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More than 600 purveyors of gourmet foods sought the attention of buyers, brokers, shopkeepers, party planners and journalists this month at the Fancy Food Show in San Francisco. And plenty of them were stretching the definition of "gourmet."Retail shops and supermarkets from around the country sent their buyers on a mission of taste to this semiannual trade show Jan. 17-19, sponsored by the National Association for the Specialty Food Trade. Among the products they encountered: a meatball mix (which was surprisingly good), countless crackers, kosher sparkling water and even Bacon Marshmallow S'more Kits (unspeakably bad).Even in the recession, food-makers created lavish booths and flashy installations. Costumed ladies passed out penny candy like old-fashioned cigarette girls, and the bowls of free food samples seemed bottomless.Blood Orange Marmalade and Triple Nut Kentucky Bourbon Brittle were among recent winners of the Sofi Award, a spotlight for excellence. Bacon Popcorn made the San Francisco Chronicle's list of highlights. On the darker side of the spectrum were big, clumpy chocolates designed for shelf stability (meaning, no cream, butter or any ingredient demanding freshness) and price point (cheap). The result: bad bonbons.Savor California, a collection of gourmet artisans, sent its members out to roam the floor in search of the unofficial worst-in-show product. The dubious honor went to a bag of truffle popcorn. When opened at the Savor California booth, heads turned, brows wrinkled and a chorus of "What's that smell?" resounded. At this show, popcorn served as a vehicle for both the sublime and the malodorous.Can't miss: 'Hippie Chips' and tequilaEvery show has big spenders whose booths draw a crowd of shoppers, gawkers and swag-seekers. Stubb's, a prominent Texas barbecue sauce-maker, wheeled in a full-size trailer replete with smoker, grill, front porch, rocking chairs, red gingham tablecloths and overall-clad salesmen. Freshly barbecued ribs and a smart lineup of tasty products delivered on the promise of the presentation. Another dazzler was Rock 'n' Roll Gourmet, sellers of "Hippie Chips," whose booth became a surf shack where loud music, psychedelic lights and free-flowing shots of tequila -- a winning combo in any trade show setting -- accompanied their products.But it was chocolate maker TCHO that stood out for presenting substance, not just style. The craft batch manufacturer of premium chocolate based on San Francisco's Pier 17 started five years ago as a marriage of high-tech and food cultures. Founder Timothy Childs, a former NASA engineer, pioneered the flavor wheel -- a way to organize chocolate's flavor profiles beyond the standard description of cacao percentages, such as "72% cacao."

TCHO's chocolate flavor wheelIn September, TCHO launched an organic, fair-trade chocolate line that stands out in a slim field. Most organic chocolates are limited in flavor depth because they are limited in bean selection; only a small percentage of the world's cacao beans are organically grown and fair-trade certified. TCHO passed out its flavor wheel to visitors, and they were donned by chocolatiers who support the brand, and by extension, the effort to make chocolate as ethical as it is delightful.--------------------------------------------------------------------------------Susie Norris is a chocolatier, TV producer and author of the new book "Chocolate Bliss."Photos, from top: Buyers and journalists tried out the latest offerings from more than 600 gourmet food makers at the Fancy Food Show in San Francisco. Credit: National Association for the Specialty Food Trade. Bottom, the TCHO chocolate taste wheel. Credit: Susie Norris.

It's like chocolate Facebook? I'm not sure I follow.I joined because I don't know anyone who appreciates Chocolate in the way I do. Everyone I know is crazy about M&Ms, and Hershey's Kisses. I'd much rather have something richer and smoother. My friends think those are smooth. So, I'm ready to get to know people who understand. But how do I do that?Right now, the best chocolate I'm familiar with is Lindt. Is there better chocolate that's readily available? Also, for those who live in Phila., PA, there's a place called Naked Chocolate Cafe. I have no idea why it's called that, but they have some really good chocolate there. They have things like sipping chocolate, and delicious chocolate drinks.So, if you can see this, and care enough to help me get acquainted with this community (and new chocolates), I'd greatly appreciate it!

The Knave of Hearts would like to say how proud we were to represent Pilesgrove, N.J. in the Chef's Competition at the Philly Candy Show in Atlantic City. It was a true pleasure to meet many of you at the show!Sincerely,Gary Curry, Ex. Chef / ProprietorThe Knave of Hearts, LLC. www.theknaveofhearts.net

Sometime in 2006 in the oppressive summer heat that invades Phoenix, AZ, I was introduced to a new chocolate - Cru Sauvage ; the newest entry in Felchlin's Grand Cru line and made from "wild" beans harvested in the middle of absolutely nowhere in Eastern Bolivia.The story of their making it to market is quite remarkable and is testament to the patience of my host on my trip, Volker Lehmann. Convinced the beans he had were something special Volker traveled around the world trying to get chocolate makers interested in making chocolate from them. One of the main complaints he got about the beans was that they were too small to make chocolate economically.Entranced by the story, I was astonished when I saw where the trees were growing and what they looked like. The trees (which are technically feral, not wild, because they were planted - over 500 years ago even though they have not been tended in hundreds of years), grow on islands in the middle of a seemingly endless savannah. Amazingly, the savannah (some 70,000 acres) AND the islands are all man-made. The multi-trunked trees also amaze; they are unlike any other trees I have seen.

Ever since that day in 2006 I have wanted to visit this place - the Hacienda Tranquilidad and meet with the gentleman who persevered to sell the beans to Felchlin. In my opinion (and that of others), the 2006 harvest especially made one of the great chocolates produced anywhere in the past decade or more.

So, it is with great delight that within about 12 hours I am going to be boarding a plane at LaGuardia airport in NYC headed to Miami where I will catch a red-eye to Santa Cruz de la Sierra. There I will be met by Mr Lehmann and after spending the day in Santa Cruz Volker and I will board the overnight bus for Trinidad where we will catch a plane to Baures , a little more than 100km from the border with Brasil and near the Itenez Forest Reserve. There we will take a jeep the last few miles to the Hacienda Tranquilidad.It is the peak harvest season in this part of Bolivia and even though the weather forecast calls for a greater than 50% chance of thundershowers for my entire trip, I will do everything that I possibly can to make my way to one of those islands to stand among those remarkable trees, open a pod, and suck the sweet pulp off perfectly fresh-ripe cacao seeds.I apologize for the dearth of pictures (these were taken from Felchlin's web site), but I do hope to have many more to share in the coming days. Stay tuned ...

Dear Friends,I am putting together a Chocolate, Dessert and Wine Lover's 'Tasting' Evening to benefit the Shelter for the Homeless. The 'Tasting' event will take place on Thursday, February 11th at the Hilton in Stamford, CT from 6pm - 9pm. Tickets are only $35 each if purchased by February 8th, all proceeds will be donated to the Shelter for the Homeless.I am very pleased to share with you that we have 34 Chocolate & Dessert Vendors confirmed including Adreanna Limbach and Adreanna's Fabulous Chocolates!In addition, there will be 10 Wine and Beverage Purveyors and 11 Merchants selling items such as Jewelry, Clothes, Flowers, etc. Just in time for Valentine's Day!I have also signed-up Moffly Publications and 95.9 THE FOX to promote this event.Additional information can be found on the following link, including the link to buy tickets: http://shelterbenefit.jbakerwebdesign.com/ My contact information: sweicker@sbweventsgroup.com or, (203) 536-9377.Thank you for supporting this event to benefit the Shelter for the Homeless!Your friend,Scot

This article was written for and originally appeared in the Top Chef for Foodies blogs sometime in late 2007 or early 2008. BravoTV/NBC Universal in their infinite wisdom saw fit to remove all references to it when I stopped writing for them. As I was nearing the final draft deadline for my book, Discover Chocolate, my editors asked me to rethink the content of the fourth major chapter of the book. Originally it was going to be a section on the health benefits of chocolate but as we got closer and closer to finishing the rest of the book, that topic began to seem less and less appropriate.Since probably forever there has been a connection in people's minds between chocolate and wine. From personal experience I knew that the conventional wisdom about pairing chocolate and wine (dark chocolate goes with red wine) was just about as useful as the advice about pairing wine and flesh (red wine goes with meat, white wine goes with fish). There are enough exceptions to that rule to fill a very large book.So, the fourth chapter ended up being all about pairing various kinds of chocolates with various kinds of wines and spirits.The first rule about pairing wine and chocolate is that there are no hard and fast rules.Anyone who knows anything about wine can tell you that there is no one single flavor description for Syrah/Shiraz wines. Depending on where the grapes are grown, the weather in any particular year prior to harvest, and the individual sensibilities of the winemaker there are huge differences between wines that are produced from grapes grown just a few miles apart.Similarly, anyone who knows anything about chocolate can tell you that there is no one single flavor description for chocolate made from Trinitario beans, or Porcelana. Extrapolating that to a general descriptor (e.g., dark chocolate) and a percentage cacao (e.g., 70%) is so vague as to be meaningless.But that's just what some chocolate companies try to do. One very public example of this can be found online at the San Francisco Chocolate Factory ( www.sfchocolate.com ). They produce something called "The Wine Lover's Collection." This set is comprised of six, 3.5oz tins of chocolate each matched with a particular style of wine. The 54% is said to be good with Ports (Which kind? Ruby? Tawny?) while the 72% should be paired with Zins. There are percentage matches between Cabernet Sauvignon, Pinot Noir, Merlot, Syrah - 31%, 38%, 55% [sic], 58%, and 61%.These kinds of pairing recommendations are simply wrong in most cases.One place I did not spend enough time thinking about was in pairing chocolate and beer; in fact I mentioned that I preferred to put the chocolate in chili and eat that with beer.What, you say? Ick? Chocolate and beer? Well, then, you probably haven't tasted any good pairings. And neither had I, even though I had been thoroughly introduced to the concept by Pete Slosberg, the creator of Wicked Pete's Ale and the founder of Cocoa Pete's ( www.cocoapetes.com , currently undergoing renovation), a gourmet chocolate brand. Obviously, Pete sees the connection and in fact spends quite a bit of time promoting his chocolates at chocolate and beer tastings around the country, but especially in the San Francisco Bay Area.SO, I was very intrigued when chocolate-maker Shawn Askinosie of Askinosie Chocolate ( www.askinosie.com ) sent me an e-mail asking me what I knew about a chocolate, cheese, and beer tasting event in NYC and whether or not he should try to get involved in it.I contacted the organizers of the event, the New York City Degustation Advisory Team ( www.nycdat.com ), to see if I could get myself a seat at the next tasting (I did), not really knowing what to expect.NYCDAT founders Chris Cuzme and Mary Izett are both huge fans of and hugely knowledgeable about craft beers and have been parlaying that interest into a series of hugely fun tasting events at Jimmy's #43 ( www.jimmysno43.com ) on Manhattan's lower east side.Mary makes the case, very early on in her introduction to pairing, that because both chocolate and beer are made using ingredients that are roasted, it makes sense that they contain complementary flavors and aromas. Wines contain few if any of these compounds (and only if they are aged in wooden barrels that have been charred by fire) and for this, as well as many other reasons, it's harder to pair wines with chocolates than beers with chocolates.Makes sense when you think about it that way, no? Furthermore, there is a preoccupation with pairing wines with solid chocolates and pairing beers with filled chocolates, especially when you add the dimension of the cheese opens up a broad panorama of taste possibilities. However, as both Mary and Chris point out, while it's fairly easy to find pairings that work with any combination of two elements, finding ones that work with all three is a challenge that requires much eating of chocolate and cheese and drinking beer.Sounds tough - not.I hosted a chocolate, cheese, and beer tasting for a group I organize on Meetup (chocolate.meetup.com/44/) that was attended by about 25 people; a mix of chocolate fans and beer fans with only a small handful that were both. The beers were all chosen from the selection at Jimmy's, the cheeses were provided by Saxelby Cheese Mongers in the Essex Street Market, and the truffles were provided by Roni-Sue, also in the Essex Street Market).Perhaps the most interesting pairing of the evening was the combination of a seasonal Belgian beer - Winterkoninskske (Winter King) 8.3% alcohol by volume with a Mecox Bay Dairy (Long Island, New York) Sigit (made from raw cow's milk and aged a minimum of 18 months) with a dark chocolate truffle flavored with ginger.The tasting notes say that this aged cheese, "has a unique taste characteristic of alpine-type cheeses." I don't know what this means really, but the cheese did have a sort of piney freshness to it. The Winter King beer is made with seven different types of malt and two types of hops with, "a pure, sugary flavor and a long, bitter aftertaste." All the hops in the beer, however, created for me a sort of resin-y scented aroma and taste and when the cheese and the beer were in the mouth at the same time, this sensation of piney, almost minty, freshness was quite pronounced. Crystallized ginger not only has heat but it has a sharp clear taste that magnified the sensation even more while the depth of the dark chocolate and the fat in the chocolate and cheese counterbalanced the bitterness of the beer and its alcoholic bite.Other pairings included Rogue Brewery's Shakespeare Stout with a Pecan Pie truffle and a raw cow's milk blue cheese (Bayley Hazen) from Vermont's Jasper Hill Farm; Sam Smith's Taddy Porter with a Port and Fig truffle and a raw cow's milk cheese (Dorset) from Vermont's Consider Bardwell Farm; Original Sin Apple Cider with a Pistachio truffle and another Jasper Hill Farm raw cow's milk cheese (Constant Bliss).Finally we did pair beers with straight dark chocolates. The most interesting pairing here was two beers (Troubador Obscura and Chimay Triple (Cinq Cents)) with Amano's Madagascar 70%. What was remarkable here was how vastly different the chocolate tasted with each of the beers and how the chocolate influenced the taste of the beers - which is to be expected but was nonetheless surprising.Even thought most of the beers we tried were high-alcohol (over 8% by volume) this is still significantly less than most wines. So even though seven beers were poured during the tasting itself and we shared around of pale ale to start (to "calibrate our palates"), I was noticeably less affected than I would be if I was tasting with the same number of wines.A word to the wise, however. As a general rule, when you pair beers with chocolates and cheese, you will want to stick with the darker, higher-alcohol beers. The three-two (3.2%) beer you can get in Utah, plus light and n-a beers are ones you should probably steer clear of. Stick to beers with a good deal of body and lots of taste (and calories), and you'll find pairing easier.Salut!PS. IMO, the most versatile wine for pairing with chocolates I have found is the Italian sparkling wine, Prosecco. One of the reasons Prosecco works (and many Spanish Cavas, but not French Champagnes) is that it has a tendency to be less alcoholic and less sharp than Champagne and the texture of the bubbles tends to be very creamy. It is the creaminess of the texture of Prosecco, I am convinced, that is the key reason why it pairs so well with chocolate, which has a related textural quality in the mouth.

This is quite an involved recipe, time consuming but nothing too difficult. Learn to work with acetate and cocoa butter. here is the link: http://www.applecrumbles.com/2009/12/30/chocolate-with-francois-pine-nut-turron-cake/

All winter long I've been experimenting with different ways to candy orange peel, mandarin peel, lemon slices including air drying them, dehydrating, rolling in sugar without candying.It seems like there is a big need for candied peel as well as candied ginger, and that most of what people use or what you can buy in the store is imported.I'll be taking pictures of my experiments but I'm curious for any who read this - would you have interest in great candied peel or candied citrus where you know the origin/growers of the fruit?

Hello fellow chocolate heads... I'm looking for some cacao beans. Just small quantities (500g-1kg) of beans to buy - fermented and unfermented, all unshelled ('unpeeled'), to experiment with for making old-school drinking chocolate. And ideally all from Central America, eg Tabasco, Guatemala - because I'm trying to replicate pre-Colombian cacao-based drinks. I'm writing a book on it, and I'm doing a little talk in February at which I'd like to supply audience members with samples of said drinks, with ingredients all sourced (if poss) from the places of origin of the recipes. But I can't afford to fly to central America to buy ingredients right now, and I'm almost tearing my hair out trying to find suppliers on the web.. It's all 'raw, peeled' or from Africa... I'll settle for cacao from anywhere if I have to, but I wondered if any of you folks might know a supplier? Many thanks in advance - and happy 2010.

Processing cacao beans with raw integrity was the single most difficult project we have undertaken at Big Tree Farms to date. It was a complete reinvention of the wheel because simply put, there were (and are) no technologies available which can process cacao beans under commonly accepted Raw temperature standards. There was nothing to go on, no point from which to start, so it was trial and error over a period of four years and the building (and scrapping) of many locally-engineered appropriate technologies along the way. It was a very long and very costly process with only one real market niche at the end of the tunnel; the raw foods/body-care community. And while it may seem like a crazy notion to spend such time and energy on a relatively miniscule market segment, we did so because it represents a tremendous opportunity for value-addition by small-farmers in a market where their scale would not necessarily make them unable to compete on price. Conventional processors of cacao butter and powder and their associated economies of scale make it impossible for small-scale social operations to compete. But the flip-side (we are learning) is also true; the production of TRULY COLD-PROCESSED cacao butter and powder is an industry so small and so new that no industrial technologies (even antiquated ones) can operate within the required temperature limits. And this is the key point; namely that most (and possibly all) of the cacao products (Butter and Powder and likely many other cacao products) being sold as raw in the US market at present are actually being processed with high heat, because everyone importing is purchasing from industrial processors using industrial cacao processing equipment (most coming from a handful of major processors in either Equador or Peru). Actual cold-processing of cacao butter and powder is not state-of-the-art and cannot in most cases be obtained from industrial equipment. It is a tremendously inefficient process from start to finish and leads to high final prices that are not competitive (or even similarly priced) with organic commodities. Strange then how it seems that with every passing month, bulk raw cacao butter and powder prices tend to fall ever closer to organic commodity levelsI just heard from a manufacturer in NY that purchased a pallet of Raw Butter at $3.75/lb.assuming the importer (who will remain nameless) was taking a 25-30% margin on a pallet sale, that puts there origin purchase somewhere around $1.80-$2.00.And this is an obvious fraud.Quickly before I get into actual product specifics, I want to just bullet point some of the claims that are made with raw cacao products on the market right now. I will then hit on most of these points either directly or indirectly in discussions of the ingredients below; Raw cacao beans must be hand-peeled Truly raw cacao beans should never be fermented because fermenting piles of cacao often heat to temperatures so high that they can spontaneously combust... Using un-roasted cacao beans ensures the raw integrity of the processed butter or powder that is produced By using state-of-the-art industrial butter presses raw integrity of cacao butter and powder is ensured The finest raw cacao powder is pressed so as to retain 10-12% of its original fat contentThe above bullet points have been collected from statements made on the websites of the current top importers and resellers of raw cacao butter and powder. Keep them in mind as I discuss the various ingredients we cold-process below.Cacao Beans To ferment or not to fermentthat is the question; Fermentation The actual answer to this in regards to raw standards is that it makes no difference. Contrary to the factoid above in the bullet points which obviously was taken from a Harry Potter novel, fermenting beans must be carefully managed as temperature is one of the three variables that can make or break a quality finished bean. If fermentation temperatures reach or climb above 50C there is a high risk for hammyness which is an awful flavor profile you could liken to barnyard manure in your mouth which occurs when fermenting beans come out of balance. In my experience (and remember that our experience here is substantial as we own and operate the only cacao fermentery in Bali with an annual capacity of 500 ton) I have only seen a fermentation pile rise about 50C. With good management you can attain full fermentation of cacao beans without temperatures ever rising above 115F (46C). Now, this is not to say that Polyphenol activity is not reduced somewhat through fermentation, but then, polyphenol activity is not part of a commonly accepted raw standard. What fermentation DOES do is to vastly alter the flavor of the seed from being extremely acidic/tannic to developing softer flavors of fruit and the precursors for chocolate flavor.Nibs Nibs are shattered kernels of cacao. Nibs can either be produced by running through a winnower (a machine that shatters the dry kernel and blows away the papery skin) or by hand-peeling. In our experience, one laborer can hand-peel about 4lbs of cacao beans/day A winnower can produce hundreds of pounds/hour if the product is roasted. And if the product is raw and simply sun-dried the machinery (depending on its size)can operate inefficiently to produce approximately 50 pounds/hour of shattered beans which must be hand-sorted to remove bits of skin that havent removed from the kernel.But regardless of the inefficiency, hand-peeling would at least quadruple the cost of the raw goods at the first stage of processing.Cacao Paste Accepted practice is to grind the nib into a paste using heat which liquefies the oils and allows the paste (or liquor) to run freely and easily refine. At Big Tree Farms we are only able to produce a rough ground cacao paste which is only used for butter pressing. Commercial pastes which are super smooth (and taste like chocolate) are created by stone milling or ball mill refining (both of which typically increase temperatures to at least 60C). Colleagues in the Cacao industry say that it is possible to produce a lower (raw) temp paste with a stone mill but this would likely not ring with the flavors of chocolateremember that the chocolate flavor profile most people know and love comes from chemical processes which occur during roastingWithout this process cacao tends to taste somewhat acidic and grassy/herby with high notes that do not exist in roasted chocolate.Cacao Butter The golden oil of the Food of the Gods! Our virgin butter is processed using a proprietary pressing system we have developed over the past 4 years. We do not have a cacao factory contract produce our butter (and powder) as do ALL other players in the raw market at present... We do it ourselves in two locations close to our cacao farms using the scale-appropriate equipment we have built ourselves with the help and input of MANY cacao industry professionals. Simply put, commercially available hydraulic presses operate at temperatures of +/- 200F. As one industry professional in the US stated:Typically for us if the press and the liquor preheater were not at or above 200F we considered it to be malfunctioning and corrective actions were taken. These sentiments are corroborated across the industry. We have searched long and hard for available machinery that could operate at lower temps and with the single exception of a german expeller press which could not extract a viable % of the total butterfat, no technologies were available.Cacao Powder - Once Cacao beans have been ground into a paste and pressed to release the butter were left with cake. Cake is then broken up, pulverized and sieved to create cacao powderIn general it is exactly the same process in either cold-processed or conventional processed systemsexcept for one key point; fat content of the final powder. This is one of the great indicators of a suspect raw cacao supply chain. To explain, cacao powder is available in two commercially traded grades: 10/12% and 22%. These numbers connote the remaining fat present in the powder after processing. 10/12% is obviously far lower than 22% and this is the red flag; In four years of processing and research (including working with German and Swiss engineering companies to test small batch commercial expeller presses) we have never experienced the ability to extract enough virgin cacao butter so as to end up with a 10/12% powder. Ever. And yet the powders being sold by the top raw brands are expousing the virtues of their raw 10/12% cacao powder from state-of-the-art processors. Sad but true, these 10/12% powders are ALL frauds. Another cacao processor in the US states that should the temperature of the press not be maintained at or above 200F, the fats would begin to exceed 12% in the end powder. In other words, 10/12% powders are not possible in raw processing. Period. NOTE - JUST BECAUSE A CACAO POWDER IS HIGH FAT (for example 22% fat) DOES NOT MEAN IT IS RAW OR COLD-PROCESSED...THIS HAS ALSO BEEN USED TO CONFUSE CONSUMERS.So this is the story with raw cacao.One of the most sought after and least available products on the market. It is an awful shame that many of the current market leaders of the raw community are so entrenched in a fight for market share that they allow product integrity to place a distant second to revenue. The raw foods community has been unregulated for too long and it shows with blatant fraud occurring throughout the supply from origin to consumer.