This rainy December day marks the end of my first year back in the chocolate production business after a few years off teaching baking & writing. Some things have changed! Many, many more artisans going bean to bar. I don't work bean to bar myself - I'm all about confections - but I've sampled some very delicious products from companies like AMANO in Utah. More chocolate shows. More health news, more "spin", more single origins and high percentages, more daring flavor combinations and certainly more expertise with transfer sheets and colored cocoa butter techniques amongst us chocolatiers. My break through this year was in new packaging (food safe gift boxes with see-through lids which are easy to ship), new techniques (air brushing & cocoa butter spraying! Fun!) and more internet marketing (very hard to do with chocolate on your hands). I'm attending a workshop at the Barry-Callebaut Academy in January for technique, research and passion - those things which seem to motivate so many of us. Happy Holidays to all who read this and may they bring you much chocolate. Susie @ HAPPY CHOCOLATES www.happychocolates.com

If your goal in life is to write a book, allow me to share what I know about the process. Heres my first piece of good news: the books on how to write a non-fiction book proposal are really good! These are the only self-help books that ever worked for me. What they will force you to do is to refine your idea (Great ideas are a dime a dozen - how do you make yours work as a book?). They will help you think competitively about the marketplace (What other books on the subject are out there? How is yours different?) Finally, they will help you WORK and pull the answers to these hard questions together in the form of a book proposal that might actually help sell your book. Heres a link to Amazons titles http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_ss_gw?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=book+proposal. The bad news is, as you may have heard, its really hard to get an agent. The tools you need most are 1.) a great idea, 2.) resources such as these on how to write a professional book proposal and how to approach literary agents, 3.) a great book proposal, 4.) realistic and unwavering perseverance, 5.) (in my case) the blessings of the chocolate gods.My chocolate book started as a big, exotic photo-laden, coffee-table giant of a travel book - an $80 art splurge - and then morphed into a comprehensive guide to chocolate - say $32.00 - then morphed again into a gift book on chocolate with a focus on health, beauty, gift-giving and wellness - such a deal at $14.95!! Lucky for me, I loved all three of these books! It took 5 years from concept to proposal to working with my agent to working with the first publisher then working with the second and final publisher. 5 years!! Since chocolate was always at the center, much of the research was relevant to all incarnations of the project, and in the meantime I taught baking & pastry arts, produced TV shows, sold artisan chocolates and made birthday cakes. I put everything I learned along the way into the final product, just by osmosis. Once the contract came through, I wrote 2-3 hours a day for 6 months, some days more but never less. If prose ideas got stuck, I turned the classical music up loud and worked on recipes. If a recipe bombed, I went back happily to the prose. In this way of going around in circles, I got to the end. I turned the book (all 168 pages/ 37,249 words) into the editor last week, and already I miss the daily dance of making those recipes work and learning more about chocolate botany. From here, Ill get my notes, do a rewrite, go to a dessert photo shoot featuring my very own chocolate babies, work on final edits then drum up a little fanfare when it comes out in September 2009. A friend occasionally asked me Hows your book going? even though he later confided what he really meant was Have you given up on that flailing book project of yours yet? On the darkest of days, when either the book or I were in some really bad configuration of torturous rejection, I could always say, Its not all the way dead yet. It was never dead because I refused to give up on it. And now, the chocolate book, she lives.

May 19th, 2008Accepting chocolate with crubled bacon bits was a stretch for me. Love chocolate and god knows, love bacon, but the unusual combination from a very fine American chocolate company made me suspicious. When I tried it, I gained insight. Its not that chocolate doesnt go with bacon conceptually because what is bacon after all but a lot of animal fat & salt & a little piggy essence. What made this bar so very, very bad was that the bacon tasted like Baco-os (those stale, imitation brown rocks you get at a really bad salad bar). It was not the crunchy, salty, savory cured bacon I might fry up for the hungry teenagers in my house on Sunday mornings. Chocolate with Baco-like-bacon is all the way bad. But theres one worse. Mushroom gravy in the dark chocolate bon bon I tried last week in Silver Lake. Wow. I looked helplessly for a garbage can to use as a spitoon - nothing in sight. I had to zoom out to the street, doing the wavy-chicken-arm thing people do when theyre gonna hurl or spit some nasty chocolate in the gutter. The mushroom gravy was SWEET. That poor, misguided chocolatier had added some white chocolate as if to improve things. I am a patience person. I allow for many flavor adventures as long as they are earnest. I forgave the lack of originiality in the work (the chocolates were made with molds painted with cocoa butter and contrasting transfer sheets - OK, but nothing too impressive). Ill forgive the $2.00 price tag for one piece of said chocolate. But I will not forgive the miscarriage of mushroom into innocent and otherwise inoffensive dark chocolate. No, no, no, I have to say no to the Bacos and gravy. Even if the goal of the artisan chocolatier who pushes the boundaries of flavors is to surprise and entertain us - I say to them: Common Sense, Por Favor!! Mushroom sauce, mushroom gravy, and mushroom caps stuffed with garlic have no place in the chocolatiers arsenal. Make some honey caramel and call it a day, fool. Onward.

Not just any chefs, my friends, but the best chefs in LA were on the street at Melrose Place in West Hollywood last night. The guests - fashionistas & foodies from Europe, New York, LA - were decked! Im neck-craning - where to look? Beautiful people or beautiful food? Ah, the food! Under white tents, elegant amuse bouce and bite size specialties popped out from the chefs' tables - marinated big-eye tuna from Sona, rock shrimp shooters from Zovs Bistro, sashimi & soba from The Water Grill. Meat, too: salt pork from Spago, suckling pig burgers from Bastide, roast beef from Republic. Celebrity chefs, you know em: Tom Colicchio from TOP CHEF, restrauntrepreneur of CRAFT/cookbook fame; Joachim Splichal of Patina with his new restaurant PAPERFISHoh, the list goes on. In fact, heres a link to the list of chefs and the recpetion menu http://www.jamesbeard.org/?q=node/169 . In addition to spring colors of rhubarb reductions and fava green garnishes, we had flashy cars, designer bags & kitchenware as silent auction items to support the James Beard Foundation http://www.jamesbeard.org. Could there be a Best of Show in such a spectacle of perfection? For me, it had to be chocolate of course, and it was JIN PATISSERIE from the shores of Venice, California. Pastry chef Kristy Choo brought refined style, flavor and thoughtful technique to her artisan chocolates and petit fours, and also served a marscapone, peach and passionfruit crumble that was signature stylish with a fragrant note of home. You gotta visit. www.jinpatisserie.com Was there any bad food at this event? Maybe one off dish or two. Was there bad champagne? Not a drop - this was Nicolas Feuillatte, Montaudon and Lanson. The effervescence of Chefs & Champagne united the Los Angeles culinary scene in a bubble of excellence.

Here's a post from my chocolate blog (www.chocolateallthetime.com/blogspot). Comments?You don't get to see cacao pods in the USA unless you go to Hawaii, and even there they a rare sight. Cacao trees (from whence, of course, chocolate) are cultivated only sporadically around the Hawaiian Islands. But Tony Lydgate of Steel Grass Farm on Kauai hopes to change that. His botanical garden (www.steelgrass.org) specializes in cultivating organic plants that bring value to the islanders and the earth. Cacao, bamboo (the "steel grass" namesake of the farm) and vanilla are the favorites. In these crops, he and his family hope to start a cooperative that puts Kauai on the chocolate-making map and reclaims some of the farmland once owned by pineapple growers and sugar cane companies, all long-departed for cheaper labor in far-off lands. You can take a tour, eat some dark chocolate, learn about the health benefits and see a glimpse of cacao's USA future.Another producer is Malie Kai Chocolates (www.maliekai.com), rejuvenating old sugar fields on Oahu. They offer an exceptionally smooth milk chocolate and mellow bitter-sweet made of pure Hawaiian, single origin cacao. "The natural growing conditons on the islands give cacao potential to be even bigger than Kona coffee," says Nathan Sato, President of Malie Kai Chocolates. And check out the beautiful line drawings by Lynn Soehner (www.lynnsoehner.com) that adorn the packaging! For a stronger, earthier chocolate, try The Original Hawaiian Chocolate Factory (www.originalhawaiianchocolatefactory.com) on the Big Island. The owners (The Coopers) will tell you all about the importance of pure Hawaiian chocolate and how you can start your own crop.But you will have to move to Hawaii! Why no cacao in Florida's orange groves or next to Texas Ruby Reds? Why not nestled in northern California's salad bowl? Chocolate is finicky! Cacao trees only grow and bear fruit in a band 20 degrees north and south of the equator. They like tropical rain, shaded light and warm, moist air. They need forest mulch & midges for pollination; they are susceptible to pests and diseases. Beyond that, however, cacao is a great crop (full of color, literally, and history), and it is easily grown on small farms throughout the tropics. Hawaii is the northern tip of its growing region, so we're lucky to have it and lets hope to see more..

The biggest celebration of Dia de Los Meurtos or Day of the Dead in America is at Hollywood Forever cemetery in Los Angeles. Part art walk, part street festival, all souls are welcome. The tradition is rooted in the ancient civilzations of Mesoamerica (Maya, Aztec and more) and are the same ones that developed chocolate from their native cacao trees. People decorate alters with memorabilia, marigolds, candles, bread and sugar skulls to attract the souls of their beloved departed. In Mexico, where the tradition continues, a cup of hot chocolate entices with its fragrance, and then promises to fuel the travelling spirit as it continues its journey through the afterlife. Mexico has been serving a Halloween special of death and chocolate for a long time. Spooky!

Hey, its today! My new book, CHOCOLATE BLISS: Sensuous Recipes, Spa Treatments and Other Divine Indulgences hits bookstores today (Barnes & Noble, Borders, your local independent). Its a celebration of how chocolate touches the culinary heart of the world. Lots of info on tasting, health benefits, sustainable farming, gifting, plus recipes for brownies, cookies, marbled pound cake, cocoa chili, fondue; AND shopping tips on how to find great chocolatethe stuff we like! Of course THE CHOCOLATE LIFE is listed as a must-see site. Check it out on Amazon - if you like it, write a rave review, okay?

Call my crazy but I just dont want the makers of Velveeta messing with my Cadbury bars. Kraft Foods bid (underbid?) $16.7 billion for Cadbury this week, declaring they were offering stock holders a 42% increase on Cadburys median share price. Cadbury pushed back, declaring the proposal undervalued their stock and they were confident in their "stand-alone strategy and growth prospects as a result of...strong brands, unique category and geographic scope. The New York Times reports a takeover of Cadbury would help Kraft, the biggest food conglomerate in North America, compete with its larger rival, Nestle, especially in Britain and India. Nestle makes dog food, dont forget. Krafts next move will likely be a run at a hostile takeover, just when you thought those corporate vampires were dead and buried back in the 1990s. When a giant food conglomerate best known for bologne, hyper-processed cheese-like substances and Kool-aid seeks to attain a company best known for chocolate, I worry about my chocolate.Cadbury was founded in 1824 by Quaker John Cadbury in Birmingham, England. It is a national treasure in England. Even to its biggest critics (possibly investigative journalist Carol Alt, author of BITTER CHOCOLATE decrying corporate chocolates role in the history of slavery), or those who prefer higher grade couvertures, Cadbury does more good in the chocolate world than bad. Weve just seen what happens when giant corporations consume smaller ones - Hershey devoured premium brand Scharffen Berger, only to close SBs picturesque California factory and merge operations. Will the flavor be the same? How could it be? Something, something essential, is lost when these things happen. Cadbury milk chocolate - maybe you like it, maybe you dont - but you sure dont want it run through whatever hydrolic machine turns milk and whey into Velveeta; you dont want its essence scrutinized by people who specialize in watering down the Kool-Aid for higher yield. I hope the chocolate warriors beat back the food conglomerage vampires, and Cadbury continues to stand alone as a chocolate company with character and tradition.