Category Archives: Chocolate

Not Your Kid’s Milk Chocolate & Food Gal Contest

Yes, it's milk chocolate.

Milk chocolate doesn’t get a whole lotta respect.

Dark chocolate aficionados turn up their noses at the stuff, sneering that it’s weak, sweet, and uncouth.

But there’s a new milk chocolate in town that just might change even those snobby taste buds.

Dark chocolate lovers already know Amano Artisan Chocolate, the Utah specialty chocolate maker, for its amazingly complex dark chocolates. The company, founded by a scientist who develops search engines, has now gone the milky way. It has created two different milk chocolate bars, ($6.95 for each 2-ounce bar), which I recently received samples of. So just how do they taste?

I’ll use my patented scale of 1 to 10 lip-smackers, with 1 being the “Bleh, save your money” far end of the spectrum; 5 being the “I’m not sure I’d buy it, but if it was just there, I might nibble some” middle-of-the-road response; and 10 being the “My gawd, I could die now and never be happier, because this is the best thing I’ve ever put in my mouth” supreme ranking.

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A Gem of A Chocolate From A Woman Named Jewel

Skinny chocolates with a weighty flavor.

Pastry Chef Jewel Zimmer of San Francisco has always liked to create good things to eat.

The British Columbia-native first studied bread baking with her father before attending pastry school at Le Cordon Bleu. She later moved to San Francisco to work at La Folie restaurant.

This year, she left the restaurant world to open her own artisan chocolatier company in San Francisco, Cocoa Absolute. Her pricey delicacies are now sold at Bardessono resort in Yountville, Boulette’s Larder in the San Francisco Ferry Building, and the Gardener shop in Berkeley.

The single-origin chocolates are made from cocoa beans sourced from all over the world and formed into a simple, signature-shaped confection.

I’ll use my patented scale of 1 to 10 lip-smackers, with 1 being the “Bleh, save your money” far end of the spectrum; 5 being the “I’m not sure I’d buy it, but if it was just there, I might nibble some” middle-of-the-road response; and 10 being the “My gawd, I could die now and never be happier, because this is the best thing I’ve ever put in my mouth” supreme ranking.

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Valrhona Grands Crus Chocolate Bars

Deep, dark, and irresistible.

Professional and home-cooks covet Valrhona chocolate for baking.

This year, the French chocolate company expanded its chocolate bar and home-baking range. I’ve baked many a time with the deep, complex tasting dark chocolate with unparalleled results.

When samples of its 3.5-ounce chocolate bars arrived in the mail, it was the perfect time to see if they stacked up to their baking counterparts.

I’ll use my patented scale of 1 to 10 lip-smackers, with 1 being the “Bleh, save your money” far end of the spectrum; 5 being the “I’m not sure I’d buy it, but if it was just there, I might nibble some” middle-of-the-road response; and 10 being the “My gawd, I could die now and never be happier, because this is the best thing I’ve ever put in my mouth” supreme ranking.

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Get Ready for Burgers, Chocolate, Celeb Chefs, and More

Fleming's Prime Burger is a mouth-full and then some. (Photo courtesy of Fleming's)

Fleming’s Prime Steakhouse & Wine Bar is rolling out a bevy of burgers on its bar menu.

Sit down in the bar area at either of the two Bay Area locations, Palo Alto and Walnut Creek, to take your pick of Fleming’s Prime Burger (with cheddar cheese and peppered bacon, $12), Sliced Filet Mignon Burger (with sauteed mushrooms and Bernaise sauce, $18), Jumbo Lump Crab Cake Burger (with creamy mustard sauce, $16), Ahi Tuna Burger (with soy ginger sauce, $12), or Portobello Mushroom Burger (with sauteed spinach and creamy goat cheese, $10).

All are accompanied by a mini wedge salad and onion rings.

Every Wednesday through September from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m., the restaurant will offer complimentary samplings of its burger menu to entice you even more.

Chocolate and more chocolate star at the Ghirardelli Square Chocolate Festival. (Photo courtesy of Ghirardelli)

If chocolate is more your thing, you’ll be in heaven at the 14th annual Ghirardelli Square Chocolate Festival, noon to 5 p.m. Sept. 12-13.

More than 40 vendors will be showcasing their chocolate creations, including Kika’s Treats, Mary Louise Butters Brownies, and Ciao Bella Gelato.

There will be live music, as well as a “Hands Free” Earthquake Ice Cream Sundae Eating Contest. Yes, it’s just what you think it is, and just as messy. The winner takes home a ginormous basket of Ghirardelli chocolate.

Top Chef's Casey Thompson. (Photo courtesy of the Ghirardelli Square Chocolate Festival)

If that weren’t enough, “Top Chef” finalist, Casey Thompson, will lead the cooking demonstrations at 2 p.m. both days.  Bravo TV fans may remember that Thompson was not only voted “America’s Favorite” on the show, but nicknamed “the Jennifer Aniston of cooking” by the one and only Anthony Bourdain.

The festival is free. Chocolate tasting tickets are $20 for 15 tastings. The event benefits Project Open Hand, a San Francisco non-profit that provides meals to seniors and seriously ill individuals.

Summer heirloom tomatoes go swank at Masa’s in San Francisco.

The restaurant is featuring a “Celebration of Tomatoes’‘ eight-course menu for $105 per person, Tuesday through Saturday nights through September. Wine pairing is an additional $79.

Dishes are expected to include ones such as Green Zebra tomato gazpacho with ricotta cheese flan and Gravenstein apple salad; and pan-seared medallion of prime New York beef with roasted tomato tartlette. The tomatoes are from Verdure Farm in Healdsburg.

Seafood goes Italian-style at Poggio Trattoria in Sausalito.

Sept. 15-19, the restaurant will host “Festa di Pesce” to showcase local seafood such as sardines, calamari, anchovies, mackerel, and swordfish.

Chef Peter McNee will debut a special menu of crudo (raw, marinated, cured), and cotto (cooked) seafood antipasti. They will be priced from $7 to $9, or three for $21. A pairing of three tastes of Italian wine is an additional $12 per person.

Duck leg confit with plum glaze, which I got to sample last week at LarkCreekSteak.

The Lark Creek Restaurant Group spotlights South Australia through September.

The “South Australia Comes to America” promotion will feature menus, wines, and special events showcasing the fourth largest of Australia’s six states. South Australia is one and a half times larger than Texas, and accounts for about 60 percent of all wine made in Australia.

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Chocolate That Benefits Farmers in the Ecuadorian Amazon

Chocolate that helps farmers in the Amazonian rainforests.

In the world of chocolate bars, Kallari Chocolate Bars are a definite do-gooder.

All profits from the sales of these premium chocolate bars (available at Whole Foods) is returned to the Kallari Association, a cooperative of more than 850 Quichua families in Napo Province in the Ecuadorian Amazon. The association touts itself as the only farmers cooperative in the world that harvests, markets, and receives all profits from its line of organic chocolates. With this revenue, the Quichua families are able to make a viable living without succumbing to the temptation to make quick money from logging their rainforests or from extracting petroleum from their lands.

The chocolate-making venture was established with expertise and start-up funds from Stephen McDonnell, founder and CEO of Applegate Farms in Bridgewater, NJ, which produces natural and organic deli meats and cheeses. Visitors can even tour the cacao farms in Ecuador now to watch the harvest and the fermentation process.

The smoothest melting chocolate imaginable.

The bars do good. But do they also taste good?

I’ll use my patented scale of 1 to 10 lip-smackers, with 1 being the “Bleh, save your money” far end of the spectrum; 5 being the “I’m not sure I’d buy it, but if it was just there, I might nibble some” middle-of-the-road response; and 10 being the “My gawd, I could die now and never be happier, because this is the best thing I’ve ever put in my mouth” supreme ranking.

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