Fancy Food Show 2010 Continued

The first night I was in NY, my friend Ruth (she makes fabulous jams and wanted to go to the Fancy Food Show to learn about selling them on a larger scale) joined me and we went to Junior's for cheesecake.  Look at this beauty:

Oh yes, that's cheesecake with chocolate cake, amazing chocolate frosting and chocolate chips and chocolate shavings.  It was absolutely fresh, moist and delicious.  And HUGE!

We also hit Hershey's Time Square store (as I mentioned) and I found these:

Macadamia nut Kisses!  I love how the paper tag says Aloha!  These are wickedly addictive.  I haven't seen them anywhere else, but I highly recommend them.  I ate almost a whole bag one night in my hotel room.  It was the nuts - crunchy, delish.

Here we are at the show (see how big it all is?):

You weren't supposed to take any pictures, but my buddies at Walkers let me.  Look at this amazing booth:

Rich wood, thick carpet - and it was packed the whole show.  The gang was doing some SERIOUS business.  This is the booth right before the award celebration:

They gave the guests these great Walker's goodies:

I love the paragraph on the back of the gorgeous black tin - Walkers is still owned by the founding family.  And they do make some simply amazing shortbread:

And eight cookies were packed in there!

We'll be reviewing them in upcoming posts = sooooo good!!

Now, since one of my readers (thanks, Perry!) recommended these, I had to try some:

These cookies contains real bits of ginger:

Now, here's the deal - if you like ginger - these are amazing!  I think real ginger tastes weird, so I am not crazy about these.  My heart belongs to shortbread.

It was so fun to be part of the Walkers' celebration!  And to play in NYC!  More to come!!!

Texas Chocolate

No, I'm not dead! I've been down in San Antonio speaking for the International Association of Professional Background Screeners. (Thanks, Sassy!!)

But I was thinking of you, Dear Readers! Not only do I have some completely random Texas chocolates to share with you, I visited this great restaurant thanks to my friend Katie Davis who is an Army officer stationed in San Antone. Thanks, Katie!! Both for your service AND for your great ideas!

Billed as a modern French bistro and a chocolate cocktail lounge, anything with this sign HAD to be investigated:



Their website is http://www.sa-coco.com/. Check it out - it's cool. You can even see inside the restaurant with a 360 view.

The hardest thing was deciding what to get! I wanted it all! We started with Coco's Salade Au Chocolat: mixed greens, cherries, toasted nuts, blue cheese, raspberry vinaigrette and white chocolate shavings.

The cool part? The waiter brings a big block of white chocolate over to give you the shavings:



Load it up, I say!!!!



Delicious!!!! It was really, really great. Not too sweet, just fabulous. I wish I had another one right now.

This was an appetizer - crostini, mozzarella, rainbow tomatoes, chocolate balsamic vinegar reduction with sun dried tomatoes, pesto, olives, grilled veggies. We had to get it because of the chocolate - those brown dots are the chocolate reduction. And it was amazing!! Our waiter even brought us more. Think rich dark chocolate perfectly balanced with balsamic vinegar - I'm telling you, it was like dying and going to chocolate heaven.



The hard part was only choosing two desserts. I want to go back because there are so many more on the menu I feel I must try before I die. One involves a single origin Ecuador chocolate mousse dome with creme brulee inside - oh dear God. Check out the online desert menu - it will blow you away.

We got the chocolate lava inferno - described as warm bittersweet molten lava cake and raspberry coulis:





Looks amazing, doesn't it? And it was good, but it paled in comparison with the other dessert we got:



This is a warm chocolate Nutella tart. Described as "a flaky crust with a hazelnut-nutella ganache served warm with salty caramel crumbles and a side of caramel ice cream". Yay!!

You all know how I feel about Nutella. I can't stop myself from eating it right out of the jar. It is like crack cocaine to chocolate and nut lovers. This dessert was simply amazing. It was even was better than the peanut butter mousse dessert the Sorbet Sistahs loved so much. It may be the best dessert I have ever had.

If the Nutella tart wasn't already good enough, there was a side of caramel ice cream! Do these people know how to live or what??? Fabulous, fabulous, fabulous.

The service was also fantastic - our waiter brought us extra chocolate balsamic vinegar and even a small glass each of chocolate port - free of charge. I didn't think I would like it, but it was damn good!!! I wish I had some more of that right now, too!

An extraordinary dinner - we also split a delicious pizza - and the total was under $50! What a deal!!

Katie told our waiter about this blog and he told the owner - so he came over and talked with us. His passion for food and chocolate was obvious - I'm so thrilled we got to meet him. Among other things, he told us how he got the name for his establishment. His grandmother raised him (he is French, which when it comes to food gives you big points in my book. When it comes to anything else, not so much). And when he was a baby, she would feed him little bits of chocolate. As a result, his first word was "coco." Thus - COCO - chocolate lounge and bistro.

Ah - chocolate is the great unifier! Those who love it can't wait to share it with others who love it! And those who don't love it....well, those people are questionable anyway. Wish you all could have been with me!

Adorable Desserts

Last week one of the Sorbet Sistahs was struck down with an illness and missed our dinner. (Tracy, I'm just glad it wasn't the swine flu!). We carried on without her and were actually considering passing on dessert in her honor. You know - a fallen comrade and all. We decided we would just look at the dessert tray (almost always a fatal mistake).

We were at Brio http://www.brioitalian.com/dessert.html

They offer these small "sample" servings:

Strawberry Panna Cotta Parfaito
A Tuscan version of Strawberry Shortcake. Creamy vanilla bean Panna Cotta topped with sponge cake, strawberry sauce and fresh whipped cream 2.45

Creme Brulee
Creamy housemade custard with the season's freshest ingredients. Choose from Kahlua, Vanilla or Caramel 2.45

Key Lime Pie
Tart and refreshing with fresh lime and a pecan graham cracker crust topped with vanilla whipped cream 2.45

Brio's Famous Cheesecake
Rich and creamy cheesecake topped with caramelized sugar and creme anglaise 2.45

Milk Chocolate Caramel Cake
A decadent chocolate cake, layered with milk chocolate ganache, caramel, rich chocolate frosting and vanilla whipped cream 2.45

Tiramisu
Lady fingers layered with coffee liqueur, mascarpone cheese and cocoa 2.45


They were small. They were only $2.45.


We got four.

I know - crazy, right? But there was CARAMEL creme brulee, and Beth really wanted Tiramisu, and there was milk chocolate caramel cake. And they were cute. And did I mention they were only $2.45?

See how small they are?






I like to make it look like my Sistah, Beth is going to eat them all. See how sneaky I am?


Here they are:

Here they are - so cute!!! In the lower left hand is the chocolate caramel cake. Now here's something interesting - the waiter said this was no good - too sweet. Beth and I LOVED this one - it really blew the other ones away! Above that is Tiramisu. Not bad, but Tiramisu is Tiramisu. The one on the dessert tray was covered in chocolate shavings and that distracted us. Like a diamond. Sparkly.

The other two are the creme brulees. And you know what? They were no good - too soupy. Since I took my cooking class at Williams Sonoma, I knew that they had not been given enough time to set. (Oooh - are you impressed? I kinda was - especially since my most common act of cooking is defrosting things in the microwave.)

Of course, being the food snobs we are we only ate the chocolate and left the rest as a statement for the Chef.

Yeah, right.

The only dessert we leave is sorbet. And maybe biscotti.

Okay - what did we learn?

The expert (in this case our waiter) doesn't always know everything. If we listened to him, we wouldn't have had the best dessert! Get advice, but trust yourself.

Say yes!! When our Sistah fell ill, Beth and I almost didn't go out. But I'm so glad we did! Having fun with my Sistahs is so much fun and such a recharge for me - I don't make enough time for my friends and for fun. Do you? Make the plan and then make it happen.

Sometimes taking a look at the dessert tray is okay. Most of the time we diet, exercise and push ourselves. Our Sorbet Sistahs night is one of our rewards. Are you balancing your hard work with rewards? Make sure you do it - it just doesn't happen. Chances are pretty good you are much harder on yourself than you have to be.

And NEVER let the waiter talk you out of chocolate.

Chocolate Catfight

Ha, ha - not really, but it's all about the headline, isn't it? My favorite recent newspaper headline was "Deranged Killer on the Loose." Now there's something you don't see every day! Apparently some mental patient who killed an old lady back in the 80's gave his keepers the slip when they took him to a local county fair. Okay - I'm thinking when you say "Deranged Killer" people are dying, like, NOW. He was caught a couple days later trying to turn himself in. Can you say - "Overreaction?" Poor guy missed the county fair for nothing.

Back to the catfight.

The Sorbet Sistahs - continuing our fight for truth, justice, and the death of sorbet, made a trip to 518 West, the restaurant where my Williams-Sonoma chef presents his Millionaire Pie - described as: chocolate glazed peanut butter mousse on a graham cracker crust served with whipped cream and chocolate sauce...

Here's a picture:

Now this looks freakin' amazing, yes? Well, Tracy and I thought, "Not so much." Here's the deal - there are two slabs of fudge-like chocolate surrounding the peanut butter mousse. These are NOT mentioned in the description, I might add. Now, I love chocolate as much, if not more, than the next person. Hell, I'm writing this insane blog about it, for Church of Chocolate's sake! But this was too much - the slabs were too thick and too rich. This is what I did to my pie:

I scraped off the chocolate to get to the graham cracker crust and the peanut butter. Let me say that again - I scraped off the chocolate. If it were lighter - more like frosting - or thinner, I would have been all over it! But this was too much. It overpowered the peanut butter. Tracy and I were disappointed. We MUCH preferred the peanut butter mousse we had at our last gathering of the Sistahs.

However, Beth - who had wanted to split desserts - which Tracy and I IMMEDIATELY rejected (we had been dreaming of our own plates of Millionaire Pie all day) loved this thing. She thought it was great and ate every bit of hers. In true Sorbet Sistah's spirit she mocked me for leaving so much chocolate on my plate. I do agree it was a waste, but hey, sometimes a girl's gotta do what a girl's gotta do.

So - the lesson? Even the Sorbet Sistahs - united in their hatred of sorbet, don't always agree. One size does not fit all. That's why you have to find your own way through life - trying things until you find what works for you. You can ask for and receive advice, but your own experience is always the best teacher.

That's me, Tracy and Beth - after the catfight. In October we're planning to go to the State Fair and look for deranged killers.

Chocolate, Chocolate, Chocolate

I always scan the listing of cooking classes and events in the Raleigh paper and sometimes I get lucky. When I saw the headline Chocolate, Chocolate, Chocolate, I knew I had struck cacao. I called the Williams-Sonoma store to see what they were doing and they told me Chef Mark Tachman was going to be making chocolate creme brulee, dark chocolate ale cake with sugared peanuts, chocolate biscotti, and white chocolate mousse in puff pastry. I asked if attendees would get samples. When the answer was yes, I couldn't get my credit card out fast enough. Woowee!!

Now, let me clarify - I have no intention of making any of these desserts. I just wanted to see them made and eat them. And guess what? This is the Chef that made the peanut butter mousse!! I didn't even know that when I signed up! He is a dessert god.

Here are all the goodies:



Here are some things I learned:

1.) Once again, the thing I thought I wouldn't like, I loved.

I hate beer - I know, I'm a freak. So the idea of chocolate ale cake wasn't really rocking my world. But the beer taste wasn't strong at all - it just made the cake really, really moist. YUM!!!

2.) I don't understand biscotti.

Biscotti gets baked twice which is why it is so dry and hard. After one baking it's pretty good. Why, biscotti, why?

3.) If you have to buy a blowtorch to make it, I'm not doing it.

They used a little blowtorch to caramelize the sugar on the creme brulee. I mean, who needs a little blowtorch? That is WAY too complicated. It's not like you're using fire to make desserts every night.

4.) Chefs aren't as perfect as you think they are.

The puff pastry (which had the white chocolate mousse in it) was delish. And Chef Tachman said you could use Pepperidge Farm or any other refrigerated pastry. Saves you a lot of trouble and tastes great! You don't have to be perfect or do everything yourself - smart!! A lesson we can all learn from.

5.) A squeeze bottle of caramel (or raspberry sauce) can make anything look fancy.

When Chef Tachman showed us how he would plate these desserts at the restaurant, you could see how a little sauce swirl and a sprig of mint could add a lot of glamour. And he made some spoon-shaped sugar cookies that he would stick in the creme brulee. Cool!!

6.) Live is better than video.

Webinars are all the rage. Why leave the house when you have the Food Network? Because part of the fun was joking with the other attendees. We cheered the front row when they realized one of the burners was on and was cooking a cutting board. We got to pass around a piece of once baked biscotti. And we got to EAT! All the fun was getting to meet the Chef and the other attendees and the terrific staff at Williams-Sonoma.

So keep your eyes peeled for classes and opportunities in your area. Get out and really experience things - don't just roll the video. And if you figure out biscotti, let me know.

Ice Cream Heaven and Hell

Yes, dear readers, I am keeping you on the cutting edge of America's cravings. Yesterday I talked about the expanding and exciting candy aisle. Today USA Today devoted an entire FOUR pages to dessert! One of the headlines reads "Despite diets or budgets, America will always make room for dessert." Yay!

Some of the desserts are wacky and exotic (just like some of the new chocolate bars), some are just down home delicious (also like some of the chocolate bars). USA Today highlighted the South, Chicago and New York City. I'm proud to say the South has what looks best to me - peanut butter pie, cream cheese pound cake, giant chocolate cake. Chicago has some desserts that scare me - one involves pop rocks, another lots of lavender (ugh). New York, of course, has it all.

If you have a spare $25,000 you can go to Serendipity3 in NYC and get a sundae - a blend of 28 cocoas, covered in 23K edible gold-infused whipped cream, topped with the most expensive chocolate in the world (La Madeline au Truffle) served in a goblet lined with chocolate. An 18K gold and 1K white diamond bracelet decorates the base of the goblet - and you get to keep that, as well as an 18K gold spoon encrusted with black, white and chocolate diamonds. Whoa - girls, this creates a whole new potential for the words "Sugar Daddy."

I guess I'm just not sophisticated - some of the wild new flavors just don't to it for me - especially when they start messing with ice cream. USA Today asks a question I'm sure I will use again - "Just because you can do it, does it mean that you should?" These ice cream flavors make me say not just no, but hell no!:

14 vegetable (including zucchini)
squid ink
oyster
roasted garlic sorbet
Parmesan
malted barley
Thai chili
smoked pine nuts
mashed potato (did they just serve them really cold?)
lobster
Memphis barbecue
tomato basil
cucumber

I'm sorry - those are just wrong. If there's an ice cream hell, the creators of those flavors are going. If there's an ice cream heaven, it costs $25,000. Can I get an "Amen"?

These are the Best of (Chocolate) Times

Have you been in the candy aisle lately? In Target or your local drug store? Even the grocery store? Every week I go in, I swear it's gotten bigger. And not just bigger - better! You can get chocolate from all over the world at Walgreen's! How amazing is that?

In Target last week I got a Chocolat Frey (a great Swiss chocolate maker) http://www.chocolatfrey.ch/ bar. This was a Japonais bar, described as "extra fine milk chocolate with hazelnut and crunchy meringue biscuit filling." I have one word for it - YUM! It melts in your mouth and has this cool crunchy crumbles of biscuit in it. Fantastic! I also bought a Pear & Caramel bar, described as "fine milk chocolate with a fruity touch of pear and caramel flavor." I also say "YUM!" And my taste buds are not dead! I can taste the pear!!!! It's perfect - not too much, just right. A very cool bar. And Swiss chocolate is sinfully good. So smooth.

These are fantastic chocolate times! We have everything at our fingertips! Wild gourmet flavors (some of which are horrible - I had some chipotle caramel yesterday that I had to spit out - it was so awful! But sea salt caramel ROCKS!!!), dark chocolate and milk chocolate of all cacao counts, chocolates from single origins all over the world, and on and on. It's really like Wille Wonka everywhere you go. My childhood dreams have come true!!! (Now if I could just get an Oompa Loompa....)

And there are fun options everywhere - Papa John's just released Chocolate Pastry Delights described as four light and flaky pastries, filled with rich chocolate made with Nestlé® Toll House® Chocolate Morsels, then fresh-baked and drizzled with white icing. * Wow - I just really want to try one!

There's chocolate cereal, chocolate yogurt, chocolate rice cakes, chocolate pasta (I'm not saying it's all a good idea, I'm just saying it's out there. And I'm damn happy about it!).

We are living in great chocolate times!! So get out there! Try one of these new crazy bars! You can test new flavors and see what you like. Try crazy combinations - some of which have never been tried before - discover what you really like. Have a tasting party with your friends. There is much fun to be had for a relatively small outlay of cash. Maybe it's because we are seeking comfort in these uncertain times and are turning to chocolate for comfort. Or maybe chocolate is just hip right now. But really, who cares why? Just enjoy it! Celebrate life, have fun, eat chocolate! Viva la chocolat!