Recently in Global Category

Paris chocolatier...

Michel Chaudun
149, rue de l'Université (map)
01 47 53 74 40

Michel Chaudun (in Japan)

New chocolate-makers are springing up across America, in the most unlikeliest of places. Like Missouri.

Who'd a thunk it?

Using good 'ol American ingenuity, a little over a year ago, Alan McClure started grinding up beans and molding them into lithe bars of very dark, and very sleek, bittersweet chocolate.

His company, Patric chocolate, makes bars that are "micro-produced," and he's got two in his line-up, both using cacao from Madagascar.

When I asked Alan what attracted him to the cacao from that region, he said "Since the bars are made from cacao that come from one single estate, and since the family there has owned it for quite some time, they really have been able to exert an extremely high level of control on the quality and consistency of the fermentation and drying, which is actually quite rare in the cacao world."

Alan proclaims that this isn't pure "criollo" chocolate, a much-touted term for a varietal that almost all chocolate experts say no longer exists in its pure form. (Some chocolate-makers are claiming to the contrary.) Right now, the all the beans for Patric's bars are from a plantation in the Sambirano Valley.

I've been a little lax in my duties around here reporting on chocolate. In my defense, I've been sidetracked by bacon, seaweed, and kimchi. But man cannot live by chocolate alone.

Even in Paris.

Speaking of chocolate, when I was doing research for my chocolate book, it was challenging to find people to talk about what they do. I met with one representative from a big chocolate company who said he would only talk to me, and let me visit, if I only wrote about their company in the book. (Uh...sure!)

When I was writing my ice cream book, I called a gelato chain here in Paris, asking if I could come in and see how they make their ice cream to include them in the book. After much hemming and hawing, I never heard back.

It's always after the book comes out, you become a popular fellow. I seem to be always behind the curve on these things.

As a cookbook author, whenever you do a cooking demonstration, there's always 'The Question'. It's the one that's the most frequently asked when you're doing classes on a book tour.

For us who write about baking, normally it's, "Can that be frozen?"

Since my freezer is usually so crammed with stuff I can't imagine wedging in a multi-layer cake amongst all the rock-hard frozen madness that I call "my freezer"...except for now, because I came home from the country last weekend and found my freezer door had nudged itself open, or more likely I accidentally left it ajar in my haste to get outta town, and when I came home, my freezer looked like an Antarctic blizzard had happened in there and had to be completely cleaned out...so now there's plenty of room and I can start jamming it full all over again.

(The upside was I found and extricated a long-lost bottle of Polish vodka completely enveloped in a block of ice, which was a more than satisfactory reward for my efforts.)

Anyhow, when you write a book completely devoted to frozen desserts and ice cream you can smugly think to yourself, "Ha! I've nipped that one in the bud."

Of course, all ice cream can be frozen.

But silly me!
Little did I realize something insidious had taken ahold of my fellow Americans.

Yes, something worse than all those little bottles of hand sanitizer dangling from people's belts...

I am such an idiot.

I won't tell you who, but years back, someone with a thriving restaurant on 18th Street in San Francisco alerted me to a great business opportunity nearby. Food-related, of course. I passed, and now the area is the culinary destination in the Bay Area.

(Aside from the taqueria on Church Street across from the Afeway...)

Although I missed the proverbial boat, I'm glad to see the smart folks at Bi-Rite Creamery scooping up some excellent ice cream in that neighborhood. I sampled just about all of them, from the fruity Cherry-Almond to the most curious Soy Chocolate. There's a seductive Salted Caramel and a Butter Pecan as well. But my absolute, hands-down favorite scoop was the Mint Chip. Flavored with organic mint oil, it's a big dose of refreshingly cool mint with big, honkin' chunks of housemade chocolate chards. Think the best kind of Girl Scout cookies all mashed together and piled in a cone. Yum!

There's plenty of toppings to choose from at Bi-Rite Creamery, but where there's salty little grains of fleur de sel enrobed in dark chocolate from Michael Recchiuti, why order anything else?

Bi-Rite Creamery
3692 18th Street
San Francisco, CA

I don't like to stir things up too much around here. Last time I did that, I got my ass kicked in the comments. Truth be told, I'm a people-person and try to see the good in everything and everybody no matter what.

Heck, I'm even listening to Up With People! as I'm typing right now...

I don't like to trash people or companies in general. But sometimes, every once in a while, someone needs to get their pee-pee smacked.

And in this case, it's Hershey's.

Normally I make it a point to eat the best-quality chocolate I can since the good stuff has the same amount of calories as the bad stuff. Because I live in Paris, depending on how you feel about it, I don't eat much Hershey's chocolate. But when you have a blog, no matter where you like, you get 'sales pitches' from pr folks wanting to send you products to that they hope you'll mention favorably on your blog. I like to try new American products and since I don't live where they're easily found, I let the ones that sound interesting come my way.

But one French company insisted (repeatedly, against my better judgment) on sending me a food basket of goodies a while back.

Don't hate me when I tell you this:

Last week I was invited to La Maison du Chocolat.

But not just to one of their swanky boutiques in Paris, the marble-lined, cocoa-hued temples where people flock to worship at the alter of founder Robert Linxe. (And yes, you can count me as one of the converted.) Instead I was invited to tour their chocolate production laboratoire just outside the city.

Descending the RER train in the nondescript suburb of Nanterre, we finally came upon a beige building that was scrupulously clean; we knew we'd arrived at le mothership.

Robert Linxe, who was born in the Basque region and founded La Maison du Chocolat, was one the major proponents of using ganache in his chocolates; that slightly-airy amalgamation of chocolate and cream. Then he went on to develop a flavor palette of ganache-based chocolates...and the rest is one of the most successful stories in chocolate history.