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I'd heard about Food Emporium's vast Chocolate Shop and yet couldn't bring myself to believe it would be anything extraordinary. Since I'm the first to admit when I'm wrong, I must admit: I was wrong. Very, very wrong. This place is chocolate heaven. Of course the two bars I was looking for weren't there (Vosges Enchanted Mushroom and Zotter Horse's Milk and Berries - don't ask). But seemingly everything else is. Fauchon, Michel Cluizel, Dolfin, Vere, Galler, Chuao, Chocolove, Scharffen Berger, Cote d'Or, El Rey, Valrhona, Michael Recchiuti, Dagoba, Amedei chocolate heaven, for sure.(Hi, Adrienne!)1175 Third Avenue between 68th and 69th

Rachel and Gil are ready! The city was kind enough to finally hand over those permits so us chocoholics can get our fix at the lovely new Bespoke Chocolates . All I have to say is: get ready, people.These truffles are some of the best I have ever eaten (though Mr. B's birthday bonbons were pretty crazy, and I still put Kee's on a pedestal, and then there was Paris ). But. But, but, but. The strawberry balsamic truffle is made with strawberry puree, eight-year-old La Vecchia Dispensa Italian balsamic vinegar and 66% dark chocolate. Then it's dusted with freeze-dried strawberry powder. Heaven. A simple 70% Columbian dark chocolate truffle (pictured here) is impossibly creamy a real melt-in-your-mouth gem.And Rachel's signature pretzel-covered sea salted caramel is crazy, with crackly, salty pretzel bits coating the chocolate shell and caramel center. Insler suggests popping the whole thing in your mouth since its really liquidy caramel inside. As amazing as these truffles are, I can't wait until they unveil their homemade hazelnut spread (better than Nutella ?!) and chocolate bars.6 Extra Place off First Street, between Bowery and 2nd Ave212.260.7103

Don't know about anyone else but I am in post-Valentines recovery!! What a maddening holiday. I watched thousands of chocolates disappear in what seemed like a 3 day feeding frenzy.The reward is that I get to spend a few days At the Craters Edge in my tree fern forest/B&B in Volcano, Hawaii soaking in the hot tub and watching the first fiddleheads start to wake up from "winter" . Different groups of orchids are blooming now, I don't know the names of all of them but at least 6 varieties are in bloom, and the giant calla lilies are also emerging. Spring is a little earlier than usual at this 3800 ft volcano top.( Kilauea) Since we don't have groundhogs, not sure how that works.... Sitting in the hot tub in the forest gives me a chance to re-group and assess all that went right ( Lemoncello in Waialua Estate 70%!!) and all that went wrong ( Ran out of 2pc and heart boxes). Now my thoughts are turning towards Easter and the 2009 Kona Chocolate Festival. www.konachocolatefestival.comHope everyone else is enjoying a little post Valentines Recovery! Aloha!

Hi! My name is Michelle and I'm an American student living in Guatemala City while I teach at the Universidad del Valle de Guatemala and write my dissertation. Although my studies have nothing to do with chocolate, I'm very interested in collecting artifacts or replicas that deal with chocolate, chocolate making and enjoying. I've read quite a bit on the subject and have entertained the idea of writing a book on tasting chocolate; how to tell the good from the garbage. I can't write that book yet however because I'm still in the research phase. I've been in Guatemala for a month now and have yet to find any good chocolate, or factories, but I admit that I haven't looked that thoroughly. I will try to keep up my blog with my findings. All in the name of research!

I am probably going to get in trouble again for this but i could not resist...For those planning to enter the Academy of chocolate awards 2010, here's our guide to winning:1. Enter all your products, every single one of them, in all possible categories.2. Enter any product that has previously won award every year. Why quit when you are winning?3. Make special batch with the most expensive couverture and the shortest shelf life; you don't actually need to sell these exact products. No one will know.4. Use chocolate from a manufacturer sponsoring the organisers. Amedei would be a good choice5. Become a member of the Academy and make sure your PR helps organise the awards6. If this fails, a special award, mysteriously not based on any scores, can always be created for you7. If all fails, form your own chocolate critic group with your friends and suppliers and create your own awards to give to each other!This is of course a joke, isn't it?

85Photo.com was recently hired by Valrhona Inc. to photograph their Product Launch Party New York City.

I got a lovely e-mail earlier today from someone who expressed interest in TheChocolateLife a couple of months ago:> I am sorry that it took so long to respond!>> I love your website! I looked into becoming a member but I am not a> chocolatier. Do you need to be to become a member?Here's how I [edited slightly] responded back:[T]:You don't need to be a chocolate maker, chocolatier, chocolate writer or critic, sell chocolate, or anything like that to become a member of TheChocolateLife. You just:a) have to like chocolateb) want to learn more about chocolatec) want to share what you know about chocolated) did I mention that you have to like chocolate?If you can answer "Yes!" to any one of those questions please join us on TheChocolateLife.'Nuff said.:: ClayPS. I want to thank the author of the e-mail for the enthusiastic (unsolicited) testimonial.

The swirling snow through Chicagos bare trees seemed a long way from the humid breezes and thick leaf canopies of chocolates growing regions. Yet when I arrived at the new Barry-Callebauts Chocolate Academy in Chicago, I found the fragrant bags of chocolate from Costa Rica and Tanzania and Mexico ready for action. I had heard that this facility was the best of all chocolate work labs in the country, and maybe even the world. Could it be true? This was no ordinary candy kitchen - the kind with a greasy copper kettle and a few cracked marble slabs around. And it was not quaint in the way you imagine a storied kitchen of a European boutique. No, this was a long, well-lit room with a state-of-the-art granite workspace the size of a basketball court (OK, I exaggerate, but you chocolate people have spent plenty of time in the corner of a too-hot kitchen with nothing more than a bowl and a broken tempering machine. Youd love this! It was huge!). We had induction burners, ganache frames, guitars, temperature and humidity control, sunshades, convection ovens, Robot-Coupes, heat guns, pallette knives and a wall of chocolate from which to choose our flavors. We worked with automatic enrobers, continuous enrobers, chocolate warmers, molds, racks and pans all specified to the precise needs of chocolate practioners. If you could take your eyes off all this gleaming equipment, you could ponder the views of Chicagos snowy rooftops and river traffic below. My chef/instructor, Derek Pho, is also the technical director for Barry-Callebaut, and he chose most of the equipment in the place. Ask him anything about the Chicago facility, water activity in ganache, sugar density, the Canadian facility, beta crystalsyou name it, this guy knows it. Plus he can explain it to you in any of the 6 languages he speaks. My chocolate biz & tech skills got a work out, my pastry chef skills got a work out, my student skills got a big work out becuase we were given lectures, hand-outs and detailed chemistry information along with our confectionary recipes. But now I have a problem. My tabletop tempering machines look like old vacuum cleaners to me now. Im just not living right. I need one of those $25,000 enrobers and a basketball court full of granite in my workspace. My aspirations may have a big price tag, but the inspiration from the Chocolate Academy was priceless. http://www.barry-callebaut.com/chocolate_academy or 866-443-0437

Now Try This:A molded chocolate with wine jelly center covered by milk chocolate ganache in a milk chocolate shell.Id like to try to post something here once a week during the North American winter months but Im going to be on a driving vacation to Florida next week so thought Id get this posted on the blog before I leave this Saturday. (Ill be staying near Ft. Myers so hope to stop by Norman Loves store there.)Ive been getting some good feedback from friends on this molded chocolate piece because it is so rich but its kind of surprising too, it has an unexpected solid jelly mouth feel after you bite into it. Ive not seen or heard of a combination of spirits based jelly covered by wine ganache in a chocolate shell. Again, like the previous post: this may be strong to the taste of some people so they ought to be forewarned that its grown-up candy before they bite into it.The technique used here is basically the same as my previous post, except I used Madagascar Sambriano origin milk chocolate instead of New Guinea. It probably would have been better to use a milder bean for the milk chocolate because the wine involved has a hard time standing up to the strong red fruit(raspberry) flavor notes of the Madagascar. But that is what I had on hand at the time. And because of its strength, I chose a red wine rather than a white. Any quality milk chocolate could be used here and you could use a white wine if your chocolate is milder.This milk chocolate was about a 45 % cocoa with 10 % milk. That is what I call a dark milk chocolate.The wine jelly was a Merlot , nothing special. I used one half cup brought to a boil with one Tbsp pectin (Sure*Jell) but not gelatin (Knox) and one Tbsp cane sugar. Follow the directions on the Sure*Jell insert, exactly. Then chill and let it set overnight. That is 120ml wine, 15ml pectin and 15ml sugar. This should give you a wine jelly that is nice and firm. But it is difficult to prevent a part of it from being watery. What you dont want is a jelly that is so solid that you can cut it with a knife, then it just would not have much Merlot taste.This wine jelly is put in the shell (I prefer a thin shell as mentioned in the earlier post) and then is covered with a layer of the milk chocolate ganache made with the same technique and using Merlot wine and chocolate as described also in the earlier post. I think the thinner the ganache you can get the better. That means that Im going for the most jelly possible in the center. This ought to give you the maximum wine flavor possible. The ganache just doesnt carry very much wine flavor; the jelly much more. Then top it all off with a thin layer of milk chocolate shell.The ganache is going to make a nice seal over the jelly between it and the liquid chocolate shell when poured or piped. This will prevent any liquid jelly from floating through the chocolate and leaking. I know I said make the jelly near solid but even then there may be a slight liquid to it.What you get is a rich chocolate piece which has a creamy feel when you bite into it and then a nice fruity/jelly taste following. Try it. Youll like it!A friend of mine: April, and her husband Shane, over at Chocolat Branson:http://www.handcraftedchocolat.com/came up with a new one called Bee Sting using honey and cayenne . Really nice !So another friend, Al who owns a restaurant called Big Als Place and who makes mead (wine from honey) came up with a way to freeze his mead and drain off the high alcohol liquid which he calls Bee Squeezeins .My next Now Try This will be Bee Squeezeins in chocolate. Should be fun !! But this is no Kiddie Candy !!All the Best Tasting to You.Mr WineCandyBy the way: Have you seen these photos of the work done by James Gallo on this site? What a Master; check it out !!http://www.thechocolatelife.com/photo/photo/listForContributor?screenName=3a256r2yh0gj1

Now Try This:Um ! Yum! Dark Milk Chocolate Port Ganache in a Dark Chocolate ShellI used Papua New Guinea origin chocolate for this molded treat. The Dark Chocolate shell was a 66 % cocoa with half vanilla bean per 5 lbs of liquor. After pulling off 2 lbs of dark I added enough sugar and milk to give me a 60% dark milk at 15 % milk.If youve not worked with home roasted chocolate, just know this: I used a good rich dark chocolate that was not too bitter for the shell. Not a real spicy/fruity chocolate like a Madagascar but a nice bold one. For the milk chocolate ganache it was pretty dark , with not a whole lot of milk. Ie, a dark milk chocolate that again was not too spicy. I think these go together well with port as it is not spicy like Sauvignon Blanc wine or a Vignoles wine jelly.For the ganache I used 2 oz of dark milk chocolate, 3 table spoons of vintage Port and, boiled evaporated milk cup . Not heavy cream. (That would be about 60 gm chocolate, 45ml of Port, and 75ml of evaporated milk. ) Why not cream? Some Ports are oak aged. Ie, they have an oaky/caramelized flavor and I think (just my opinion) that evaporated milk in the ganache blends better in flavor than a plain heavy cream.I brought the evap. milk to a light boil, poured in melted milk chocolate and added the port. Stirring constantly until all the chocolate was well blended. This is Fonseca Guimaraens 1998 vintage port. It was a gift to me and I dont know anything about it, could be expensive or could be cheap but I used it with chocolate and it turned out real nice. Im supposed to know about this stuff , the details of Port, as I grow wine grapes commercially, but I confess ignorance about Port. Makes a good ganache though.From the warm sauce pan I poured the liquid ganache into a cool glass bowl and covered with saran wrap and refrigerated overnight. I like to make my dark chocolate shells very, very thin as they are powerful single origin chocolate and I dont want the shells to overpower the center filling. So I made the shells pouring the melted dark into molds, scooped the milk chocolate ganache in and covered with a layer of dark chocolate which I tried to keep as thin as possible. The ganache was not broken, no liquid floated up so the pieces sealed well. These I chilled before taking out of the molds. They came out easily and I just had to bite into one right away.This is great tasting stuff !! It is not kiddie candy. Think about the fact that there adult flavors going on here. Its important that a person trying these chocolates doesnt expect sweet, sugary, birthday cake confections. No , no. This is an adult treat and is strong to some people if they dont expect a serious, flavorful molded chocolateYou get a mouthful of rich chocolate and a Vintage Porto beverage tooAnd I love it.Next Time : the same, with wine jelly to boot.