Chocolate

How much do I like chocolate? A lot. I like it in every form: hot chocolate, chocolate bars, chocolate truffles, chocolate as an ingredient in mole, in any kind of chocolate dessert, from a cupcake to a souffle, and I even use a cocoa-based face mask once a week and a cocoa lip balm. In short, I am a super fan of chocolate.

Currently I am spending a few days a week working at Santa Barbara’s bean to bar chocolate factory, Twenty-Four Blackbirds. Besides giving tours–an insider’s view into how cacao beans from all over the globe get turned into gorgeous truffles and single-origin bars–I work in the retail shop. My mom thinks this is a dangerous job for me, perhaps imagining a scene out of “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory,” where I fall into a pool of chocolate, or that I will simply overdose on it (is this a real possibility?). Rest assured, I am in very good hands. Mike Orlando, the founder and owner of Twenty-Four Blackbirds, runs an efficient and friendly ship. My days are filled with satisfying the cocoa cravings of locals and tourists alike. In general, those who enter the shop are already in a merry mood, and they leave feeling even better. I may be a bit biased, but the chocolate made under Mike’s guidance is out of this world. The chocolate bars are intensely flavored by the soil and environment from which the beans come, and the truffles are creamy and infused with herbs and unusual spices. Moreover, they are just jaw droppingly beautiful. So I encourage you to go to the website and sign up for a tour; and please visit me at the shop on Haley Street!

In other chocolate news, my birthday is coming up and I have been looking through my baking cookbooks, trying to decide which cake to make this year. In truth, March offers two opportunities to bake a dreamy chocolate cake since my dad was also born in this month, and he is decidedly pro-chocolate. In the past, I have made a luscious layered sour cream chocolate cake with a ganache frosting, a flourless chocolate cake, a layered cake with mocha buttercream frosting, and my mom’s divine and easy chocolate mousse.

This year I am turning my attention, once again, to Nigella Lawson’s Chocolate Guinness Cake. This is an impressive dessert: it is darkly hued, rich, and very chocolately, not overly sweet, and when, frosted, looks like a mug of Guinness, topped with a frothy white head. I am very fond of this cake. In fact, once I found the recipe in my dessert binder, I saw that I had made it for my birthday two years in a row, and I made it for my dad one year as well. Now it is time to make it again and I will be doing so this week. One of the ingredients in Nigella’s cake is sour cream; I’ll purchase one from Canada which I find at the European Market and Deli near my house. Somehow this sour cream manages to be even more smooth and luxurious than any other I have tried. (I swear I am not receiving any commissions from the chocolate shop for my tours or from the dairy industry or from the International Market and Deli…yet!).

How did I come to be so enamored with chocolate? I think it is my dad’s influence combined with the time I spent with relatives in Europe. Growing up, sweets were not commonly found in my house, and cakes were only for birthdays. However, I learned at an early age that my dad was always thrilled to make me a glass of chocolate milk or to indulge me in a chocolate milkshake. His predilection for buttermilk in his shakes is not something I share, but he still prefers them to any other liquid in his drinks. Going to The Galley Cafe in Newport Beach was a Sunday tradition for my family, and though I did not willingly leap out of bed on every weekend morning, the promise of a Galley chocolate shake was enough to motivate me.

In addition, I have warm memories of visiting See’s Candy on the Pacific Coast Highway in Corona del Mar. During the 1970s my mom managed the gift store at the Sherman Library and Gardens. At least once I week, I would take the bus after school to the gift store, where I would do homework and keep her company. At some point during these afternoons, she handed me a couple of dollars and I would walk to See’s. Even though she is not a chocolate person, she always asked me to get her a Bordeaux, and I would get a chocolate buttercream for myself. While I understand and appreciate the craftmanship and fine qualities of single origin chocolate, I still love a handful of Bridge Mix from See’s. I have passed on my love of See’s to my daughters. In fact, Jane dressed up as a See’s lady for Halloween one year.

Ever since I can remember, I was intrigued by stories of my mom’s relatives in France and Switzerland. I spent my high school years working in order to save up for a trip to visit them when I graduated in 1983. The first two weeks of this life-changing adventure were in Bouzy, France, where my cousins make champagne. At the age of 18, I was not super interested in their making of red wine (Bouzy Rouge) and renowned bubbly. What affected me deeply were the meals my cousin’s mom, Simone, made. Twice a day, she and her husband would take a break from their hard work in the vines or the caves to go to her little plot on the edge of town. There she would pick the vegetables we would need for the day’s meals. She then made restaurant worthy dishes of roasted chicken, quiche, pork roast, or grilled beef with gorgeous, fresh salads and vegetables. After our lunch or dinner, we would eat a variety of cheeses (I felt so honored when I got to accompany my cousin to the cheese store and choose the cheeses myself), to be followed by either fruit or a sweet. Once Simone noticed my glee whenever I sat at the table for a meal, she began asking me what my preferences were, and one of those preferences was for her chocolate mousse. From my first bite, I realized I was extremely fortunate to find myself in Simone’s kitchen.

My mom joined me after a few weeks and we left France to stay with her cousin Anita in the Swiss Alps, near Martigny. Going into a regular market to encounter an entire wall devoted to chocolate was I thrill I won’t forget. I also won’t forget how chocolate bars were part of any picnic we went on. I wouldn’t trade the twenty pounds I gained during this first trip to Europe for anything. Through Simone and Anita, and my mom’s parents as well as my parents, I learned the value and superior flavor of home grown vegetables. And I learned how much I wanted chocolate to continue being a part of my life.

As you can imagine, I am always on the lookout for chocolate cake in the bakeries I visit. In the past, Jeannine’s thick slice of cake was my favorite. Its generous slather of fudgy frosting appealed to me. A few years ago, I moved on to the lighter, fluffier chocolate layered cake from Fresco Cafe, enjoying a slice at least once a week. When I discovered the outstanding chocolate cake from Merci Montecito in 2021, I took a break from my quest, thinking I had found my ideal slice. (You can read about this cake and Merci in a past post here.) Today I am poised to try different chocolate creations in town. Any ideas, readers?