Fort Smith Find: "World's Finest" Chocolate Almond

I’m behind on my posts! Trying to get caught up... First up:

Last week I took a trip to Tulsa and Little Rock for a project I’m working on – I flew into Tulsa, rented a car, worked all day, and then drove the four hours to Little Rock to work the next day. Not knowing if there would be a single bite of interesting food in the great expanse of nothingness between Tulsa and Little Rock, I tasked Andrew with finding out if there was any dinner to be had, and boy-howdy did he ever come through.

He flagged R&R’s Curry Express in Fort Smith – an Indian place with stellar reviews and a closing time 45 minutes after I’d be passing through the tiny township. The GPS led me a merry chase, insisting that the restaurant was, in fact, an hour north in Springdale (it was not), and that it was closed (it was not), but when I finally located the place sharing a building with a small independent gas station it was everything I was hoping for.

Papdi chaat - crispy bits of fried naan suspended in an amazing soup of spiced yogurt, tamarind, and mint chutney *swoon*

Having a company card and a slightly exorbitant daily food budget, I ordered the papdi chaat appetizer which showed up looking like a delicious Indian stew, with crunchy chips of naan suspended in a sweet, complex, creamy, delicious sludge of mint and yogurt and goodness knows what all else. It was divine, and unlike anything I’d ever had before. As I was still trying to navigate it, a man sitting and eating dinner with his family at the table next to me, called out to me gently in his lilting Indian accent – “ma’am, excuse me. You’re supposed to mix it up. Mix it all up, add a little salt, and eat it with a spoon – it’s good!” This was the point where I noticed he was wearing an apron, and realized that I was in the presence of the restaurant owner.

What ensued, was a thoroughly delightful meal. The malai kofta was delicious, the mystery appetizer was crazy good, and I got to know the gentleman and his wife who own both the restaurant and the gas station next door. They moved to Fort Smith from LA almost 10 years ago, looking for a small town to raise their kids in, opened the gas station, and then decided to expand their operation when the space next door opened up. These hard-working entrepreneurs happily conversed with their kids in fluent Hindi, the daughters regularly came by my table to top off my iced tea, they all assured me that staying past closing time was absolutely fine, and, as I was winding down and looking for the check, the second daughter appeared at my table with a box of chocolate, asking if I’d like to buy a bar to help her school purchase new computers.

Yes. Yes, indeed, I would.

I retrieved the last of my cash from the car, purchased a bar, and got back on the road to Little Rock.

One of the things I love the most about traveling is finding little hidden gems and supporting local businesses with my reimbursable dollars. This was exactly the kind of place that I truly love giving business to. Right down to the young chocolate seller running out to my car after I left to make sure that I’d gotten a straw with my to-go iced tea, this restaurant is awash with the delicious food and lovely, personable feel that makes me really look forward to the next time I get to drive through Fort Smith. Hopefully next time I’ll get to visit more than 30 minutes before close.

Item: Almond 

Percentage: Who knows! Probably in the 20s, if I had to hazard a guess

Made By: World’s Finest Chocolate 

Made in: Chicago, IL   

Purchased At: R&R's Curry Express 
Purchase Price: $1

Review: This is pretty much an almond Hershey’s Kiss in bar form, but maybe a little heavier on the vanillin and a little lighter on the chocolate than Hershey’s. Sugar content is about the same. Strong notes of vanillin, powdered milk, and nostalgia. As Andrew said, “It’s the finest World’s Finest Chocolate I’ve ever had.” Not exactly a bar for chocolate snobs who are hung up on cacao content (*ahem*), but a perfectly reasonable nibble for dessert or to take the edge off an afternoon sweet tooth. The one thing the bar really gets right is the size – at just 1.3 ounces it’s quite small, but the size is actually about perfect for how sweet it is, and the bar is divided up into four nice, bite-sized chunks, making it easy and enjoyable to demolish. Plus, it’s for a good cause!

Chocolate Bar: Meh

R&R’s Curry Express in Fort Smith, AR: Highly Recommend

With Love, Kat

Travel for Business: Blueberry Nib

Ah, Colorado, you beautiful creature, you. 

One of the luxuries of having a job that requires some travel is the ability to take full advantage of that travel for personal pleasure. Most of my travel includes visits to exotic destinations like Amarillo, Mobile AL, Tulsa, OK, or the ever-confusing Columbus, Indiana (every place has its charms, of course…), but every once in a while I get to go somewhere a little more compelling. A Memphis, New Orleans, Austin… or Denver.

When it happens, I usually try and maneuver the trip so that I’m there on a Monday or a Friday, and arrange to stay for the weekend. Cummins picks up the tab for the airfare, and I just have to arrange for lodging, transportation, and entertainment. Not a bad deal at all. In this case, my opportunity came a few weeks ago disguised as a Project Management class in Denver.

So, I left behind the 65-degree late-January weather of the DFW metroplex, and walked off the plane into a climate fully 40 degrees colder than what I’d left. Driving to the hotel, there were mounds of ice in the parking lots, where the snow had been ploughed to the side weeks ago and left to partially melt into rock-like sculptural formations. 

The project management class was informative if unremarkable, and I got to meet some key colleagues, tour the Denver branch locations, and gather helpful information for a number of projects. Beyond that, there were a couple of late nights of “networking” (aka, drinking and playing darts and pool), which made the days in class seem far, far longer than they actually were. 

On Friday, I put my coworkers on planes back to their various destinations, rented another car, and headed to Boulder where my dear friend Ben and his wife and kids have a house right in the shadow of the breathtaking Flatiron Mountains.

Boulder is one of my favorite places in the world – it is beautiful, big-hearted, and profoundly active, with an adorable earthy, hipster streak. The people here care about the integrity of their bike shops and sustainable sourcing of their food. The farmer’s market is a major attraction, and there’s a minor festival whenever notable new crops come in. There are bike and walking trails everywhere, buskers on the streets, and in the summer the local kids splash in bone-chillingly cold streams of pure mountain runoff. The Pearl Street Market is a heart-warming celebration of locally-minded shopping and craftsmanship, with shops specializing in everything from gorgeous old-school wooden puzzles, to tea and teapots, to beautiful hand-crafted hats, to art glass, to kites, to chocolate. 

Boulder is also a great chocolate town; one of the few places where kitchen supply stores and bookshops alike have entire end caps dedicated to gorgeous, delightful locally crafted chocolate bars.

This particular weekend was of the sweet, quiet, domestic variety, making up for the carousing of the week with plenty of wholesome company, good food, and early bedtimes. I went ghost hunting and made paper crowns with the 4-and-a-half year-old and cooed at the baby while he chewed on my knuckles. With the grown-ups, I talked a little work, some politics, and about parenthood, poetry, minimalism, family, bravery, and goodness knows what all else. We got the kiddo new boots and took a hike down a local trail, where I got to walk on water. For real. It was frozen, but whatever. I was psyched.

Ben and I also watched The Lobster which received a well-deserved nomination for Best Screenplay at the Oscars. It’s super weird, but truly amazing. (Like, SUPER weird. Be prepared. Definitely watch it, but be prepared.)

It was a soul-nourishing weekend at high altitudes, and although I didn’t get to spend as much time playing in the mountains themselves or perusing the chocolate selection downtown as I would have liked, I was able to snag a bar from the local bookstore while Ben & co. were picking up supplies for dinner. . 

Enjoy, my friends. Preferably in front of a crackling fireplace with a dog at your feet and a 4 year-old narrating Amelia Bedelia to you.

Item: Blueberry Nib
Percentage: 65% cacao 

Made By: Concertos in Chocolate
Made In: Boulder, CO
Purchased At: Boulder Book Store
Purchase Price: $4.25

Review:   At 65% this one is on the lighter end of what I typically go for. Concertos is a local Boulder chocolatier that keeps it simple and classy with classic, time-tested combinations of flavors combined in fun, interesting ways. Check out their "Dirty Chai" bar if you're feeling feisty. With both dried blueberries and cocao nibs this one is very texturally busy - the cocao nibs lend it a nice, darker edge and anchor the chocolatey flavor, while the blueberries bring an unexpected sweet, chewy pop. This is whimsical chocolate, folks. I still haven't really figured out how much I like weird textures in my chocolate, and my relationship with cocoa nibs is complicated, but this definitely is a fun, charming bar. Would eat again.
 
Recommend


With love, Kat

Happy Valentine's Day!: Scotch Birthday Truffles

I have the immense good fortune of having a sweetie who's birthday falls on Valentine's Day, making for a delightful convergence. Unfortunately, with it being both a birthday and Valentine's day, that means the pressure is ON to make it a truly special day.
So, last year, I embarked on a project to make his day super special. 

In December we had visited the delightful Dude, Sweet Chocolate in Fort Worth to do my Christmas shopping, and Andrew had excitedly told me ahead of time about this one particularly wonderful scotch truffle they had, featuring his favorite highland scotch - Laphroaig. Alas, when we arrived and were working our way through the samples, they had cycled out the coveted Laphroaig truffle for a bourbon truffle, and although we still had a great time, I could tell he was a bit deflated. 
 
Hence, for Valentine's Day, I determined to recreate these incredible truffles in my own kitchen. I searched the internet and managed to locate the (very short) ingredients list on an old review, purchased an absurd amount of several different kinds of 70% dark, and started experimenting. One batch was too scotch-y, and one didn't set properly, and one wasn't sweet enough... So, finally, on the fifth batch, I found the magical combination. Rich, boozy, with just enough sweet to keep you on the hook - these are dense and magnificent, and a delightful way to consume any kind of booze you please.

I served up the truffles individually wrapped in tissue paper, and packaged in the cardboard tube the Laphroaig bottle came in (leading him to think for a minute or two that I had actually bought him scotch).

Love to you all, and Happy Valentine's Day, everyone. May your Valentine be every bit as sweet as mine. 

 
Item: Scotch Truffles

Makes about 20 truffles

10.5 oz. 70% good dark chocolate (I used Green & Black's) 
Scant cup of sweetened condensed milk 
4.5 Tbsps. Laphroaig single-barrel scotch (or another good, peaty scotch)
1.5 tsp. Dark Molasses


Make sure all surfaces, dishes, and utensils are VERY dry (water will ruin the emulsion). Finely chop all the chocolate (the largest bits should be no larger than a peanut), and put 2/3s of it into a glass bowl (you'll use this a double-boiler, so make sure it fits over your pan nicely). Chop the remaining 3rd into even tinier bits, no bigger than grains of rice, and set aside. 

Put condensed milk in a small pan over very low heat (it will scald like crazy over higher heat). 

Add an inch or two of water to a mid-sized pan and bring to a rolling boil, then turn off the heat, and put the glass bowl of chocolate over the the boiling water to melt. Allow it to sit for about two minutes, then gently, stir/turn with a spatula as it melts. When the chocolate is 2/3s melted, remove it and the condensed milk from the stove and begin to gently, gradually stir in the remaining chocolate. The chocolate should be very shiny and smooth as it incorporates. Once all the chocolate is added and melted, it should be barely warm to the touch. Add the molasses and the scotch and stir briskly to combine - the mixture will seize up surprisingly. Add the warm (NOT HOT) condensed milk and stir briskly until homogeneous. Taste, and add more scotch or molasses as needed.

At this point it should start to cool into a cohesive blob - thicker and grainier-looking than frosting. Cover with plastic wrap and allow to cool in the freezer for three to four hours, stirring once or twice to reincorporate the escaping oils. Once it's a workable consistency, roll into balls on waxed paper or press into molds (I got heart-shaped candy molds because I'm a sap), and return to the freezer overnight to set. 

Serve to someone you dote on. 

Since the whole truffle is tempered, they're shelf-stable and should last 2-3 weeks, and much longer in the fridge/freezer.


With love, Kat

Two-for-One Thanksgiving: Divine Mango Coconut & Salazon Pumpkin Beer Sea Salt

Here's another out-of-season post that's been needing to be finished for a while. :-) 

There are many things that get more complicated when your family is scattered halfway across the world. It's more expensive and time-consuming to see the people you care about, it's harder to get everyone in one place, and the visits are usually short, few, and far between. However, when it happens, the results are pretty magical. The planning for the 2016 Thanksgiving was pretty crazy - we had to coordinate 11 people and travel from three states across four days at two different locations, and handle the logistics of two entire Thanksgiving menus.

The result was a gorgeous, soul-nourishing two-parter. Episode 1 was in beautiful Woodstock, NY, at my grandmother's cozy cottage. Mom and I flew up from Texas, and we got to meet Will's delightful girlfriend, Nina, and spent the whole day talking, laughing, and singing in the kitchen while cooking up copious amounts of traditional Thanksgiving fare.

The next day we took a long, goofy, lovely walk into town, stopping on the way to thoroughly enjoy an old-fashioned playground, and winding up at the local market to get some hot apple cider and browse the selection of charming local and artisanal foods. 

From there, Mom flew back to Texas, the four sibs and Nina piled into Will's van, and it was on to Philadelphia and Thanksgiving #2! Andrew met us there (having celebrated Thanksgiving proper with his family back in Texas), where Dad and his girlfriend, Nilmini, hosted us all at her gorgeous house, and I got to execute my first full-fledged Thanksgiving menu (GAAAAH!!) with an Indian fusion theme, including a jeweled rice pilaf, curried mashed potatoes, from-scratch garlic naan, habanero and goat cheese stuffed mushrooms, and Indian rice pudding with cherries and bourbon hard sauce for dessert. (Kudos to everyone for helping make it happen!) It was exhausting and beautiful.

I also got to catch up on snuggles with my girl, Ursula, who's starting to get rather grey around the muzzle, but is still every bit as sweet and energetic as the day she came home to us in Austin as a baby puppy all those years ago. The pumpkin pie samosas made a lovely breakfast, and our last day in Philly we took a delightful excursion into town to get drinks at a fancy-pants bar on a boat (Lonely Island would be so proud), and grabbed an amazing veggie Philly cheese steak at the Royal Tavern, before getting on the plane headed home. 

(And yes, in several pictures I am wearing a bright pink coat with pink corduroy pants. Somehow I didn't really make that connection when I was packing for the trip. As Andrew would say, I make decisions.)  

It was a lovely trip, and we enjoyed several bars of chocolate along the way but these were the most notable, which, although thematically a little disparate, made an interesting pairing for our Thanksgiving prep and travel.

Photo Credit: thechocolatewebsite.com

Item: Dark Chocolate with Mango & Coconut 
Percentage: 70% cacao 

Made By: Divine Chocolate
Made In: Cacao grown in Ghana, processed into chocolate in Europe
Purchased At: Whole Foods - Arlington, TX
Purchase Price: $3.59

Review: Divine delivers again! They maintain a particularly high concentration of cocoa butter in their chocolate, which means it melts deliciously, and they consistently get the sweet/dark balance juuuuuuust right. The mango is dominant here, while the coconut lurks in the background, which suits me just fine. There are actually distinct little dried (not freeze-dried!) mango bits, which stick in your teeth and make the process of munching a bit more... erm... lasting than chocolate usually is. However, it's a whimsical and successful combination, just so long as you've got a toothpick handy.     

Recommend, with some dental floss

        AND

 

Photo Credit: Salazonchoc.com

  
Item: Dark Chocolate with Sea Salt & Pumpkin IPA
Percentage: 72% cacao 

Made By: Salazon 
Made In: Maryland
Purchased At: Whole Foods - Arlington, TX
Purchase Price: $3.99

Review: Such a shame. I really wanted this one to work. If it had been what I wanted, it would have been basically tailor-made for my father, who loves every one of these things. Alas, it was a whiff. The chocolate itself comes across as oddly bitter, which is probably a result of the beer, which doesn't make much of an appearance at all except in the aftertaste. The pumpkin and beer both take a back seat to the sea salt, which dominates the whole party and just leaves you wondering why the chocolate tastes a little funny. I'd love to see this idea done properly, but I'll definitely need to keep looking. In the meantime, if you're looking for a Salazon bar that actually works, stick with the sea salt and almond, which is MUY NOM.   

A Note About the Company: As much as I didn't care for the bar, the company is pretty cool. Salazon is a 100% organic, vegan, fair-trade certified chocolate company built on the premise that simple, salted dark chocolate is one of the greatest energy bars there is. They single-source their beans from the Dominican Republic and (usually) keep their bars pretty simple and streamlined. True to their backpacking roots, their trail series donates at least 2% of their profits to the Pacific Crest, Appalachian Trail, and Continental Divide conservancy associations.

Avoid
  

With love, Kat

Week of Obnoxiousness: Green & Black's Dark 70%

Tornado Shelter Selfie!

Well, if I were any less skeptical I’d be looking to astrology for answers. Not that I’ve had the worst week, because I haven’t, but still. It’s been a uniquely strange few days, replete with medical complications, emotional roller-coasters, and natural disasters (Oh, my!).

It started out innocuously enough, with a comically unfortunate showing of “Singing in the Rain” at the local AMC Theater. The theater staff actually forgot to play the film, forcing us to listen to a selection of truly horrifying elevator music until Andrew finally got up to find a staff member 6 minutes after the film was supposed to start. When they finally started the film, we got to see them pull it up on pay-per-view (no joke! Check out the picture!) fast-forward through all of the pre-show content and previews that we were supposed to be watching instead of listening to the awful elevator music, and then they neglected to dim the lights in the theater. *sigh* Well, at least the show was still fun. 

 ... except that two thirds of the way through we were interrupted by a tornado warning, commenced the most leisurely evacuation I've ever seen, and had to spend 20 minutes in the industrial, concrete-reinforced back hallways of the mall until they let us out just in time to see the last 30 seconds of our film. Feeling dissatisfied, we decided to go across the hall to see the last 15 minutes of “Moana” to make up for our truncated main feature, but about a minute after we sat down, the show mysteriously blipped out, and the screen went black to very loud protestations from the audience. And then the 3D showing of “Sing” that we picked as our third choice viewing wound up not being 3D at all (although the two thirds of it we saw was surprisingly cute). Fortunately we’re a good-natured bunch, and we ultimately had a really good time.

 

The weirdness accelerated on Monday, though, when Andrew’s father checked himself into the hospital with chest pains, and they found his blood pressure was inexplicably and dangerously high. Andrew spent the evening at the hospital with his parents, playing Pavarotti for his dad and generally being sweet, but without any real explanations or answers, waiting for things to stabilize.

On Tuesday I got a phone call from my mother (who lives with me now - post on that coming up soon) on my lunch break, asking if I’d seen her car parked outside the apartment building when I’d left for work that morning, because it absolutely wasn’t in the parking lot any more, and that afternoon I had a friend and co-worker rush out of the office early because his baby daughter had been unexpectedly admitted to the hospital.

That night, in an amazing display of synchronized ding-bat-ness, I decided to stay the night at Andrew’s apartment, and then we both accidentally neglected to set our alarms, leading us to oversleep by almost an hour on Wednesday. I was also terrifically awful at the post-work game of pool on Thursday, Andrew's beloved ear buds broke, my sister came down with the flu, I twisted my ankle on my morning run, and my mother had an episode of something that was either some sort of really awful freak drunkenness or food poisoning after a single shot of vodka.

All the endings were reasonably happy – the tornadoes didn’t destroy anything beyond some highway signs and a few chimneys, both Andrew’s dad and my co-worker’s daughter are taken care of and happily restored to their homes, my mom successfully retrieved her car from the tow lot, and no important meetings were missed by our oversleeping.

In the book I’m reading, a couple of brilliant psychologists note that the human mind is typically reluctant to acknowledge that patterns always happen within the context of larger, random happenings. We think of “random” as looking a particular way (chaotic, disorderly, etc.), and whenever things happen in groups or patterns, we look for logical explanations, because we can’t fathom how an entire week could be super bizarre just because life worked out that way for a few consecutive days. I can only assume that chance has made the past few days suck as badly as they have – otherwise I may just have to start paying attention to my horoscope. In the meantime, though, I’ll simply turn to the healing power of chocolate to get me through to the weekend. This is one of my personal favorite snacking chocolates that I discovered when making birthday truffles for Andrew last year. It’s not mind-blowing, just a good, hearty, clean chocolate flavor for when you need to clear your head and just focus on something other than the cat destroying the sofa cover and the fact that you woke up with an inexplicable headache. 

Still, bonne chance, everyone - just in case the stars are feeling cranky. (At least it's Friday!)

Item: DARK 70%
Percentage: 70% (Duh.)

Made By: Green & Black's
Made In: Poland

Purchased At: Whole Foods in Arlington
Price: $5

Review: Green & Black's, like Divine, is good, hearty snacking chocolate. This bar, from their Organic line, is a little more complex than the Divine 70%, but doesn't melt quite as nicely, and they're very comparable. The primary difference between the two is that Divine uses a bit more cocoa butter, making it a bit softer and melty-er, while Green & Black's Organic line A) is organic, and B) uses raw cane sugar instead of the white refined stuff. The price point is the same, the flavor is comparable, and both companies invest in sustainable farming and use only ethically sourced cacao, but the organic factor tends to tip the scales in favor of G&B's. The wrapper touts the bar's "fine Trinitario cacao beans, providing complex fruity notes and intense bittersweet chocolate aromas," but I wouldn't take it too seriously - it's mostly just good, straight-up chocolate. The chocolate flavor here is good and strong, but also falls a bit more on the sweeter, fruitier end of the scale, which makes it great for pairing with coffee or other substantial partners since it won't overpower them. This is also my go-to chocolate for making truffles. (I have a scotch truffle recipe that I could be convinced to share if anyone is looking for one.)  I also really appreciate the note on the back specifying that it's "Suitable for vegetarians" (meaning no white sugar!).

RECOMMEND

With love,
 - K