I was leafing through the beautiful pages of a new chocolate book given to me by my thoughtful partner, over a cup of coffee, looking for inspiration and new chocolate challenges.  The photography in this book  is absolutely stunning, filled with pictures of impossibly tall, mouthwatering chocolate structures, but the picture of the dark chocolate macarons was what really got my salivary glands going.

I am spending this weekend learning how to describe theatrical performances for vision compromised patrons. It is a highly specialized skill, and I have been in awe, watching and listening to four of my skilled colleagues as they describe 2 hour long performances, inserting descriptions between dialogue, and painting the picture of the story, without any subjective terms or personal interjections, so as to leave the patron with a clear, objective view of the story. This all happens as the play is going on!

Have I mentioned before how much I love being the Chocolate Apprentice? It means I get to plan wonderful trips to local and distant chocolate shops, to sample their wares and broaden my knowledge of fabulous chocolates, new flavours and innovations. It is, of course, a tough job, but I am happy to shoulder the burden. This week, I was delighted to hear from Gemma at Chocolate Arts, here in Vancouver, of a new line of chocolate bars they have just launched.

There is no avoiding it.  I must get my taxes done.  With only a few days left to submit before incurring the wrath of Revenue Canada, I have turned my thoughts toward taxes … and chocolate. I am actually whinging undeservedly, because all I really have to do is get my books in order, and take them in to my accountant. I have the loveliest accountant in the world, whose patience and sense of humour have proven invaluable over the last twenty-odd years of dealing with an actor. 

I have been working every Sunday since September, with a group of teen acting students, on a play close to my heart:  Thornton Wilder’s Our Town. The play is one of the most oft-produced in North American Theatre, and features some pretty big themes:  Life, Love and Death.  Not exactly a light-hearted farcical romp, this quietly moving play has demanded a great deal of commitment and maturity from our students – and I am proud to say – they have risen to the challenge.

The walk through Minoru Park, on my way to rehearsal at the Gateway Theatre is hopping with bunnies.  My co-director and I have named several of them, as their personalities emerge along with their upstanding ears, from the hedgerows.  There is Piggy, Nosy, Brat, Cheeky, the Twins and Stanley. I have also taken (in self-preservation) to carrying bags of “not at their peak” vegetables with me, in anticipation of being met by some very curious, and rather assertive wiggly noses, beady, unblinking, expectant eyes and twitching whiskers.

I was delighted and a little nervous when Pam Williams of Ecole Chocolat, asked me to be a part of a chocolate testing panel, this week. Yikes!  I was sure I was not qualified, until Pam assured me that the chocolate was actually just “the vehicle” for the test. This is all for the newly minted International Chocolate Awards 2012.

It seems as though it may finally be spring in Vancouver.  Or, if it isn’t and we have another hailstorm (as happened yesterday), I still feel a desperate need to invent things that will make it feel like spring.  Like that bank of fluffy clouds, lined up in a perfect row across the skyline, as though someone has pushed  a ruler underneath their bottoms.  So white and happy, and not full of rain.

After spending a lovely afternoon talking to Adam Chandler, at Beta 5 Chocolates, last week, and thinking again how much their chocolates, topped with in house crafted transfer sheets, look like beautiful mosaic tiles, I am ready to have another go at making my own transfer sheets. And because I want something safe and sturdy to enrobe, I am going to make homemade malt balls (turned into cubes) as the centres.   That would be Maltesers to those of us from Canada and many other countries, Whoppers to those who hail from the USA.

Mmm, I love yuzu. And Matcha. And when you put them together, they explode in your mouth in a burst of tart and sour goodness. A few weeks ago, while researching (I love doing research for this blog) local chocolatier’s offerings for the Valentine’s Day post, my partner and I stumbled upon Beta 5 chocolates, in the industrial area of East Vancouver. The brainchild of Adam Chandler and Jessica Rosinski, Beta 5 Chocolates takes its name from the stable crystals which form when chocolate is properly tempered, to create the smooth, glossy, snappy look and feel characteristic to fine chocolate.

I decided to give myself a bit of a challenge, this week. Flush with the (relative) success of enrobing some pretty nice looking cubes of ganache, topped with gold transfer sheets, and upon presenting these bonbons to my grateful students, who could not quite believe I had actually made them, I thought I would notch it up a bit, this week. I am venturing outside the relative safety of the ganache cube.  In mathematical terms, I am going off the grid.