October 2012 Blog Posts (9)

Dominican Republic is the main exportator of organic cacao in the world. There is a lot of great cacao produced here but not too many people to prepare a great chocolate out of it.

If everything runs well we will be opening one of our ChocoMuseo in Bávaro, Punta Cana on the 15th of November.

For those who never visited us in one of our other ChocoMuseo in Nicaragua, Guatemala and Perú, we will be teaching people about cacao and its artisanal process to be transformed in…

Check out the album of photos.

Traveling to Amsterdam

I have only ever been to the airport in Amsterdam before - Schipol - changing planes 'twixt here and there. So I was looking forward to spending a few days to learn and explore. 

I know why I took the early train from London (8:05am out of St…

Does anyone know of a source for a wall calendar with chocolate as its theme? They have them for everything else - dogs, cats, sailboats, guitars, mountains - everything - but I've never seen one for chocolate. Any suggestions?

Check out the photo album from the weekend. [ Note: I am working on a new approach to blogging, which is to put all the photos in an album and to write detailed notes for each photo. Blog entries cover topics not shown in the photos. ]

Featuring well over 50 exhibitors this year from all over the world and representing a wide variety of styles of chocolate and confectionery,…

Friday dawned just as many days do in London, chill and damp.

Still, I am in London where it is warmer than New York, and by the time I make my way from the Sloane Square tube stop to Piccadilly and make my way to the Royal Automobile Club (venue for the Second Academy of Chocolate conference) the sun is shining and I am very much looking forward to the day even though I was too rushed to have coffee before…

Hi all....

I was wandering if any panners are making your own glaze?  I had a recipe at one time which included corn syrup, sugar, acacia and water but never had any luck with it.  I was curious as to others experience with similar recipes...

Also....  how do your recipes compare to a product such as Capol?  Are you getting a perfect polish every time? how much time does it take you to polish a batch?

thanks...

Jeremy

As consumers, we are so demanding, sometimes fixated, in knowing where our water, milk, fish, meat, cheese, fruits, spirits, etc, originate. As an example, we are willing to pay $15, 20, 25 or more for a pound of prime beef, excellent fish or cheese as long as we are told of the origin. But when it comes to “fine” chocolate, people will open up their wallets to the tune of $25, $30, $40, $50, or…

London. 

Believe it or not, London is probably the most dynamic city on the planet for chocolate It's hard to overstate just how much creativity and interesting work is going on here.

My plane arrived about 15 minutes ahead of schedule and the best thing that can be said for the flight was that it was uneventful. The only downside is arriving at a sleepy 7:30 am (2:30 am New York time). I sailed through immigration, customs, and baggage claim, and found my way to the…

I am writing this in the chocolate factory I have been helping to build for Fine & Raw Chocolate. I am getting ready to leave for London - I leave for the airport in less than six hours. There is still much to do and I am going away for two weeks at a critical juncture. Sigh. Construction projects do tend to stretch, but this has taken longer than even a stretch schedule.

It's less than four hours before I head to the airport and my Heritage Radio Network program streams live at…