Chocolate Apprentice

Valentine’s Day

How on earth did a festival for a martyred saint, become inextricably associated with gifts of chocolate and expressions of romantic love?  Ah, history.

It turns out, there were actually three different martyred saints, with three different feast days, and we have that rock star of the High Middle Ages, author Geoffery Chaucer to blame (not really ) for the association with romantic love:

From Geoffery Chaucer’s “Parliament of Foules,”(1382) we have:

For this was on seynt Volantynys day
Whan euery bryd comyth there to chese his make. [Read more…]

Hagensborg Chocolate

“I like what makes me feel good, and hopefully, that makes others feel good as well.”

Walking in to Shelley Wallace‘s Hagensborg Chocolates, in Burnaby, just east of Vancouver, feels like walking into a friend’s home.  Friendly staff move all over the office/warehouse/shoppe, doing a little bit of everything, whether serving customers at the counter, balancing the books, fixing the computers, making coffee or, in Shelley’s case, running the company. [Read more…]

In Defence of Milk Chocolate

I had such fun with the first chocolate tasting we held, and was so fortunate to have the talents and insights of some wonderfully imaginative and passionate chocolate loving friends – that I was eager to do it again.

This time however, the focus is on milk chocolate.  Lately, milk chocolate has gotten a bad rap, as everything from insipid to kid stuff to déclassé.

While it is undeniable that some milk chocolates are all of those things, I feel duty bound to stand up for the substance that was, in my childhood, the taste of heaven. [Read more…]

An Experiment in Good Taste

I feel like phoning my younger son’s super-cool Science teacher, and inviting her over to the kitchen for this week’s exploration.

I really want to put on my lab coat (I was given one, by a doctor friend, for auditions.  I have, I think quite convincingly, played many a nurse/lab technician on TV), and my elder son’s chemistry glasses.  Okay, maybe that is taking it a little too far.

I am delving into the research section of the Ecole Chocolat curriculum, and am conducting Philippe Conticini’s Flavor Experiment. [Read more…]

Salted Caramels

Maybe it’s because I live close to the ocean.  My partner has a sailboat, and on windy days, the feel of a light salt spray hitting my face (and I do mean a light one:  I am a fair weather boater) makes me lick my lips and crave salty foods.

Spring is in the air and it is almost time to put the boat back in the water, so it is, perhaps, no wonder I am thinking of fleur de sel.

This wonderfully tasty and expensive salt is, according to David Lebovitz, “a hand-harvested sea salt collected by workers who scrape only the top layer of salt before it sinks to the bottom of large salt pans”.

[Read more…]