Gluten-free, non-GMO, soy-free, and certified Kosher, the award-winning chocolates are produced in Switzerland, using milk sourced from the Swiss Alpine region and Rainforest Alliance-certified cocoa.
Recently, I had a chance to sample its chocolate bars, including its newest in the lineup, Alpine Milk with Refreshing Lemon and Ginger Bar.
What you notice immediately with any of the chocolates upon placing a square upon your tongue is just how creamy the texture and how smoothly it melts in your mouth.
Portland’s Salt & Straw teamed with San Francisco’s Dandelion Chocolate for this limited-edition ice cream flavor.
If you didn’t get your fill of chocolate on Valentine’s Day already, head to your nearest Salt & Straw to really indulge.
The artisan ice cream maker out of Portland, OR launched this month its “Chocolate Series,” five chocolate-centric flavors made in collaboration with local chocolatiers located in the five markets that it has scoop shops.
Lucky me had a chance to try samples of all five limited-edition flavors now available at all Salt & Straw shops by the scoop or hand-packed pint ($12.95). If you don’t have a shop near you, not to worry; you can have all five flavors delivered to your door at a special discounted price of $68.
The “Chocolate Series.”
The five flavors are: Fran’s Almond Gold Bar, Cloudforest Chocolate Ishpingo & Mango, Dandelion Cocoa Nibs & Frangipane; Compartes Coffee & Love Nuts; and Exquisito Guanabana Stracciatella.
A perfect cube of succulent pork belly served with a zingy ale aged with cherry blossoms at the new Cyrus in Geyserville.
After a seemingly interminable odyssey, the wait is indeed over.
Cyrus, the acclaimed fine-dining restaurant that closed in Healdsburg in 2012 after a landlord dispute, finally reopened again last September in a striking new iteration in Geyserville.
Chef-Owner Doug Keane, co-owner Nick Peyton, and their team couldn’t be more relieved and thrilled to be back at it again. Neither can their legions of fans, so many of whom considered the original Cyrus their favorite restaurant.
The original Cyrus garnered two Michelin stars. The new one already scored one star — barely two months after opening.
At the entrance.
Keane spent a decade searching high and low through the Alexander Valley, which was founded by the restaurant’s namesake Cyrus Alexander. He had all but given up when this site came available. Though this sleek contemporary glass, steel and concrete building is the polar opposite of the restaurant’s original Old World provincial aesthetic, it’s hard to imagine a more fitting place in this new age and time. At least, that’s what I found when I finally had the opportunity last week to dine here.
At this time of year, you can never have too many chocolate cookies.
I stand by that thought unequivocally.
While versions of this chocolate-frosted, chocolate cookie abound, these particular “Double Chocolate Oriolos” are more modest in size, making them a perfect treat to indulge in without overindulging.
The recipe is from “The Cookie Bible” (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt), of which I received a review copy, by legendary New York baker Rose Levy Beranbaum.
The collection includes recipes for cookies of every sort: drop, cut-out, bars, sandwiches, chocolate-dipped, and more.
Pastry Chef Guillermo Soto Torres with mini versions of his new holiday buche de Noel.
It’s a good bet that Guillermo Soto Torres is one of the few — if not only — pastry chefs in the Bay Area with a degree in telematics, the interdisciplinary field that combines telecommunications, vehicular technologies, electrical engineering, and computer science.
He had hardly stepped foot into that scientific career, though, when he made a major pivot to use his knack for precision in a whole different way. He started working in a chocolate shop in his native Mexico, then began studying baking books. It wasn’t long before he jumped full bore into pastry making about 15 years ago.
That led to stints at Four Seasons hotels in Costa Rica and Florida, before coming two years ago to the Four Seasons Silicon Valley in East Palo Alto to become head pastry chef.
Earlier this week, the 36-year-old chef invited me and two other media colleagues into his hotel kitchen to watch and learn as he made what will be the stunning centerpiece dessert for Christmas Eve dinner and the Christmas Day buffet — the buche de Noel.
A flourless chocolate cake version done up in a shiny white chocolate glaze with crunchy, dehydrated raspberries.
His version of the classic French yule log cake is comprised of a flourless chocolate cake on a base of crispy hazelnut feuilletine (crunchy crepe shards) that’s rolled around chestnut cream and an anise-flavored orange compote before it’s all enrobed in shiny white chocolate glaze and holiday garnishes. To serve all the expected guests on those two days, he will make 100 of them.
He talked about his favorite ingredient to work with, the one that’s he’s allergic to, the one dessert he could eat every single day, and the rather ill-fated day that he began working at the Silicon Valley hotel.
