The first time I had French pastries in France was as a 19-year-old Harvard College senior studying abroad in Paris.
Paris love, age 19
That trip put me on a mission to spread fine chocolate and pastry, led to my founding of the original Chocolate Tours in Chicago and beyond, and – after closing the chocolate tours earlier this year – still continues to inspire me as I speak and consult about chocolate.
Pastry peek at Alliance Patisserie
Chef Peter Rios has opened a little bit of Paris in Chicago, with his new Alliance Patisserie. Pastry followers worldwide may know Chef Peter as the owner of Alliance Bakery, also in Chicago, known for innovative specialty cakes and more, or may know him through one of his many incarnations as pastry chef superstar.
Scenes at Alliance Patisserie…
Chef Peter told me it has always been his dream to open a shop focusing on French pastry, ever since he graduated from Kendall College and later studied with pastry giants such as the great Pierre Herme in Paris.
His dream came true, and Alliance Patisserie now helps the dreams of others come true, whether by sharing some of the best macarons or classic French pastries outside of Paris, or by serving as the romantic site of a marriage proposal, which I was thrilled and honored to facilitate for a lovely couple after a chocolate tasting I led for them in the shop!
I arranged with the groom to tuck the ring into the pastry case……she said yes!
Feeling tropical: chocolate and pineapple bar by Nemzer Chocolate
Think about this any time you need a lift: chocolate comes from fruit!
Chocolate is of course made from cocoa beans (cacao), which are the seeds of the fruit of the cacao tree. The seeds are harvested, dried, fermented, roasted, ground, and fashioned into chocolate.
Organic Ecuadorian cacao
Why is cacao so loaded with health benefits, that it’s considered a superfood? Because it’s plant-based. It comes from fruit. It can reduce the risk of heart disease and stroke, it’s a metabolism booster and anti-inflammatory, and it’s filled with valuable vitamins and minerals.
So how delightful to discover a new brand from California, Nemzer Chocolate, which incorporates freeze dried fruit into dark chocolate. Since chocolate comes from fruit, these chocolate bars are basically a fruit salad!
Chocolate and banana bar in actionChocolate and raspberry
Founder Roman Nemzer bases his chocolate on a French recipe, and the flavors are nicely balanced, with a mild and chocolatey 65% cacao.
French flair, freeze dried fruit, California cool. That’s a fruit salad!
Let there be balloons: festive Dose Market at the Chicago Cultural Center
Picture chocolate, pastry, fashion, jewelry, and more, under one roof.
Picture that roof over my favorite building in Chicago, the Chicago Cultural Center (which was the main branch of the Chicago Public Library when I was a little girl).
That was the scene for the April edition of Dose Market, a dynamic marketplace that showcases chefs, designers, and makers of all stripes. The market was co-sponsored in April 2015 by the Lake FX conference for artists and entrepreneurs, which added an extra touch of excitement.
At Dose Market: salted chocolate cranberry orange toffee by Terry’s Toffee, a longtime favorite
Add the fact that among the makers showcased were longtime chocolate friends, and soon-to-be-made chocolate friends, and of course I attended. I attended, I chocolate scouted, and I enjoyed.
What exactly is chocolate scouting? That’s my term for exploring the world and finding delicious chocolate and pastry. It’s something I’ve always done: on any trip to a new city, even as a child, I always wanted to find the best chocolate. That hasn’t changed, and I chocolate scout where I live and where I travel, for business and for pleasure.
Dose Market at the Chicago Cultural Center featured some exquisite and creative chocolate and pastry offerings from old friends…
Rare Bird Preserves, including chocolate blueberry, owned by dear Elizabeth Madden, a French Pastry School gradWith dear Terry Opalek of Terry’s Toffee
And from new friends…
Deeply impressive chocolate raspberry tart and macarons by newcomer Verzenay Patisserie, owned by delightful husband-and-wife team Aqeel and Arshiya Farheen. Arshiya is the chef, and she graduated from Ferrandi culinary school in Paris.Gingerbread cookies year round from delicious Dough Dough Bird, owned by new friend Julie Goding, a French Pastry School gradIntriguing low-glycemic mole bread with cacao and chipotle by Zapp’s Dancing Grains,
Chocolatier/owner Jeremy Karp of Batch PDX is basically a chocolate magician.
Pure ingredients, precise technique, and classic yet creative flavor combinations, make these bonbons from Portland, Oregon, some of the most exquisite I’ve tasted in quite some time. Everyone who sampled from my batch of Batch PDX fell into rapture and reverence.
Portland to Chicago: unwrapping a bounty of bonbons, including the hazelnut, almond, and feuilletine Nutty Crunchy PDX
What exactly is a bonbon? A bonbon is a candy, usually covered in chocolate.
And what is a truffle? It’s a ganache center covered in chocolate. What is ganache? Ganache is chocolate mixed with cream, and other ingredients may be added, such as raspberry, Champagne, or whatever the chocolatier chooses in order to tell the desired story or explore the desired path. So a truffle is chocolate covered chocolate, you ask? Basically, yes, and hooray!
Sometimes bonbon is used as the general term, and a truffle is a specific iteration.
The Vietnamese Ice Coffee: chocolate ganache, with coffee and milk, in a dark chocolate cup.
And how did the truffle get its name? Chocolate truffles are named after mushroom truffles, a fungi delicacy that comes out of the earth, covered in dirt. The original chocolate truffles were rolled in cocoa powder, as some still are, which was seen as resembling the dirt that covered mushroom truffles.
Nature and art dance, and amazing creations like Jeremy’s flavorful and balanced Batch PDX bonbons are the result. These are truly lovely chocolates.
The Yuzu Gimlet: a citrusy cocktail of a bonbon, dancing here with cocoa beans
By the way, why is Portland nicknamed PDX? That’s the airport code!
Spicy Passion: a Batch PDX bonbon of passion fruit and local peppers, enrobed in white chocolate – sweet with heat
Loved opening this shipment of single origin, bean to bar, pure deliciousness from Cao Chocolates
Sampling new artisan chocolate bars is always a joy, and I’m excited to tell you about the new bean-to-bar single origin chocolate bars by longtime favorite Cao Chocolates of Miami, owned by chocolatier, chocolate maker, and dear friend Ricardo Cao Trillos.
As a chocolate consultant, I’m honored to help Ricardo with his new chocolate bar project, because the chocolate is delicious, organic, and fair trade.
With Ricardo Cao Trillos at his magic Miami chocolate shopCao Chocolates makes terrific truffles onsite……grilled chocolate croissants that are worth a flight to Miami…… and now single origin chocolate bars too, like this delicious Domincan that I brought home from my most recent Miami adventure.
The bars are pure, with only 2 ingredients: cacao and sugar. That makes me happy! As with other food, if you can’t pronounce an ingredient, why would you eat it? Part of what makes the new bars from Cao Chocolates unique in the bean-to-bar world is their texture, which has more of a stone-ground quality. This ties the bars to the ancient heritage of stone grinding cacao, and adds an intriguing sensation.
Fair trade Venezuelan cocoa beans in the kitchen at Cao
Of course, flavor is king, and Cao’s bars deliver robust flavor. By using only 2 ingredients, and premium, organic, fair trade, sustainable cacao from South America and the Caribbean, instead of bulk cocoa beans from West Africa (which suffer from a host of supply chain abominations, from pesticides and crop disease to child slave labor), the chocolate maker can draw out various flavors of the cacao.
Differences in type of cocoa bean, terroir, fermentation, and grinding result in differences in flavor in the finished chocolate bar. Just as a wine maker can create different wines by using different grapes, barrels, time frames, or procedures, artisan chocolate makers apply their art to cocoa beans, working with nature to create unique and exciting flavors not known on commercial chocolate shelves.
Each of the new Cao bars has a different and enticing flavor profile. My favorite is the Peru Criollo 78%. It’s surprisingly mild for a bar with such high cocoa content, and gives you the brightness of the Criollo cocoa bean, plus a gentle fruitiness.
Chocolate for breakfast? Of course!Cao Peru bar
Try them for yourself and be among the first; the bars aren’t yet in stores outside of Miami, but distribution is in the works, and in the meantime there’s the Internet plus my stash – contact me at chocolateuplift@gmail.com or shop online – and keep eating real chocolate!
Washington, DC, is particularly sweet in spring, when cherry blossoms bloom, and chocolate innovation springs forth, as I re-discover every year on my springtime trip to our US capital.
Housemade “snickers” cake at The PartisanCherry blossoms in Stanton Park
DC’s cherry blossom trees were originally a gift from Japan, facilitated by author and traveler Eliza Scidmore, who fell in love with the sweet blossoms in Japan and enlisted the wife of President Taft to help coordinate the trees with Japan in 1910 and 1912.
Today, the city blooms beautifully in spring not only at the “usual” sites such as the Tidal Basin with its spectacular views of the monuments, but also in special and strollable corners of the city such as Stanton Park, and restaurant-rich Dupont Circle.
As for chocolate, we chocolate lovers know it is a gift as well. Chocolate comes from cacao, which is the seed of the fruit of the cocoa tree. The Aztecs believed cacao was the fruit of the gods. At beloved Co Co Sala chocolate lounge and boutique, the chocolate is heavenly indeed.
Co Co Sala roasted peanut chocolate bar with chocolate pearlsWhite chocolate “Valrhona Blonde Perles” at Co Co Sala
Chocolate blends nature and art, and it’s perhaps that juxtaposition of natural forms and artistic vision that has drawn me to the Alexander Calder mobile at the National Gallery of Art in DC, ever since I first experienced it on a DC visit at age 8 and wanted to bring it home with me. The glorious 76-foot work wouldn’t quite fit on the airplane, and I’ve visited it on my trips to DC ever since.
Saying hello to my old friend, the Calder at the National Gallery
Back to our regularly scheduled chocolate, it’s always a treat to see another longtime friend in DC, Jane Morris of J Chocolatier, who creates unique and flavorful artisan chocolate bars, such as my new favorite from her, the fig/walnut/pepper chocolate bar, which she sells from her adorable weekends-only perch atop a charming boutique on Barracks Row.
The fig/walnut/pepper bar by J Chocolatier
In addition to visiting old friends, I always love making new ones, and was thrilled by DC’s newest doughnut shop, District Doughnut, where the goods are pastry-inspired, fresh, light, not too sweet, and absolutely delicious and delightful.
Light-as-air doughnuts at District DoughnutWith owner Greg Menna of District Doughnut
by professional speaker and chocolate expert Valerie Beck
Louvre cake at Mariebelle NYC
I love speaking about the history and health benefits of chocolate, and about entrepreneurship. Getting me to stop talking about my passion topics would be the hard part!
I also love “chocolate scouting:” visiting old chocolate friends and searching out new ones, in any given neighborhood.
So when I was invited to speak to a women’s initiative group at a law firm in New Jersey, with time the next day to explore a favorite neighborhood in New York, I hopped onto a flight and off I went!
Ready for takeoff, after a stop at the airport spa
Thank you to my sister law school alumna Chris Osvald-Mruz of Lowenstein Sandler for inviting me to speak to her group of partners, clients, and contacts, after we sat next to each other at a reunion dinner in Cambridge to celebrate 60 years of women graduates of Harvard Law School.
She asked for my “Eat Chocolate, Be Skinny” talk, plus remarks on how I transitioned from law to entrepreneurship, founding the original chocolate tours years ago and now working on speaking and consulting projects. I’m always happy to create a custom talk, especially for such a special client.
With Chris and Mary of the Lowenstein firm after speaking to 70 women at their STRIDES women’s initiative
What a treat it was to talk with her ultra-professional and ultra-engaged group on how to interpret chocolate bar labels and choose the right kind of chocolate for maximum health benefits, how to choose ethical chocolate, and how to use the ABCs of Attitude, Belief, and Commitment in any transition, career, or project. We also sampled raw cocoa beans (pure health!), and delicious and satisfying bean-to-bar chocolate that I brought from Askinosie.
Plus, I was thrilled to be able to include delicious chocolates by another friend, Elyissia Wassung of 2 Chicks With Chocolate, who is located in New Jersey not far from the law firm and who set up such an enticing display that I was impressed with the audience for being able to stick to savory food and my chocolate samples during my talk, before diving into her creations later during the Chocolate Hour!
Jewelry box or chocolate box? Exquisite chocolate truffles by 2 Chicks with Chocolate
At the end of the night, I gave away one of my Sweet & Chic sets in a prize drawing.
One of my Chocolate Uplift “Sweet & Chic” gift sets, in “think pink” with scarf, pouch, and chocolate, available at my speaking engagements or on my website
The evening was elegant and energized, filled with food, fun, networking, and of course chocolate, and I was honored to be part of it!
“White chocolate” architecture in sweet Soho NYC
The next day, I zipped across the river to Manhattan in an Uberx, for a day visiting old friends and new in “sweet Soho.”
Pastry parade at Dominique Ansel
Among the many stops I made in this delicious New York City neighborhood was the famous bakery of Dominique Ansel, creator of the Cronut – a croissant-doughnut pastry with deliciously layered dough and ever-changing flavors. Cronuts sell out practically by dawn of course, but there’s no shortage of classic and whimsical French pastry on hand any time of day, including some of the best macarons and canneles anywhere.
I enjoyed hearing Chef Dominique speak at the Fancy Food Show in New York last year. He was very humble, and spoke of growing up poor in France, saving money as a boy for a beautiful shirt, and then hanging it in his closet to save it for a special occasion. When that occasion finally came, years later, he found that he had outgrown the shirt! He learned to seize the moment, and do it now.
After visiting Laduree and other lovely locations, it was time for some chic with my sweet, so I popped into one of my favorite boutiques anywhere, M Missoni. I held a book signing event there a few years ago, wear the brand and the parent brand Missoni regularly and with relish, and was delighted to see the Soho team!
Sweet and chic, at M Missoni
A trip to sweet Soho wouldn’t be as glamorous without a stop inside the gilded cocoa room at Mariebelle, where I had lunch – yes, actual savory food! 🙂 – followed by an exquisite chocolate mousse cake and spicy Aztec hot chocolate.
Aztec revivalism in French splendor at Mariebelle
Then, it was back to sweet home Chicago, where the excitement of the trip didn’t end, as a stunning bouquet of flowers from my dear and thoughtful client greeted me at home the next day.
Thank you!
It’s a joy to work with great people, doing what I love, and spreading chocolate education and enjoyment. That’s Uplift Through Chocolate!
Have chocolate, will travel
For more information on my speaking engagements, click my old site or my new rebranding site – in beta but live:
by Valerie Beck, chocolate expert and macaron maven
What fun it was to celebrate the first Macaron Day in Chicago this year on March 20 – following more established versions in Paris and New York – to benefit Esperanza Community Services!
The way it worked: macaron lovers and charity supporters made donations to Esperanza at participating pastry shops, and received a macaron in exchange.
Chocolate passion fruit and more at awesome Alliance Patisserie
By the way, what’s the difference between a macaron and a macaroon? The macaron is a colorful French sandwich cookie that comes in endless flavors (chocolate passion fruit is my favorite lately), and the macaroon is a coconut haystack cookie of Italian origin that comes dipped in chocolate if you’re lucky! Read more about these 2 different cookies on my previous blog post Macaron vs. Macaroon.
Here’s to philanthropy through macarons, and Uplift Through Chocolate!
by Valerie Beck, chocolate expert and Kendall College Adjunct Professor
The view from 360Chicago on our day about The Business of Mentoring: Helping Others to the Top
In addition to being an entrepreneur, founding the original chocolate tours years ago, and today doing speaking engagements about chocolate, and consulting in the chocolate space, I love teaching at Kendall College because I can contribute to the amazing and energizing students, and because I can create applied learning experiences – not just lectures but activities and excursions for real-world learning.
I had the opportunity over spring break this year to create a series of 8 excursions for a cohort of French business majors studying abroad in Chicago from their school in Paris, the ESCE. Our theme was American Business Explorations, our classroom was the city of Chicago and beyond, and our focus was on networking, volunteering, and mentoring as crucial to success in American business success.
Students and me with dear friend Shaun Rajah of The Drake Hotel on our day about The Business of Hospitality: Every Detail Counts
My friends and contacts opened their doors to welcome us and speak to us. We toured companies such as Google, had a private tour of a gallery with an international light artist, participated in a speed-mentoring event held by Business Journals, and heard from speakers ranging from entrepreneurs to non-profit founders to executives to yours truly (chocolate supply chain and chocolate tasting!).
Sampling Graham’s Fine Chocolates on our day about The Business of Chocolate: Geneva Getaway
The experiences were meaningful to the students, who wrote blog posts at www.parischicagosafari.blogspot.com. The experiences were also meaningful to me in ways I hadn’t expected: I connected more deeply with some of my friends and contacts, thought more intently about the themes I built the course around, and got to see Chicago and American business through the eyes of my bright and perceptive students. See our posts online, including my tie-it-all-together post at the top showing the theme of each excursion, where we went, and links to our hosts.
As the saying goes: “school is never out for the pro.”
Cheers!
“Professor Beck”
chocolateuplift@gmail.com
Honored to receive recognition from the President of Kendall College for creating the Paris Chicago Safari
Come hear about the history and health benefits of chocolate, while sampling fine chocolate and pastry this Valentine’s Day:
I’m hosting a seated chocolate tasting open to the public at 12:45 pm on Valentine’s Day, Saturday 2/14, at new Alliance Patisserie, 615 N. State Street, Chicago, and a few spots remain!
Chocolate Uplift 