It is snowing! In my head.
That is because I am doing most of my holiday planning now, selecting the chocolates, bonbons and candies that will fill the Deli shelves in November and December. Doing this requires me to spend long moments of my day in a kind of winter la-la land, catapulting myself mentally two seasons ahead and thinking about what we will all want to eat and buy when we are cold. Here is what I know: Winter is the time of year when the top of the food pyramid reigns supreme — goodbye basil, hello hot chocolate! It is the best time of year for the sweet of tooth. I am stockpiling accordingly. Have no fear! Your every sugary need will be met when the time comes.
In addition to preparing for winter like a nervous little squirrel, I've also brought in some new foods for us to enjoy right this very moment. At the top of my list are amazing ginger chews from Indonesia (via California) and (belatedly) the new grand cru line from Valrhona. You will also spot four new chocolates on the shelves this month from Patric Chocolate of Columbia, MO. Next month's newsletter will be devoted to Alan McClure and these excellent bean-to-bar chocolates, but for now I would simply like to extend a challenge: If you buy one of the new Patric Chocolate bars this month and email/call me with your impressions, I will mail you a coupon for a free cup of hot cocoa or drinking chocolate in the Next Door. Buy two different bars? I'll buy you two cups of hot chocolate!
I also have a lunchtime Valrhona chocolate demo planned for you on September 17th and — saving the best for last — a not-to-be-missed tasting with the owner of New York City's Chocolat Moderne on September 29th. Read on!
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Highlight of September: A visit from Joan the Great of Chocolat Moderne
This month, I am bringing Joan Coukos-Todd — the chocolatier and founder of Chocolat Moderne — to the Deli for a tasting. I started calling Joan, "Joan the Great" a few months ago because I think she deserves the title. She is one of a few people in the industry who really inspire me. Truly. She (like Shawn, Alan, Katrina, Chloé, etc.) is a fearless entrepreneur who is hopelessly in love with chocolate. She very nearly vibrates with love and excitement for her company and her products. It is intoxicating.
I know Joan, I've spent time with her and I am telling you: You do not want to miss this tasting. Joan is the real-life Vianne Rocher of Chocolat — warm, engaging, creative, hilarious, vivacious. The kind of person you imagine running a chocolate factory in New York City and loving every crazy moment of it. If you have ever thought about quitting your day job to try your hand at chocolate making, meeting Joan just might encourage you need to give it a whirl. Read a little more about Joan, and her chocolate story, here.
 Our program will begin with a guided tasting of six of my favorite Chocolate Moderne bonbons — three of them new to the Deli this month. Then (after a piece of bread and a few sips of water!) we will taste the Moderne bars — Joan's brand new, astoundingly delicious chocolate and toffee bars. Other than a bunch of people at the Fancy Food Show, no one in the country has really tasted these. Their Zingerman's/Michigan debut will happen before your very eyes, the night of the tasting! You will be the first people in Michigan to put them to the taste test, blind-sampling all six.
Proposed tasting list
BONBONS: Hazelnut Hystérie (hazelnut praliné with milk chocolate), NEW Madeline Marron (candied chestnut with Haitian rum), NEW Baklava (walnut praliné with sweet spices and orange zest), The Lover (passion fruit caramel), NEW Amarena Mon Amour (a tart Italian cherry in a vodka-infused syrup), and Caramel Caresse (pear caramel with Poire William).
BARS: It is a secret.
Les Grands Crus de Valrhona
In August, I brought in all eight of the sleek and sexy Valrhona Grand Cru chocolates, thinking that I would give them all a shot and then eventually whittle the line down to five or six bars. After a month of tasting, I believe I have my favorites — do you? Please email me if you have a strong opinion about which of these eight below should be keepers. It's almost time for me to re-order!
But wait a second. Before we go any further — what the heck does grand cru mean anyway?
Grand cru is a borrowed term from oenology — the study of wine and winemaking. More specifically, it is borrowed from French wine culture. Grand cru is a term intended to describe the quality of a wine coming from a specific terroir in a specific year, as in "Les grands crus de Bourgogne" — "The great wines of Burgundy." An English word that we substitute for grand cru sometimes is vintage. By using the term grand cru in the context of their single origin chocolates*, Valrhona hopes to evoke a similar association between the quality/flavor of a chocolate and a particular growing region.
Valrhona is credited with being the first chocolate company to introduce the idea that the flavor of a chocolate — particularly a single origin or single estate chocolate — is influenced by the time and place where the cacao was grown. This is the idea of terroir, which is a tricky notion for chocolate that I won't get into right now except to say one thing: While there are certainly differences in flavor based on growing regions, it is usually misleading to suggest that a given flavor is characteristic or typical of a region. It is much more complicated than that, as you might suspect.
Whether or not the grand cru chocolates Valrhona express the terroir of each origin is up for debate! But they certainly do provide a wide range of flavors and aromas to explore. If you taste through the eight bars (particularly the dark chocolates), you will experience varying intensities of astringency, acidity and aromas. The Manjari is truly different from the Tainori, is different from the Abinao, etc. This kind of depth within a range is always exciting.
Another thing I appreciate about the grand cru lot is that there are many bars in the 60% range. I think a lot of chocolate makers are scared to dip below 70% these days (perhaps the press has made them scared of sugar?) and thus the market is glutted with bars 70% and higher. Not that I am complaining, as many of these higher % bars are excellent! However, I think some beans are simply better expressed at lower percentages and I am glad to see Valrhona continuing to play to the slightly sweeter side of dark chocolate.
Here are my tasting notes, by descending percentage. Don't forget to come to the Next Door on September 17th to taste some of these for yourself!
Abinao (African blend) 85%
Aroma :: Winey, minerals. Smells like it is going to wreak havoc in my mouth — grab my tongue and never let go.
Flavor :: Tannins at last! Very, very earthy. An excellent high % chocolate bar.
Guanaja (South America) 70%*
Aroma :: Similar to the Caraibe.
Flavor :: Woody. The aftertaste puzzles me.
*This was the first retail bar that Valrhona released, in 1986. Caraïbe followed in 1988.
Alpaco (Ecuador) 66%
Aroma :: Floral and dusty (like a garden).
Flavor :: A little thin in the mouth, but the flavor is great. Just like what it smells like!
Caraïbe (Caribbean islands) 66%
Aroma :: Musty, like smelling a shell or a rock.
Flavor :: Steady as she goes. Nothing stand out, just a well balanced chocolate bar.
Reminds me of the old 56% and 71% blended bars. This would be an excellent chocolate to bake with.
Manjari (Madagascar) 64%
Aroma :: If your nose could water, Manjari would be the bar to do it.
Flavor :: This bar has excellent acids. Mouthwatering and lively, with a hint of burnt almonds near the end. Fresh berries here, but also dried fruit. Finish is a little shorter than I recall, though.
Tainori (Dominican Republic) 64%
Aroma :: High and light, but not juicy.
Flavor :: Not as fresh and light as Manjari, but still bright and vivid. Tobacco, figs and cocoa. Thin mouthfeel, excellent balance.
Jivara (Ecuador) 40% milk chocolate
Aroma :: A malted milk ball.
Flavor :: There is brown sugar and malt in this bar, and those (along with caramel) are the dominant flavors.
Tanariva (Madagascar) 33% milk chocolate
Aroma :: Smells very sweet, also like hazelnuts
Flavor :: Extremely sweet, almost like white chocolate. The vanilla is intense here.
*For Valrhona, single origin may mean anything from single continent — in the case of the Abinao bar, which is made from "African" cacao — to single region — as in the case of Manjari, where the cacao is most likely coming from the northwest part of the island of Madagascar.
Next month...
The Halloween Hootenanny!
An interview with Alan McClure of Patric Chocolate
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