Other Foods | Chocolate Apprentice

With Fondant-est Regards

Okay, I have slacked off in the last couple of weeks.

Instead of applying myself to acquiring new chocolate skills, I have been playing around with hot chocolate and s’mores, and EATING more of the stuff, which keeps appearing in various forms, backstage at the show I am performing in – well, it IS a Christmas show – than learning how to produce new, beautiful chocolate creations. [Read more…]

Hot Chocolate to Make the Mayans Proud

It’s hot, it’s dark, and it slips down my throat like liquid satin. I have just consumed a very thick, very small cup of the classic, thick hot chocolate of Barcelona.

The other day I discovered the exquisite little single serving packets, made by Soma, a Toronto based chocolatier, of this very special hot chocolate. The one I have just consumed is called A LA TAZA. They also have, among others, a malted milk flavour, which, okay I confess it, I wolfed down just prior to the one I have described. It had a smooth, mild caramelly flavour, and it slipped down so quickly and easily, I had to have more. [Read more…]

Soft, Smooth and Squishy Comfort Food

I’ve had a craving for soft, smooth and squishy comfort food, this week. It must be because we’ve had some drizzly, socked-in, rainy days – what my Dad, with his Glasgow accent, would call a “Gud day fer the hoose” – in other words, a good day to stay indoors and concoct delicious things to eat, to guard against the miserable weather outside.

A few years ago, I had the opportunity to try some very unusual (to my taste buds, anyway) delicious, chocolate covered, lemon flavoured marshmallows, procured from a Polish delicatessen in Victoria. [Read more…]

With Apologies to the Wildlife of Stanley Park

It’s a tradition in the theatre for actors to exchange opening night presents – a little something to wish each other well.

I’m currently appearing in the stage version of It’s A Wonderful Life at the Arts Club on Granville Island in Vancouver. We opened last week.

While searching for the perfect way to celebrate the world premiere of The Patron Saint of Stanley Park and the opening night of our friends and colleagues “across the alley”, at the Arts Club Revue Stage, the cast and crew of It’s a Wonderful Life have been wracking our collective brains. [Read more…]

Finding Your Centre

I’ve been trying to get to the centre of things this week. Now that I have had such a good time making molded chocolate hearts, I am itching to fill them with fantastic flavours.

Feeling very French, I launch myself into the Ecole Chocolate reading and technique for ganache. I am delighted to find one explanation for the derivation of this word is, in slang French: Idiot! This term was supposedly coined when a hapless kitchen apprentice dropped hot cream into a bowl of chocolate. [Read more…]