Monday, November 18, 2002


more chocolate show

yes here i am salivating once again in front of my precious kilo of el rey. all hail eric, the el rey rep!

my personal sense of discovery was piqued by bouvier chocolates of rennes, france. while herbal chocolates have been the rage for a couple of years, i found his fennel bon-bon particularly appealing. obviously, a tea-flavored candy is never going to float my boat, but he did a lovely rendition of the idea, nicely packaged too.

i also finally met stephanie zonis, but she was a tad harried handing out crumbs for the amazing fritz knipschildt. i however missed clay gordon of chocophile. tee-hee! i know all these chocolate folks, and none of them seem to know me -- i'm invisible!

i'm a big fan of the weiss chocolate you can pick up at the garden of eden here in brooklyn, but the weiss-payard co-display didn't send me. forget payard. bring me the weiss-michel chaudrun chocolat mendiant 64% fruit and nut bar, thank you very much!

i did get to chat briefly with the hair-on-fire andrew schotts of garrison; he was handing out charming hazelnut praline squares with just the right amount of crunch. . i thought his chocolates had improved this year. . .and also of course, our original brooklyn chocolate hero, jacques torres. he's a sweetie in person, isn't he?

i didn't see patrick coston this year at all, alas. new york celebrity chocolatiere sweet bliss was there, however; and i must confess that i am mystified why someone so talented wastes her art on stuff like a "chocolate peanut butter and jelly sandwich" and chocolate-covered potato chips. she says it's "fun," but i think it's lack of self-esteem, to be blunt. take yourself seriously! address the highest potential your art offers! i guess that stuff sells. . .to someone. . .

now, as to those ruby et violette cookies. i saw them in the flesh at her booth. frankly, they were too dark; i found them unattractive. when i made them, they actually looked a tad better tho' still overly brown, if i do say so myself. . .however, i appreciate that she gives some of her profits to charity.

i was also surprised to discover that i liked the italian hot chocolate offered by caffe musetti. and mr. right seems to have taken a fancy to a danish childhood institution, cocio chocolate milk. i think it's, umm, merely ok, but must be served very very cold, or else you can taste a little something from the fancy european process that keeps milk fresh without refrigeration. i mean, he stuffed his pockets full with cans of it. . .

as we passed the huge feel-good display put on by the nation of ivory coast, i did look around to see if they had anything about the child slaves, but maybe i missed it. . .in fact, they seemed to have no labor info at all. surprising, no? (remember, el rey chocolates are all from venezuela. they are child-slave-free chocolates. just another reason to savor them!)

the people you meet at the show are interesting. i mean, i had a very civilized disagreement with a chain-smoking frenchman named robert over the superiority of valrhona or cluziel. . .and i enjoyed meeting pastry chef christine criscione, a graduate of the fci, who's opened her shop in the newly hip queens. so if you need a cake or something. . .

i could write so much more, but by the end i was drifting about in a daze of gianduja and sandeman port, clutching my precious. . .precious. . .kilo of heaven, battered by the roaring crowd. finally, a nice article from cnn on the chocolate show, highlighting my faves knipschildt (who does have the perfect truffle) and bouvier, who i pray on bended knee opens a new york store tomorrow or the next day. oh, and for fanatics, my report from last year's show, spead out over a couple of days.

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