Cooking
There's nothing more cozy than cuddling up on the sofa with a book and a box of chocolates on a chilly Winter day. And it seems I'm not alone in my love of pairing chocolates with a good read. For Valentine's Day this year one of my favorite chocolatiers Richart has combined a big box of chocolates with a book of short stories, from an award-winning writer Simon Von Booy. Even better, there are twelve specific chocolates that pair with passages from the book! The gift is called Love begins in Winter ($75), after the name of the book.
I haven't experienced any of the lovely pairings yet, but I spoke with Benjamin Auzimour in charge of Richart in North America, and he shared one of his favorites:
"Here's an extract that I like, about happiness, to be read while tasting a Petit Richart filled with salted butter caramel coulis, which will enhance the warmth of the feelings created by the scene. We can sense Simon's precise, concise, although almost impressionist style"
"when it started to get dark, Hannah and I left the shop. Bicycles were being wheeled home in the snow. Old women left bricks of cake on one another's doorsteps. The butcher was dressed up like Santa Claus.
Children peered out into the night from upstairs windows. And for several kilometers Hannah and I waded through snowy fields, past old gates and fallen tress, laughing and calling out as our bodies disappeared from view.
The shadows remained.
Gifts from the fallen, not lessening our happiness but guiding it, deepening it, and filling us with the passion we would need to sustain our love in the coming days."
If you don't know Richart chocolates, I highly recommend you try them. Richart not only makes some of the creamiest confections thanks to their intense conching process, but also takes a very thoughtful approach to chocolate called QuintesSense:
1. Knowledge of what you're tasting - background, origins, geography...
2. Sensory analysis
3. "Emotional" analysis - memories, feelings...
4. Finding the overall flavor of this very moment
5. Sharing it with others
They use Venezuelan criollo cocoa beans and make delicate confections using a wide variety of flavors, some that might seem unusual like flowers and herbs but always achieve balance and pure perfection, as far as I'm concerned.
- Chocolate For Valentine's Day
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- Meet Alice Medrich At Charles Chocolates
Photo ©Abigail Huller Just in time for Valetine's Day! The Alice Medrich event at Charles Chocolates has been rescheduled. Meet Alice Medrich and perhaps do a little holiday shopping at a favorite local chocolate shop. Charles Chocolates has a lovely...
- Holiday Gift Guide--chocolate Edition
Returning to college from Christmas break I was always loaded down with broken chocolate Santa's. The benefit of restocking the Christmas candy in a specialty food store was that I could take the damaged goods for myself. Eating all that broken chocolate...
- Favorite Things: Charles Chocolates
You probably think you know what this is, right? A box of chocolates, with some missing. Oh, but it's so much more than that. First of all, this box of chocolates is a box of Charles Chocolates. If you're lucky enough to have had Charles Chocolates...
- Resolution: Eat More Chocolate In 2006
Here it is January, month of resolutions, exercise and diets. Since Lee's doctor is already basically prescribing that he eat chocolate on a daily basis, let's take a closer look at a couple possibilities, for health purposes, of course. Unlike...
Cooking
Love begins in Winter
There's nothing more cozy than cuddling up on the sofa with a book and a box of chocolates on a chilly Winter day. And it seems I'm not alone in my love of pairing chocolates with a good read. For Valentine's Day this year one of my favorite chocolatiers Richart has combined a big box of chocolates with a book of short stories, from an award-winning writer Simon Von Booy. Even better, there are twelve specific chocolates that pair with passages from the book! The gift is called Love begins in Winter ($75), after the name of the book.
I haven't experienced any of the lovely pairings yet, but I spoke with Benjamin Auzimour in charge of Richart in North America, and he shared one of his favorites:
"Here's an extract that I like, about happiness, to be read while tasting a Petit Richart filled with salted butter caramel coulis, which will enhance the warmth of the feelings created by the scene. We can sense Simon's precise, concise, although almost impressionist style"
"when it started to get dark, Hannah and I left the shop. Bicycles were being wheeled home in the snow. Old women left bricks of cake on one another's doorsteps. The butcher was dressed up like Santa Claus.
Children peered out into the night from upstairs windows. And for several kilometers Hannah and I waded through snowy fields, past old gates and fallen tress, laughing and calling out as our bodies disappeared from view.
The shadows remained.
Gifts from the fallen, not lessening our happiness but guiding it, deepening it, and filling us with the passion we would need to sustain our love in the coming days."
If you don't know Richart chocolates, I highly recommend you try them. Richart not only makes some of the creamiest confections thanks to their intense conching process, but also takes a very thoughtful approach to chocolate called QuintesSense:
1. Knowledge of what you're tasting - background, origins, geography...
2. Sensory analysis
3. "Emotional" analysis - memories, feelings...
4. Finding the overall flavor of this very moment
5. Sharing it with others
They use Venezuelan criollo cocoa beans and make delicate confections using a wide variety of flavors, some that might seem unusual like flowers and herbs but always achieve balance and pure perfection, as far as I'm concerned.
- Chocolate For Valentine's Day
The Superbowl is over! Thanks goodness. Frankly if I saw one more post about recipes for half time snacks I was going to go long and never come back. Not that I haven't been busy. I've been eating chocolate, consider it a warm up for Valentine's...
- Meet Alice Medrich At Charles Chocolates
Photo ©Abigail Huller Just in time for Valetine's Day! The Alice Medrich event at Charles Chocolates has been rescheduled. Meet Alice Medrich and perhaps do a little holiday shopping at a favorite local chocolate shop. Charles Chocolates has a lovely...
- Holiday Gift Guide--chocolate Edition
Returning to college from Christmas break I was always loaded down with broken chocolate Santa's. The benefit of restocking the Christmas candy in a specialty food store was that I could take the damaged goods for myself. Eating all that broken chocolate...
- Favorite Things: Charles Chocolates
You probably think you know what this is, right? A box of chocolates, with some missing. Oh, but it's so much more than that. First of all, this box of chocolates is a box of Charles Chocolates. If you're lucky enough to have had Charles Chocolates...
- Resolution: Eat More Chocolate In 2006
Here it is January, month of resolutions, exercise and diets. Since Lee's doctor is already basically prescribing that he eat chocolate on a daily basis, let's take a closer look at a couple possibilities, for health purposes, of course. Unlike...