Coaching Cooking

A few weeks ago, I had the good fortune to score an invite to a chocolate tasting. A free chocolate tasting in a hip bar with Moet & Chandon’s Dolce champagne to go with the chocolately goodness. It was an excellent evening. The tasting was organized by a company called Chocolate Dividends. Here’s a quick pic of us after the tasting. We tried so many different chocolates and it was really fun to try and guess the different flavor profiles of the chocolates. It was also very difficult to separate out the different flavors. The tasting came with a booklet that included flavor profiles for chocolates from around the world that included flavors like cinnamon, smoke and hummus (I tried really hard, but I could barely taste that one). I also had some great conversations with Andrea, the chocolatier at Mirabai Chocolates. She is so passionate about chocolate and she made some wonderful truffles for our final chocolate tasting that included a chocolate with bergamot (the key ingredient in Earl Grey tea) and a chocolate truffle with basil. This particular truffle really blew me away because it tasted like a pizza truffle. Believe me, it was actually really delicious with the best flavors of chocolate and pizza together in a sweet-salty-tangy trifecta of flavor. See where the magic happens at Mirabai right here.

So, one that note, I set out to find some other amazing candy companies. A new candy store is opening in New York City (which really doesn’t help me at all, but the website is totally fun with great music). Check out Papabubble, a candy store that has branches in Tokyo, Amsterdam and Barcelona and now NYC. Now I have to go to New York just to see the delicious and beautiful sugar candies!

Finally, I have to give a shout-out to Donnelly Chocolates and Richard Donnelly in Santa Cruz, CA. This is a place that I can definitely travel to on my own (with my lovely Prelude). We had Donnelly truffles at our wedding and they were, by far, one of the most fabulous desserts that I have consumed in my foodie life. We chose the raspberry truffles and the caramel macadamia nut truffles. My uncle was visiting from Saudia Arabia and he drove down to Santa Cruz on the premise of checking on his house in Carmel. Yeah, right. I know he was just going for the Donnelly chocolates of which he bought about FOUR boxes. You can’t have too much of a good thing, sometimes.

Happy Halloween! Wishing you candy dreams and no nightmares!!

**Stay tuned for my review of Chez TJ…a local restaurant that just garnered 2 Michelin stars…I’m looking for all treats and hopefully no tricks (or some good foodie tricks!).