Chocolate and Wine Pairing

We take our chocolates to the cozy and intimate wine cellar of Atwater Village's 55 Degree Wine bar to pair with their exceptional wine flights. Evening's selection of solid chocolate cakes, set up on round wooden cheese boards include the following flavors from left to right: spicy Pink Peppercorns with just the right amount of heat, aromatic and refreshing Lavender Flowers, mild and fragrant Pistachios and delicate Dried Raspberries with a hint of tartness.

Our friends join in and quickly our table is covered with 3 times as many wine glasses.

William Sonoma Farmer's Market

Featuring our chocolates with the Cheese Store of Pasadena at the farmer's market organized by William Sonoma, set up in The Commons courtyard in Pasadena. Barks in various flavors are on the sampling board. In the crate we have our dark chocolate dipped dried fruit - apricots, orange slices and candied orange peels. And on the left we are featuring our premium drinking chocolate launched this season made from finally milled pure dark chocolate. It makes a rich and velvety drink with intense chocolate flavor and aroma - pure indulgence that perfectly complements the coming holiday season.

Breakfast at Deluca's

We are waiting outside Deluca's Italian Deli on a bright morning for 11 o'clock to strike. The guy with a freckled face greets us, the first customers of the day, inviting our attention to the chocolate croissants he had finished dusting with powdered sugar. Without thinking twice we order it with dry cappuccino. We frequent Deluca's for their cozy European ambiance, gourmet food and hospitable service (and once in a while to hear some Italian words) but today we come with a purpose. We brought some chocolate samples hoping they would be interested to add local artisan chocolates to their selection. Deluca's sells a variety of chocolate products from bars to confections, presented in eye catching packages lined up next to the cashier's counter, so we brought samples of our dark chocolate disks in three flavors to suggest that they offer in their Deli section to pair with the assortment of cheeses, preserves and charcuterie. The manager in charge is not at the store today, so we leave our chocolates with Julia, the person in charge this morning, whose warm and welcoming grin is encouraging. To suggest variety, we also brought a few samples of our salt and caramel mendiant disks and dark chocolate dipped oranges which we explain were candied in Italy! She will pass them to the manager, Julia promises.

Our cappuccinos with thick, enticing foam overflowing the cup's rim are served with Italian almond biscotti and our order of warm chocolate croissants freshly baked this morning. This perfect picture is captured with our iPhone before the foam clings to our upper lips like an old gentleman's mustache. However under the rich foam we discover dark, overheated coffee. Disappointed, we hesitate to voice our expert opinion. The girl at the counter scrupulously made the perfect foam overlooking the coffee. If she had focused on the coffee instead of the foam, our picture wouldn't have come out so pretty. Why can't we have perfection in life will never stop to puzzle us, but we want to start the day on the right foot and focus on the the perfect croissants instead which more than make up for the bad coffee. We stay positive and keep our fingers crossed that perhaps there might be a chance to see our chocolates one day on Deluca's counters.

Mamas vs Viv

Before we tell this story, we need to pause here and elaborate a little further about us, in case it couldn't be extrapolated from our earlier posts. We are fashion savvy, we love colors and we accessorize with jewelry, scarves and hats. And since we share a great sense of humor, we are generally in pleasant mood when we are together (with few exceptions of course).

This picture, taken impromptu at Elizabeth's house before a night-out well characterizes us. That evening when one of us came to pick up the other, we nearly fell to the floor because we were both wearing our Anthropologie hats in complementary colors, purchased few days earlier on an impulse. There were only two left in the store, in reverse colors of Elizabeth's favorite lavender and Lili's favorite yellow - in other words they were made for us. If wearing the hats wasn't enough, we both happened to be in our ankle boots independently bought from Zappos for the season, Lili's in her favorite brown color and Elizabeth's in her favorite red.

Now, here's the story. We had kindly asked Vivien, a lovely aspiring young artist who also happens to be Lili's daughter, to create an artwork representing the two Moms in her signature style so we can incorporate it in our logo. Vivien already contributes her artistic talent by individually hand-writing flavor descriptions of our chocolate bars on the packaging. We didn't give Vivien any ideas, hints or suggestions, so honestly we got a little apprehensive and lost sleep over this - would the extra pounds gained from our week-long Napa trip make their way to her drawing? Would Vivien dress us in designer shoes and clothing? Would she accessorize us with fancy jewelry? Would she conceal our stubborn grays? or glamorize us with make-up and hairdo? Would our occasional manicures and pedicures make it through?

It turns out we didn't need to spell out to Vivien how we wanted to look; she knew exactly how to portray us, which she conceptualized and produced in less time than it took us to make a batch of chocolates. We expressed a sigh of relief - Vivien saw the Moms exactly how the Moms wanted to be seen (or perhaps she prudently avoided any conflict). But here's the thing. We liked the fashion and the physiques, but what happened to our faces? Where was our smile, our lipsticks? Vivien gingerly went back to work and, before the Moms finished tempering, she had transformed her drawing. Now we're talking! But wait a minute, something's still missing - no jewelry? Alright, the fancy clothing makes up for it, so we love it, Viv..... but there's one little thing before we endorse it - we always wear a perfume, where is it?

To hear Vivien's story, check out "Viv vs Mamas" posted on July 4th, 2012 on her blog www.vivartdream.blogspot.com

Behind the scenes.....

Produced for the ankle boots picture above since the original photo was taken above the feet. Anything can be fixed!

Burlesque

I'm having a rose "scarletini", martini with rose water and fresh crushed strawberries, at the Scarlet Tea Room. I'm here for a Father's Day special burlesque dinner. The desert, a special and the most expensive item on the dessert menu, is a 10" round solid dark chocolate disc infused with rose tea and covered with dried rose petals. It is served with two glasses of port wine and a few fresh rose pedals sprinkled on top matching the restaurant's red decor and the hot red outfits the sexy burlesque dancers are wearing. Red feathery garlands wrapped around the waiters' neck also lace the crystal chandeliers to put the guests in the right mood for the occasion, not to mention that every dish and cocktail served is also adorned with red rose pedals.

The waiter offers three choices of flavors for the special chocolate dessert - rose tea, red raspberries and pink peppercorns - as I watch him describe it with great enthusiasm. He has no idea that I'm intimately familiar with what he attempts to describe with such effort nor can he guess how many hours of labor, patience, frustrations and excitement has gone into making the 30 solid chocolate discs that the restaurant has ordered for their Father's Day special weekend dinners. I'm here to witness our chocolate creation come out of the restaurant's kitchen served on a lace doily as if created by a celebrity chef, and be cracked with a knife into little pieces, then watch the guests' faces as they reach impatiently for a piece glad there's plenty left on the doily. My heart melts with that piece of chocolate as I savor this pride moment.

-Elizabeth

Balanced Life

      

    Today we are experimenting with layering dark chocolate and caramel. We pipe melted chocolate into a mold, then carefully pipe a dollop of caramel in the center and cover it with melted chocolate so that the caramel is completely encased in chocolate. Inspired by a particular restaurant's red decor, we sprinkle dried raspberry powder on the truffle and place a whole raspberry in the center. Pairing chocolate and caramel with raspberry will balance sweet and tart. We experiment with various candy cups to find the ideal size and shape for the truffle so that all three ingredients are in desirable proportions. Using mini muffin tins to support the candy cups, we work together hastily alternating layered piping so we can decorate the truffle with dry raspberries before it sets. These petit and elegant raspberry-caramel jewels are not only a labor of love but also a testament to our great affection and tolerance for each other as we stand heart to heart on a two square foot area of the kitchen bent over a small cupcake mold piping layers of melted chocolate and caramel with such precision, concentration, patience and perseverance as though performing a brain surgery on an insect. At another time of a month this operation may not be tolerated but today it's smooth and fruitful. Fortunately for us, heat is not an issue. Chocolate, as a gracefully aging woman, performs best under ambient room temperature between 65F and 70F. And as true women we have cravings, and with all the caramel we've seen and eaten today, we crave for salt. So our al fresco lunch is made up with smoked salmon on a baguette, with layers of thinly sliced shallots, tomatoes and orange bell peppers, topped with creme fraiche, capers and chives while Elizabeth's son Henry plays Chopin's Mazurka Opus 33 on the piano. We toast to a balanced life! 

Rose Buds

      The rose buds order arrived in time to decorate our rose tea infused chocolates. Only, instead of rose buds our supplier had packed rose hips -  a whole bunch of them! Even though they both come from the same plant, except for the first word these two have nothing in common in terms of culinary taste. We have no use for the misplaced rose hips but our parents would welcome a year's supply of rose hip tea. Instead, we headed to Chinatown in search of rose buds. Our final destination? - a much needed scrub treatment in a Korean spa to shed our chocolate-infused skin. We escaped a few jay walking tickets and faced a few dozen raised eye brows as we hopped from store to store trying to describe the limited English speaking Chinese store staff a rose bud in a combination of words and pantomime. We found it - rose buds with lovely pink and red colored petals Chinese women drink as a healthy infusion. We add them to black tea along with cardamom, cinnamon, orange peel and other spices to create our own blend of tea to infuse our chocolates with. Next we head to Koreatown just in time to subject ourselves to the most rigorous scrubbing our bodies had seen since our mother's gave us a rub-a-dub-dub in our baby tubs nearly a century ago. It's hard to tell what percentage of our shed skin contained the dark chocolate that had made its way through our bloodstream and skin pores, but it was clear from our before and after weight that at least a few pounds of our collective skin had gone down the drain. Renewed and a few pounds lighter we finished our Orient-inspired retreat with a sushi lunch. We now understand the secret behind Asian women's glowing skin - rose buds!