiences:

• You might get bored and need a conversation starter.


• Someone might give you a really big box of chocolates that you don't really want to eat all by yourself.


• Chocolate makes many people really happy.

In case anyone who watched last week's episode of Entourage was wondering which Teuscher chocolate is Lloyd's "favorite"... well, he doesn't say it straight out, but when Lloyd walks into Ari's office with a box of assorted Teuscher truffles, the light-colored (powdered sugar-dusted) ones in the center of the box are Teuscher's signature Champagne truffles. The camera then cuts to Ari, then back to Lloyd and half of the Champagne truffles are gone... so, as for his favorite, Teuscher's Champagne truffle (also my favorite) would be my guess.

Another highlight from my NYC trip this past weekend was stopping by the Essex Street Market, an indoor market in the Lower East Side. We were accompanying our foodie friend Bill on a culinary shopping spree. Essex has been around since 1940, and has recently experienced renewed interest from New York culinary enthusiasts - particularly during the past year alongside a bunch of re-openings and grand openings of some really sweet gourmet food stalls. While there will soon be a chocolatier to be found among the many tiny kiosks and counters in the Essex market, I was most excited to visit Saxelby Cheesemongers. Anne Saxelby not only sells cheeses, creme fraiche, ricotta, and several other dairy products, but she also ages many of her cheeses in an onsite cheesecave. She sources all her stock from within the United States.

So Anne was there when we stopped by and I asked her for a couple off-the-cuff recommendations for cheeses can be paired with dark chocolate. She smiled and exclaimed that there are so many choices! Here are two:

Pleasant Ridge Reserve: This Gruyere-style washed-rind cheese is made in Wisconsin from the milk of a single herd of cows. We tried a piece while we were at the market - the flavor was smooth and a little nutty.

Bayley Hazen Blue: She told me that the sweetness and tanginess of blue cheeses can make a really nice complement to dark chocolate, and recommended this Vermont blue as one that would pair particularly well.

Saxelby Cheesemongers has been doing a series of chocolate, beer, and cheese tastings the last Wednesday of each month at Jimmy's No. 43 in the East Village. The next one is on August 27th. The September event will feature the chocolate creations of Ellen Mirsky of emChocolatier. (Note that come October, the tastings will be held the first Tuesday of every month.) Anne also has a really great cheese blog at saxelbycheese.blogspot.com where she posts various tidbits about her experiences in the vast world of fine cheese.

My friends Brooke and Toby may very well be the tastiest couple I know... And being such, they're never afraid to show off their tastiness by wearing their matching Tasty Show tees! Tasty Show t-shirts are created with love by the Tasty Show girl (that's me). (Not the tasty showgirl - that's someone else.) This cute pic was taken in the very same living room where where we did our Recchuiti varietal truffle tasting during my trip to SF a couple weeks ago.

Soon I'll have the Tasty Boutique up and running again (it's on hold for a bit while the Tasty Show Chocolate Tasting Kit gets a makeover) and these sweet tees will be available for the tasty boys and girls everywhere!

At my other [non-chocolate] gig, I have the pleasure of working with English tea retailer Whittard of Chelsea, who just opened a boutique on Boston's Newbury Street. A few days ago, I asked Whittard's tea and coffee guru, Giles Hilton, for his thoughts on pairing tea and chocolate. Mr. Hilton has been traveling around the world sourcing the best teas and developing Whittard's tea blends for more than 30 years and draws from quite an incredible and eclectic pool of experience. In between his various trips to different tea gardens, he was able to sit down and email along a few ideas to start:

Milk chocolate: I would try a regular tea like Assam or Ceylon with a dash of milk.

Pure chocolate, with fillings and other flavours: Vanilla flavoured tea. Even Indian Spice Chai, which can be made the Indian way with milk and sugar, or lightly brewed and black.

Dark Chocolate (even bitter chocolate): l immediately thought Darjeeling tea - it's wonderful, light, aromatic, and chases the chocolate all round your palate. A Jasmine could work too!

Pairing tea and chocolate can be tricky in light of tea's astringency and tannins. The suggestions above are a good foundation to begin exploring. I'll check back in with Giles soon and post some more ideas.

Here's a week-long round-up of everything I've tried this week:

Saturday: I stopped by Best Cellars in Boston's Back Bay for a 'Cake and Champagne' event, courtesy of Sweet Cheeks Cake Company. I tried Mom's Classic Birthday Cake, a chocolate cake with a cream cheese and chocolate chip filling, and a family specialty of Sweet Cheeks founder Kendra Strasburg. Kendra told me that she grew up in a 'baking family' and that many of the recipes for her cakes come from her childhood. Kendra also told me that she's looking into starting up a retail space, and may decide to also start offering some of her cakes in cupcake form. The Sweet Cheeks (non-retail) cake-baking studio is currently located somewhere in Jamaica Plain.

Friday: I shared some Venchi 85% dark chocolate (Italy) with my assistant Lindsey today. Here's what she had to say:

Being relatively new to dark chocolate and an avid milk chocolate
supporter one would think that I'd shy away from the 85% cocoa Venchi
you gave me to try. Not so! I've fully embraced it's rich and
slightly sweet taste with open arms. Perhaps I've been converted?

Wednesday: L'artisan du Chocolat - I picked up a "surprise box" of truffles made by L'artisan du Chocolate last week when I was in San Fransciso. The surprise box is just that, a bunch of random truffles that aren't labeled, and then you have to guess what you're eating. It can get pretty interesting in light of the fact that their truffle flavors include ingredients such as rosemary, thyme, habanero, and kalamata olive. We weren't 100% sure about a couple of the flavors we tried today, but here's a excerpt from an email that Dan sent me after we tried a few:

What was that one? I put it in my mouth, very creamy.. first thought of caramel, then changed my mind to honey. Any idea what it was?

Lillie Belle Farms is a certified organic farm in Southern Oregon and the home of Lillie Belle Farm Handmade Chocolates. The chocolatiers at Lillie Belle use the farm's homegrown fruits and berries to make fruit-infused chocolate truffles and confections. At the San Francisco International Chocolate Salon last week, I had the pleasure of chatting with founder Jeff Shepherd about his latest chocolate creation.

The Smokey Blue Truffle: The almond-encrusted ganache of the Smokey Blue is made of milk chocolate and award-winning Smoked Oregon Blue cheese made by Rogue Creamery, a neighbor of Lillie Belle Farms. This is a delicious and fascinating truffle. The first sensation is the tang of the cheese, then the smokiness plays off of the almond while the milk chocolate brings it all together for a delightful, balanced finish. I've always been enthralled by the combination of chocolate and cheese, and this truffle is a real winner.

Rogue Creamery has won multiple awards for their Smoked Oregon Blue Cheese. Jeff told me that one day sometime this past year, some folks from Rogue came over to Lillie Belle and asked him if he could somehow incorporate the cheese into something chocolate. Between their tastebuds and his, it took him around 20 trials to find the exact recipe to balance the flavors and make it work as well as it does. Some of the changes to the first run of the recipe include incorporating milk chocolate (instead of only dark) and finding that almonds make for a better outer layer than hazelnuts, which were too overpowering. (Rogue Creamery ages their Smoked Oregon Blue under hazelnut shells, hence the original choice.) The Smokey Blue Truffle became officially available about a month ago.

Jeff also mentioned that the truffles go fabulously well with a good Pinot.

Continue reading "Chocolate For Breakfast" »