Chocolate Archives - Hungry Travelers

Chocolate

Omnom puts the ice (cream) in Iceland

Posted on April 7, 2023March 15, 2023 by Pat and David

Omnom Chocolates are possibly the best known of Iceland's culinary exports, rivaled only by Icelandic sea salt (see this post). We think that they are cleverly named. Say it three time fast and it will sound like you're devouring a chocolate bar. The sophisticated flavors include a licorice white chocolate and ‶burnt and black barley.″ They're widely available in the U.S. and Canada. But you'll have to go to Iceland to try Omnom ice cream, made in the same boxy factory (above) as the chocolates. The location (Hólmaslóð 4; +354 519 5959; omnom.is) is a bit of a schlep from central Reykjavik, but we were happy to go to great lengths for gastronomic research. Omnom sits in a warehouse district only a few streets northwest...Read More

Amazing chocolate mousse for Valentine’s Day

Posted on February 8, 2021February 8, 2021 by Pat and David

This post is admittedly a rerun from 2010, but this dish continues to be a favorite in our household as the final act in a Valentine Day's dinner. We simply lack the skills to reproduce our all-time favorite dessert from Fauchon, the amazing gourmet shop, tea house, and pastisserie on Place de Madeleine in Paris. That would be Mejêve cake—perfect thin layers of crisp meringue with chocolate ganache and chocolate mousse. But this dynamite, simple, foolproof version of chocolate mousse given to us by a French cook, Madame Picavet, fills in nicely. She could effortlessly serve a perfect blanquette de veau or tomatoes stuffed with homemade pâté de campagne, but she also knew a good simple dessert recipe when she saw on. Given that Monsieur...Read More

Warming up with hot drinks in wintry Paris

Posted on February 25, 2020February 21, 2020 by Pat and David

We were happy to go to the Paris sales in January and early February because the climate there is notably milder than our home in Cambridge, Massachusetts. But winter is still winter, and cold rain and mist can be even more chilling than drifting snow. While tramping all over the city (the transit strike had slowed the Metro), it was nice to duck in for something warm. True, there was an enterprising vendor near the north side of Notre-Dame who sold cups of vin chaud to go. But drinking mulled wine from a plastic cup on a crowded sidewalk turned out not to be quite as warming as we hoped. So we explored a few salons de thé, the undisputed queen of hot chocolate shops,...Read More

Cook on the dark side with ‘Ferrandi Chocolate’

Posted on November 22, 2019November 21, 2019 by Pat and David

As the gift-giving season approaches, we've found the perfect pick for aspirational cooks who love chocolate. (And who doesn't?) Ferrandi Paris (www.ferrandi-paris.com/) is coming up on its centennial in 2020. That's 100 years as one of top culinary schools in France. Two years ago, the school issued its pâtisserie cook book for cooks who want to know everything possible about making French pastry. This year's English translation of Ferrandi Chocolate (Flammarion, Paris, $35 US, $47 Canadian) does the same for chocolate, chocolate confections, and chocolate desserts. (The French version appeared simultaneously in France.) This book is more than a compendium of chocolate recipes and techniques. It's one of the most straightforward, easily understood guides to building skills and techniques to work with chocolate. While the...Read More

Candy Lady breaks bad with chile chocolate

Posted on September 16, 2018September 18, 2018 by Pat and David

Debbie Ball created the bright blue crystal meth prop for the first two seasons of Breaking Bad. It's quite a badge of honor in a city that's obsessed with the AMC cult series that went off the air in 2013 but lives forever in online streaming. Fans still flock to the Candy Lady (424 San Felipe NW, Albuquerque, www.CandyLady.com), her jam-packed shop in Albuquerque's Old Town, to pick up 100 gram packages of Breaking Bad Candy for the folks back home. Most can't resist heading to a back room where cardboard cutouts of Walt and Jesse stand behind a table of blue crystals. Fans can slip on black sunglasses and black pork pie hats—the basic Heisenberg identity—and pose for pictures scooping said crystals into plastic...Read More

Pueblo re-creation conjures Mayan past

Posted on February 26, 2018February 23, 2018 by Pat

Little remains of the eight villages established by the Mayans on the island of Cozumel. But two years ago, the Pueblo del Maiz (Carretera Transversal, Camino á San Gervasio km 5, Cozumel, Mexico; +1 984-146-5771) opened to show how the ancient Mayans lived. The complex is centered around a series of thatched roof huts called palapas and populated with guides in often rather dramatic traditional dress. From the start, a visit has a great sense of ceremony. After I had been cleansed with fragrant smoke, I made an offering of cacao beans to a goddess and then planted a couple seeds of corn in the dark earth. It quickly became clear that growing, harvesting, and preparing food was a large part of Mayan life. In...Read More

Chocolate and bourbon make best of friends

Posted on November 22, 2017February 25, 2018 by Pat and David

We were glad to see Andy Embry behind the counter at the cookware store and demonstration kitchen Mesa (216 Pearl Street, 812-725-7691, mesachefs.com) in New Albany. Mesa offers an ambitious schedule of cooking demonstrations led by local chefs. We had signed up for the bourbon and chocolate tasting program that is usually offered once a month, according to Mesa owner Bobby Bass. Embry had been remarkably engaging and knowledgeable when he guided us through the Evan Williams center in Louisville (see this post). And he had offered some good pointers on tasting bourbon. So we were curious to see how he approached pairing bourbon with chocolate. His partner in the demonstration was Erika Chavez-Graziano, founder of Cellar Door Chocolates (cellardoorchocolates.com), which has three shops in...Read More

Inniskillin icewines hit the sweet spot

Posted on July 20, 2017June 6, 2020 by Pat and David

Like many wine drinkers, we've always thought of icewine as an after-dinner treat. But if Inniskillin (www.inniskillin.com) has its way, we'll be drinking it with dinner as well. As Debi Pratt told us when we toured the property, icewine makes an excellent, if somewhat extravagant, table wine. Inniskillin is another pioneer in the Niagara wine region. It was founded in 1975 by Austrian-born Karl Kaiser and Canadian Donald Ziraldo. “Karl said, 'If I'm going to live in a new country, I'm going to drink the wines of my new country,'” Pratt told us. Ziraldo had actually planted Riesling, Chardonnay, and Gamay vines the year before at his commercial nursery. But when Inniskillin launched, the winery relied heavily on two winter-hardy French hybrid grapes, Vidal Blanc...Read More

Cradle of Mexican cuisine, Oaxaca relishes mole negro

Posted on February 3, 2017June 9, 2020 by Pat and David

No one escapes untouched by Oaxaca. This lyrical, magical city has been a powerful cultural and trade center for millennia. It is also arguably the cradle of Mexican cuisine. You can always eat well in Veracruz, Mexico City, and Puebla. But in Oaxaca, you feast. Every dish is a taste revelation. Tomatoes and chile peppers were domesticated in northern Oaxaca around 4500 BC—presumably to spice up all those meals based on beans and corn, which the ancient Oaxacans had domesticated 3,000 years earlier. And Oaxaca continued to expand its larder. By the time the high culture of Monte Alban (right) arose around 500 BC, the Oaxaca Valley was a crossroads of trade between South and North America. Foodstuffs poured in from as far north as...Read More

Valpolicella Classico matches chocolate-spiked ragù

Posted on January 31, 2017June 9, 2020 by Pat and David

We discovered a Fumanelli Valpolicella Classico Superiore 2013 nestled among bigger reds in our limited wine storage. Not having a lot of room to hold wine means drinking bottles when they're ready. With the 2014 already in the market, we figured this welterweight red was ready to go. But what dish would do it justice? The Marchesi Fumanelli family (www.squarano.com) has been making top-flight Valpolicella wines since 1470 at their estate just outside Verona. Perhaps the age of the vineyards (up to 40 years) accounts for the clean flavor and deep fruit expression. The blend has a backbone of 40 percent each of Corvina and the bigger clusters of Corvinone. The rest is Rondinella, which deepens the color and gives the wine more body. The...Read More