Chocolate

Chocolate-lovers, brace yourselves: Chocomize lets you create custom chocolate treats. You pick the chocolate (dark, milk, or white, all premium Belgian), then select from more than 80 ingredients (nuts, fruit, herbs and spices, candies such as Gummies and marshmallows, decorations such as edible gold, or "other" -- try bacon!), then select one of three charities, to which Chocomize will donate a portion of its profits. Gift certificates are available, or you can join the Chocolate of the Month Club, and even order in bulk for weddings and parties. Check out their fun blog, too.

Chocolate is one of the most popular foods in the world yet it has a very elusive history -- so many enjoy it but have no idea how, when, or where it first came to be.

Origins in the Amazon
The cacao tree is thought to have originated in the Amazon about 4000 years ago. The word chocolate can be traced back 2000+ years all the way to the Aztec word "xocoatl," which meant "bitter water" and referred to an unsweetened drink the Aztecs brewed from cacao beans. There's also evidence of an ancient alcoholic brew made by fermenting the fleshy fruit that surrounds the cacao beans in old pottery remnants from Honduras.

Magical and Divine
Cacao beans were also considered by the Mayans and the Aztecs to be divine and magical, with legends attributing the origins of the tree and beans to various Gods in the heavens. Cacao beans were considered valuable and often used as currency for the ancient tribes, in addition to being incorporated into many sacred rituals.

Over to Europe
When Europeans discovered the Americas they didn't like the bitter chocolate drink at first, but when they tried sweetening it (with honey or cane juice) it was another story and the new beverage quickly became popular and spread throughout Spain. Throughout the 17th century chocolate continued to gain popularity as a drink for the rich and affluent all over Europe, credited with nutritional, medicinal, and aphrodisiac qualities.

The first chocolate bar
In the early 1800s 'dutch cocoa' was born when a chemist learned how to make powdered chocolate by removing some of the natural fat, then pulverizing what was left and treating it with alkaline salts to remove the bitterness. Several years later a man named Joseph Fry took dutch cocoa and added melted cacao butter, thus inventing the first modern chocolate bar.

And the rest is history
Cadbury was the first company to market chocolate candies in 1868, followed quickly by Nestle who came out with milk chocolate just a few years later.

Chocolatier Godiva recently introduced its Home Fragrance Collection of five candles, in collaboration with Laura Slatkin, wife of Harry, of Slatkin & Co.

The nicely-packaged candles come in five scents: Holiday Peppermint Bark, Milk Chocolate Truffle, Black Almond Truffle, White Chocolate Magnolia, and Raspberry Ganache.

The candles are the brand's first foray into the home fragrance category in its more-than 80-year history and represent a departure from Godiva's traditional culinary products.

Neiman Marcus carries the collection. One of these would make a lovely host gift. Reasonably priced at $22.50 each.

Get your taste buds ready, the third annual Taste TV Los Angeles Luxury Chocolate Salon will be held on October 11th 2009, 11am-5pm at the Pasadena Center. It's even bigger this year, with over 16,000 square feet, over twice as much room as last year. Participants include over over 35 chocolatiers, confectioners, wineries and other culinary artisans, such as: Choclatique, Happy Chocolates, Rushburn Toffee Co., The Tea Room chocolate, Quady Winery, Chocolatl, Alter Eco Fair Trade Chocolate, Helen Grace Chocolates, Mignon Chocolate, TCHO, Amano Artisan Chocolate, Plush Puff Gourmet Marshmallows, Sweet Beauty Organic Chocolate Spa and many more. In addition to the delicious sampling opportunities there will also be demonstrations, chef and author talks, wine tasting and a chocolate chef competition. Tickets are $20 in advance or $25 at the door.

More and more wedding cakes are going the cupcake route with either nothing but cupcakes or a large cake and matching cupcakes for guests. The Little Candy Cake Company takes the matching idea one step further (or smaller) with solid chocolate mini wedding candy cakes. Forrmer MTV costume designer Lucinda Sierra is behind the candy cake favors. Each one is made out of solid milk or white chocolate with designs created especially for select events. Lucinda works directly with each client to create unique favors for the bride and groom or for any other special occasion. Prices start at $6 each for 1-25 two-inch, two-tier candies.

Although traditionalists may not approve of the way the term "high tea" is bandied about these days -- it used to mean an elaborate early dinner, with meat -- who could really disapprove of The Table Bay Hotel's interpretation: a celebration of chocolate?

From 2:30 to 5:30 pm each day, dive into all things chocolate, from white chocolate madeleines with candied lime zest to rum chocolate truffles. You could have all this chocolate with tea, which costs 160 Rand (about $20), but why not throw tradition totally to the wind and pair it with a glass of champagne? (240 Rand.) And if you love chocolate so much that you feel like you'd just like to be immersed in it, the hotel's Camelot Spa is offering a 75 minute treatment which includes body scrubs of cocoa and sugar, vanilla massage, a cocoa mask, ending with a glass of hot chocolate. The Chocolate Delight spa special runs through the end of August.

Bissinger's Handcrafted Chocolatier is a chocolate company with some really inventive stuff. Yes, they have the standards like bear claws and cherry cordials, but have you ever tried a chocolate sprinkled with flakes of sea salt? Or a porcini mushroom truffle? Or an actual sugarplum?

Bissinger's began over 350 years ago in 17th Century France, and was even enjoyed by King Louis XIV. They moved their headquarters to St. Louis, Missouri in 1927, and four years ago were joined by their Chief Chocolatier -- the friendly and talented Terry Wakefield (pictured). Wakefield was actually a nuclear engineer before he got into the chocolate business (I'm serious), but he now has 40 years of experience in the food industry. He even once ran a 6.5 acre chocolate manufacturing plant -- experience which provided him with an intimate and supremely technical knowledge about creating chocolates. He even knows how to make chocolate good for you!

"Chocolate is a great way to help people lose weight," says Wakefield. "Seriously! Dark chocolate has a high satiety factor if you don't eat it too fast."

He also knows more about the effects of dark chocolate's antioxidants than anyone I've ever heard speak on the topic: "You want antioxidants to eliminate free radicals, but you make free radicals when you eat. The break even point for dark chocolate is 50 or 60 percent."

Got that? If your dark chocolate is less than 50 percent cocoa, you aren't getting antioxidant benefits (but at least you're lessening the free radical damage -- a fine excuse to continue eating more chocolate).

All right, onto the good stuff. Pictures of the tasting (held at The Audrey Lounge in NY's W Tuscany Hotel) are below, and if you live in St. Louis or near Edina, Minnesota (a suburb of Minneapolis where, coincidentally, I happened to live for 14 years), you can visit an actual Bissinger's boutique or the Chocolate Experience Lounge in the Central West End. The rest of us will have to stick to ordering online, or finding the chocolates at retailers like Bloomingdale's.

If you haven't tried Bissinger's chocolates before, you're going to want to after you see this gallery!

Diamonds, chocolate, pearls ... so good, together or apart. In this case, however, chocolate refers to the color, not the ingredients. Jared now offers LeVian Chocolatier Natural Color Chocolate Diamonds, including rings, earrings, necklaces/pendants, one bracelet, and two watches. Jared also has Le Vian's chocolate cultured pearls. I've never seen this color in diamonds or in pearls, and I like it, but I'm partial to brown. Prices for the diamonds range from $780 - $6,000, and for the pearls, from $400 - $1,700. See much more from Le Vian on its own site, and see the gallery for a few quirky pieces.

They aren't diamonds but the 24k gold and diamond chocolates in the Chocouture Diamond Collection do feature edible gold leaf. The candy diamond is made out of sugar and set in a chocolate that is made with a single-malt Scotch ganache. Each gemlike candy is set in glassine paper inside the faux leather box. These candies sell for $105 for 16 pieces.

Rum and chocolate are a natural match and they get their full expression in a new menus pairing premium St Lucian rum, Elements 8 with Galler chocolates at the Intercontinental Park Lane in London. The Park Lane Selection menu will be served from end of May 2009, for six months. Pairings include the Park Lane which is Elements 8 Gold, white crème de cacao, punt e mes & paire with Galler Volcaniques chocolate which has pepper flavors; the Galler 8 which pairs Elements 8 Platinum, white Crème de cacao & paire with Galler Florales chocolate which has floral flavors, and InterContinental Daiquiri of Elements 8 Platinum, white crème de cacao, lime juice with Galler Marines which has salty flavors, and the Platinum & Gold using both Elements 8 Platinum and Elements 8 Gold, white crème de cacao, espresso & paired with Galler 70% plain, dark chocolate.

Galler sells a variety of interesting chocolates, the most intriguing is the Kaori kit modeled on Japanese calligraphy sets. It has brush-like sticks of chocolate and inkpots containing Orange and Cocoa Nibs, Matcha Green Tea and Poppy Seeds, and Kalamansi. Flavors can be mixed and matched for different taste sensations.

The classic Hershey's Kiss shape is an icon. It brings to mind visions of simpler times -- uncomplicated chocolate being "kissed" onto the confectioner's paper. With the Hershey's Kiss' close association with Valentine's Day and other love-related occasions, it was only a matter of time until they came out with diamonds.

The new collection by World Trade Jewelers, which celebrates the Hershey's Kiss and is the official Hershey's Kiss jewelry line, is showcasing this week in Las Vegas at JCK, and is available in NYC this summer at Peachtree Jewelers, Golden Nugget Jewelers, AOL/Time Warner Center, and The Plaza Hotel -- priced from $499.00 - $7999.00.

The pieces are simple and lovely -- and a beautiful way to give "chocolate" to someone who's watching their weight. The Hershey's Kiss collection, including the Medium Hershey's Kiss Pendant, 1.66ct, $3,995 (above), will be available nationwide in the fall.

More exciting still: The first 20 Luxist readers attending JCK to give the code "Luxist" to booth #7117 will receive a complementary sterling silver kiss necklace! Tell your friends in Vegas!

Chocolatier Jacques Torres has escalated his battles against Hershey's Kisses. As I wrote last week, Hershey's asked Torres to stop using the word kiss to describe his champagne kisses. Instead of complying, the charismatic chocolate maker has gone one the offensive. Yesterday he doled out free Champagne Kiss chocolates at his three New York stores to raise awareness of the Hershey's campaign and has a petition at his stores that has been signed by many including David Hyde Pierce. He also has an online petition site called SaveJacquesKiss.com where he encourages people to buy a 50-piece box ($55) to support him. The simple cease and desist is turning into quite the marketing campaign for Torres.

You wouldn't think that chocolatier Jacques Torres would have to worry about his products catching the eye of Hershey's. But Torres makes a rather delicious confection called the champagne kiss which is chocolate kissed with Taittinger Rose champagne and decorated with a lip print ($57.50 for a box of 50). This caught the attention of the Hershey Company which had their lawyers send Torres a letter claiming that kiss and kisses are Hershey's trademarks and that Torres discontinue the use of the words in connection with his chocolates.

The best part of this story is the reply from Torres's lawyer which NY Magazine's Grub Street has reproduced. It says that Jacques Torres will not discontinue use of the name and that the request is "yet another example of a giant, monolithic corporation attempting to take advantage of 'the little guy,' in this case, a world-renowned artisan from France." The letter goes on to say that the two products could never be confused and that "the analogy might be similar to Chevrolet complaining that Rolls Royce is infringing on the Chevrolet trademark." Certainly it is true that no one is likely to confuse the two products but is a kiss still a kiss? A quick Google search of the phrase "chocolate kisses" pulls up pages of recipes, Hershey products and even a book and a nail polish that use the phrase as titles, but not a sign of Torres's chocolates.

Given the price of gold these days I'm not sure if you are supposed to eat this or tuck it in the bank. Actually you can do both with this one. Selfridges is offering a chocolate egg created by Melt's head chocolatier Chika Watanabe with one troy ounce of gold bullion set into it. Selfridges tells the Telegraph that the coin used on the egg is a particularly rare one that the Royal Mint no longer produces and is worth £900. Each egg is made to order with a choice of single origin chocolates. It is decorated with 18 carat gold leaf and filled with salted caramels. It sells for £1,000.

Who could resist an invitation from a woman who says cheese changed her life. Barrie Lynn, the Cheese Impressario is a dynamo in a gold sequined and leopard print apron who hosted a special rum, cheese and chocolate last night. I've been to pairings of wine and cheese and chocolate before but never rum. But specialty rums (especially the rum selections poured by Henry Preiss) worked very well with Barrie Lynn's cheese selections.

One of Barrie Lynn's finds is Holland's Family Farm in Wisconsin.Rolf and Marieke Penterman are first generation Wisconsin dairy farmers who moved from the Netherlands to Wisconsin in 2002. They make incredible aged Gouda with rich and complex flavors. Of particular note is the Foenegreek Gouda which is creamy and distinctive. It's impossible to have one piece without immediately wanting another just to take your mouth on the same journey of surprising flavor again. It would be a rock star on a cheese plate, paired perhaps with dried apricots or grapes. The Burning Nettle Melange Gouda is also far more pleasant than the name might lead you to believe. It has a grassy herbal bite that would make it a great start to a meal.