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 

Christmas Cheer: Dark Chocolate Cinnamon, Chili & Nibs

Really excellent chocolate makes the perfect Christmas gift. There’s more or less infinite variety, so you can find something for everyone, it’s delicious, something people don’t typically buy for themselves, and it’s a consumable, so they won’t have to carry it around for the rest of their lives. It requires no storage, wrangling, organizing, maintenance, batteries, assembly, or remembering to take it to a store and use it up.

So, over the course of the year I’ll pick up various other presents for the people I love. A piece of art for so-and-so, a book that screams to belong to what’s-his-name… In December, though, my research starts in earnest. I look at best-of articles for the year, scour the lists from local directories and chocolate shows, and peruse the selections of chocolatiers, both local and in other parts of the country, trying to locate the perfect, most excellent, enjoyable, preferably local, creative selection. Last year it was the inimitable Dude, Sweet Chocolate in downtown Fort Worth.

This year, after much deliberation, I settled on Kate Weiser, who has her flagship store in the swanky Trinity Groves shopping center in Dallas. After all, who couldn’t use a little something beautiful under the tree after this crazy year?

Kate Weiser makes what can only be described as art chocolate. Her work is gorgeous, creative, and whimsical in a deeply satisfying way. I have never had this much fun wrapping presents, you guys. Carl the drinking chocolate snowman sits in a pot of hot milk, melting away and releasing gorgeous clouds of hot chocolate mix from his tummy and marshmallows from his head, finally furnishing drinking chocolate for 4-6 people. There have also been white chocolate, peppermint, and chipotle versions of Carl in the past. She creates beautiful, truffle-stuffed chocolate ornaments, decked with gold leaf and saturated with the most beautiful blues and pinks and light greens you’ve ever seen in a chocolate shop. Her truffles are incredibly distinctive, ranging from the tame but solid orange butterscotch to the more outrageous dark chocolate and Japanese lime or the daring mango habanero. And her candy bars (like the Passion Praline! Yummmmm...) make the most beautiful stocking stuffers you’ll ever find.

It was a thoroughly magical Christmas. After Andrew and I madly worked through the last few edits for the Isaacs-Bryant Family Cookbook (my other big Christmas gift - thank you for all your help, my dear!), my mother and I joined him and his delightful family for their celebration; we sang, we laughed, we drank lots of wine and made delicious food and danced in crazed circles around the kitchen to joyous Irish Christmas reels (that was mostly me and mom, tbh). Fortunately I wasn’t the only one with the terrific idea of giving chocolate for Christmas – I received no fewer than five different chocolate bars. The most interesting, though, was a Redstone’s bar that I received from Andrew’s brother, Alex. Andrew had given him the terrific advice of sticking to 70% or higher on the cacao content (a really good guideline!), and, in a fit of inspiration, one of the bars Alex picked up for me was laced with cinnamon and chili. I guess I’ve got a reputation for gravitating towards the spicy stuff.

Here’s hoping your 2016 Christmas was every bit as delightful and chocolatey as ours!

Photo Credit: Redstone Foods

Item: Dark Chocolate Cinnamon, Chili & Nibs
Percentage: 72%

Made By: Redstone's
Made In: Carrolton, TX 

Purchased At/Price: Christmas gift!

Review: They’re not trying for too much subtlety here, but the result is excellent execution and a thoroughly enjoyable bar. There’s plenty of heat, with a clear, unmuddy balance between the cinnamon and chili flavors. The cocoa nibs are another success story here – in many bars they’re just simply too big, too hard, or otherwise obnoxious, but here they’re perfect. Toasty, dark, crunchy bits that don’t shatter your teeth or taste burnt, don’t disrupt the experience of the bar, and overall add a nice complement to the smoky, dark heat of the bar. The chocolate flavor isn’t the star of the show here, but it’s good and clean enough to provide a nice backdrop for everything else going on. This one could even be a little (prepare yourselves) sweeter and it would be a lovely contrast to the heat, and could definitely stand a few flakes of sea salt, but it’s still very well done as it is, though. Overall, this is an elegant practice in things being exactly enough – exactly enough heat, enough cinnamon, enough nibs, enough sweetness, enough brute chocolate flavor – to be thoroughly enjoyable. One important caveat - the cinnamon and chili flavors are both super strong, so if you're not a fan then I'd steer clear.

Well done, Alex. Way to capture the Christmas spirit.

RECOMMEND
 
With love,
 - K