My picnic this Labor Day weekend included exquisite bean-to-bar chocolate by Dick Taylor, made from direct trade cacao from Belize!
A note on my Chocolate Freedom Project this Labor Day, which brings awareness of and alternatives to child labor on Ivory Coast cacao farms where Big Chocolate buys cocoa beans. Solutions that we can implement as customers include choosing fair trade and direct trade chocolate, which is better for foodie, farmer, family, and field.
Solutions that I recommend to my country clients and cacao farmer clients as a chocolate consultant include making chocolate in-country from sustainably grown cacao, instead of exporting all the cacao.
We’re back, in secret beta pre-launch, and I’m excited!
Valerie’s Original Chocolate Tours: we’re back, with classic and new elements, including a new name!
I founded the original chocolate tours in Chicago in 2005, from an idea I started in Paris before that at age 19 while studying abroad and enjoying fine French chocolate.
After 2005, I grew the tour business across the US, and closed the doors of the business around 8 years later.
Then I went on a journey; really two journeys: I went even closer to the source of cacao by working with cacao growing nations, bean-to-bar chocolate makers, and others along the chocolate supply chain, as a volunteer, broker, and consultant. In addition, I deepened my inner journey through meditation.
Meditation and cacao!
Haiti cacao, Haiti chocolate: experience the forefront of chocolate trends on Valerie’s Original Chocolate Tours.
Now, the timing is right to reopen the tour business I love so much, with a new name, and some new elements.
Valerie’s Original Chocolate Tours provides “Uplift Through Chocolate” to customers, vendors, social justice partners, and team members, with elegance, ethics, and enthusiasm. And we do it with delicious chocolate and pastry, through an entertaining and enlightening experience!
Beta schedule for August 2016:
*Wednesdays 2 pm, Geneva IL route
*Thursdays 2 pm, Chicago Loop route
*Fridays 2 pm, Chicago Gold Coast route
*Saturdays 2 pm, NYC Hell’s Kitchen route
Real chocolate, really beautiful environments, real social justice: for every ticket sold, we’re buying a meal for a child in a rescue center for kids who’ve escaped the child labor cacao farms in West Africa that the big chocolate brands use.
Buy a ticket for $50 at paypal.me/chocolateuplift, specifying your chosen day and location, and receive details. Plus: experience delicious innovations and surprises on the tours during beta season.
I’m incredibly excited to invite you on this journey!
Thank you for your business and belief!
Your friend in chocolate, Valerie
Join me for a magical experience on Valerie’s Original Chocolate Tours! Photo: The Uplifted. Uplift Through Chocolate!
I've held group chocolate wellness seminars, and here's your chance for one-on-one chocolate-fueled life and health coaching!
~Change your life through chocolate!~
*Boost your mindset and metabolism in 28 days, with one-on-one coaching!
*Enjoy chocolate-boosted supernova wellness, customized for you.
*Feel positive, serene, energized, and fit, while eating all the artisan chocolate you want!
*Individualized coaching boosts you where you want it, such as
~mental mindset,
~fitness level,
~how to know what foods or chocolate to choose,
~how to be peaceful and powerful,
~how to step out of negative patterns through meditation or other means,
~and beyond.
*The #1 question I’m asked is how do you eat all that chocolate and stay so slim? (I answer that question through corporate and association talks on Chocolate Wellness: Eat Chocolate, Be Skinny!)
Transform your life and health with chocolate coaching
*The second most popular question I’m asked is how are you so positive? (I answer that question when I give keynotes and school talks on The ABC ABCs of Success: Attitude, Belief, Commitment!)
*Short answers to those 2 most popular questions:
~ I eat the right chocolate.
~ And, I’m positive by choice, not chance.
*Through customized coaching for you, you’ll have the full answers of what works for me, and most importantly what works for you.
*We’ll go forward together on the right plan for you to get where you want to be physically and mentally, with weekly 30-minute calls, one-on-one.
*Chocolate-fueled life coaching to ignite the supernova in you!
*Coaching packages start at
~$500 for 28 days, that’s $125/week for 1 month to a happier healthier you.
Or choose
~$900 for 3 months, which is $100/week, or
~$1,350 for 6 months, which is $75/week.
*Each package includes one 30-minute private coaching call per week, plus follow-up activities. Times currently available include Monday evenings, Tuesday mornings, and Thursday afternoons/evenings. Possible weekend availability for special clients like you 🙂
*Sign up to change your life through chocolate, by emailing me at chocolateuplift@gmail.com with questions or your preferred timeslot.
*You can make a PayPal payment for your chosen package at paypal.me/chocolateuplift
(You can pay through that link even if you don’t have a PayPal account.)
*Refer a friend who signs up, and receive 4 free artisan chocolate bars, plus free cacao!
*I believe in you, and I’m excited to journey with you, onward and upward!
I’ve been a chocolate maniac since the age of 4, when I announced to my mother and my kindergarten teacher that I would no longer be drinking milk unless it was chocolate milk!
It wasn’t until I started eating chocolate mindfully though, that I gained a deeper appreciation of chocolate’s nuances. Transitioning to top quality two-ingredient chocolate also helped!
What would you say to delicious bean-to-bar chocolate made from gentle cacao grown on the lush yet historically impoverished Caribbean nation of Haiti, where cacao farmers are working to raise their families and communities out of poverty?
Fund the new Haitian Chocolate Project kickstarter campaign, launching Thursday, January 28, 2016, and you’re funding new fermentation boxes to make this good cacao better, and to further farmers’ abilities to lift their families and communities out of poverty by getting their cacao to the US market.
Sensational San Francisco, where I’ll lead a custom chocolate adventure for top funders
Kickstarter rewards include Bisou Chocolate made with these gentle Haitian cocoa beans, and also my new chocolate tasting video, and a trip through San Francisco’s top chocolate shops, kitchens, and bakeries led by yours truly with the Haitian Chocolate Project founders.
Beautiful Bisou Chocolate, making new chocolate bars from Haitian cacao for you
I’m thrilled to be an advisor to this project, and the kickstarter link is coming soon!
Tasting new chocolate can connect us to happy memories, and open the door to new adventures.
Below are a very few of my favorite chocolate creations that I tasted for the first time in 2015, narrowed down with enormous difficulty to:
* one chocolate bar,
* one hot chocolate, and
* one chocolate truffle.
I could have done the top 10 of each, and added pastries and confections and done the top 10 of each of those, and would still have had an outrageously difficult time narrowing it down from all of the amazing chocolate I’ve had the pleasure of tasting this year, in many different cities.
Will (and do) travel for chocolate
Indeed, at one single event, World of Chocolate earlier this month, I tasted over 27 new chocolate creations as a judge!
The craft chocolate revolution continues, and talented and hard working chocolate makers, chocolatiers, and chefs continue to innovate, which means a lot of fabulous chocolate to taste and enjoy.
But this is a brief post on New Year’s Eve, typed on my phone, and so I’m sharing just a few favorite items here.
For more chocolate that I loved in 2015, see my instagram!
Meanwhile, here we go:
Sensational Sirene Chocolate: 2 bars in 1, each with just 2 ingredients (cacao and sugar) so you can compare flavors
Crafted from just two ingredients – cacao and sugar – Sirene Chocolate epitomizes the purity of bean-to-bar chocolate.
Smooth texture and fabulous flavor, depending on the cacao origin, fermentation, roasting process, and grinding time, reveal the story that each cacao origin can tell, and reveal the artistry of chocolate maker Taylor Kennedy, from his chocolate kitchen in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada.
I sampled Sirene for the first time this past year, at the Northwest Chocolate Festival in Seattle, and was instantly impressed. I then sampled Sirene to a group at one of my Chocolate Wellness talks, in Chicago, and it is no exaggeration to say that “the crowd went wild.” After the group tasted the fleur de sel chocolate bar by Sirene, they asked for seconds, and bought out the rest of my stock.
When one audience member’s bars accidentally came home with me in my bag, I offered to drop them off to her the next day, but she preferred to come to my place and get them that same night. I would have done the same thing!
Cacao + sugar + water = some of the richest and most delicious drinking chocolate anywhere, by Undone Chocolate of Washington, DC
This is a personal mini list, so here’s my personal view on hot chocolate: it should be rich, chocolatey, and simultaneously comforting and exciting.
If it’s also single-origin, and made with just two ingredients (cacao and sugar), and tastes amazing in a vegan version made with water instead of milk (the traditional or ancient way to make chocolate is of course with water, not dairy), then it is truly special.
The hot chocolate by Undone Chocolate is all of those things. I already loved Undone’s chocolate bars when I visited owner Adam Kavalier and team member Merrill Dagg at Undone’s kitchen in Washington, DC, this year. What a treat to see their chocolate-making equipment in action, with sacks and sacks of Dominican Republic cacao awaiting their turn to shine.
When Adam sent me home with a tin of Undone hot chocolate mix I was grateful, and as soon as I tried it I was ecstatic.
The flavor and texture are rich and luscious with water – no milk required – so that the hot chocolate tastes not like milk but like chocolate. Call me a purist because that for me is what hot chocolate should be.
Spicy Passion truffle by Batch PDX: passion fruit and Oregon pepper ganache enrobed in white chocolate – sweet with heat
When I bit into a French truffle in Paris at age 19, I knew it was something exquisite.
When I bit into a Batch PDX truffle earlier this year (see my June 2015 blog post), I knew it had the same level of precision, flavor, and magic that had captivated me in Paris, only this time the truffles were made in Portland, Oregon.
Chocolatier Jeremy Karp sees himself as a craftsman, and indeed crafts bonbons of beauty and balance.
I also see him as an artist, because he sculpts with flavors and textures, telling a story of contrast and compatibility with spice and passion fruit, for example, enrobed in white chocolate for additional magic.
These glimpses of magical chocolate experiences energize me for amazing chocolate experiences in the new year and beyond.
I wish you a delicious new year and more, as you “keep eating real chocolate!”
Your friend in chocolate, Valerie
Celebrating my 2015 birthday – December 10 – at Miss Ricky’s in Chicago, with chocolate cake topped with a chocolate knife bonbon filled with chocolate caramel!
Valerie Beck
CEO/Founder Chocolate Uplift
Chocolate Consultant and Broker, Sweet Speaker www.valeriebeckchocolateuplift.com
chocolateuplift@gmail.com
social media @chocolateuplift
Look what arrived at the Chocolate Uplift office: elegant and delicious craft chocolate bars by Original Beans, an Amsterdam company.
A wonderful question to ask ourselves from time to time, beyond “what should I do with my life,” is “what does life ask of me.” Find a way to contribute, a problem to solve, or a hurt to heal, and you can find a fulfilling life.
Along this path of living meaningfully, we can also find pure and exquisitely delicious Original Beans chocolate, founded by entrepreneur and conservationist Philipp Kauffmann, whose bean-to-bar chocolate business plants or preserves a cacao tree for every chocolate bar purchased.
Cacao tree, with pods and flowers. Each pod holds approximately 40 cocoa beans on average. This particular tree is in the US Botanic Garden in Washington DC; I visited the Garden most recently over Thanksgiving 2015 to see how this beauty was doing! Cacao trees generally grow in rainforests, within 20 degrees of the Earth’s equator. This one is in a greenhouse, for the public to view and admire.
Chocolate done right is not candy. It is food, glorious food, made from the cocoa bean (cacao), which is the seed of the fruit of the cocoa tree. Chocolate is agricultural.
Cocoa beans, around the size of almonds. These are from Venezuela.
The cocoa bean is basically a multivitamin. Rich in vitamins, minerals, antioxidants, and fiber, cacao is a superfood that needs no artificial ingredients, preservatives, fillers, or unpronounceables to turn it into chocolate. Add a touch of sugar to the meticulous process of fermenting, roasting, and grinding the cacao, and you have craft chocolate. Real chocolate. From there you can add milk to make milk chocolate, or add inclusions such as nuts or sea salt. Real chocolate starts with and stays close to the cocoa bean.
Outrageously exquisite Piura Porcelana 75% chocolate bar by Original Beans, super smooth, with surprising but gentle notes of lime. Just 2 ingredients: cacao (from Peru in this case) and sugar. This means the chocolate is vegan, and gluten free. It’s also organic of course. And did I mention delicious! If you’re not a dark chocolate lover, this non-bitter bar will change your mind.
Original Beans highlights the link between craft chocolate and sustainability with its brilliant “one bar, one tree” initiative. Buy a bar, and a tree is planted or maintained, for future chocolate lovers. Eat it forward.
Indeed, all of the craft chocolate makers I meet or represent believe in the social responsibility aspects of making chocolate, such as using cacao from direct trade or fair trade sources instead of from the child slave labor sources that Big Chocolate relies on.
One way Original Beans extends its sustainability platform explicitly into social justice is through its delicious Femmes de Virunga chocolate bar, which provides female cacao growers in the Congo with seedlings, education, and a local radio program, supporting Congolese women’s participation in the local and global economy. That’s “Uplift Through Chocolate,” and that’s the kind of theme I touch on in my Chocolate Wellness talks and tastings.
Social justice in edible form, this luscious Femmes de Virunga dark milk chocolate bar by Original Beans is ultra creamy, organic, and made with nothing other than cacao, milk, and sugar. Nothing artificial, nothing made in a lab, nothing unpronounceable. Purchase of this bar helps women cocoa farmers and Virunga National Park in the Democratic Republic of Congo. And did I mention it’s delicious!
Search #teamvirunga and #onebaronetree on social media for more details, and check out my #chocolatefreedomproject for ways to participate in the ethical chocolate movement. (Jump into all of it through my Instagram.)
Flavor is king, you say? Don’t worry, you’ll love the rich, pure, creamy flavors of Original Beans chocolate bars. There’s an elegance to the flavor profiles that is completely enchanting.
White chocolate splendor: Edel Weiss 40% by Original Beans, with no vanilla, lecithin, or other additives. Just cocoa butter (from cocoa beans from the Dominican Republic for this bar), sugar, and milk. All organic. If you don’t like white chocolate, this one will change your mind. Pure tastes better. Delicious!
Real chocolate tastes better, and is better for you, for the growers, and for the environment.
What does life ask of you? Part of the answer: eat real chocolate!
Your friend in chocolate,
Valerie
Valerie Beck
CEO / Founder Chocolate Uplift
chocolate brokering and consulting services, and sweet speaking
Chocolate Uplift 