Two new creations: honey-orange blossom and lychee truffles
I've been working for many weeks now on an event that's coming up next Saturday - a chocolate tasting for MIT graduate students and postdocs! I've been working hard on a chocolate guide for the event, and it's finally ready. I plan for this to be the basis of a new all-chocolate section of my website.
It's also been an extremely busy time for me with school and a big Earth Day event I'm organizing, but immersing myself in all things chocolate has been a great break from all that. I really think that eating chocolate reduces the friction in my brain.
I'll write a lot more about my chocolate adventures later, but here are a few notes for now:
- Whole Foods is evil. Trust me. I've had several dubious experiences at Whole Foods before, but a couple of experiences I've had in the course of organizing the chocolate tasting have convinced me that the organization is dishonest and corrupt, systematically duping consumers into paying way too much for low-quality products. If you have to shop there, at least don't go near their glass chocolate display next to the bakery. I would not be surprised if Whole Foods becomes the subject of the next Noka-esque scandal. More on this later.
- Also, stay away from the new fancy chocolate display at Shaw's in Back Bay. Their Callebaut chunks were improperly cut (the white chocolate had streaks of dark in it) and wrapped (many of the packages were coming open).
- Try Domori. It's one of my new favorite chocolates, with a deep, intensive flavor.
- Trader Joe's (in Cambridge, not the Back Bay location) has 10lb Belgian chocolate bars during the non-holiday months now! AND they've lowered the price to $20.
- Organic chocolate tastes a lot worse than non-organic, for the most part. Just try tasting Chocolove's organic and non-organic bars side by side. According to Chloe Doutre-Roussel, this is because there are so few plantations which are certified. But I'm still going to keep buying some organic just to support the market. But according to the guys from Scharffen-Berger, much chocolate is organic anyway even if it is not certified, because the small family farms which produce cacao cannot afford to buy expensive pesticides or herbicides.
Buy The Chocolate Connoisseur: For Everyone With a Passion for Chocolate
- L. A. Burdick makes the best bonbons and truffles in the Boston area by far. But Lake Champlain is still better
