Before speaking at the Ottawa Chocolate Show, October 2024
Hello, bonjour!
That is, “hi” Ottawa style, as friendly greetings in Canada’s capital city tend to encompass the English-speaking and Francophone approaches.
I have visited the beautiful country of Canada approximately a dozen times. At least four visits were during family vacations from Chicago when I was a child; the drive from Chicago to the Canadian border at Sault Ste Marie, Michigan, takes around seven and a half hours. My mother told me today, when I asked for her recollections, that for my first visit, before I was one year old, she bought me a fluffy pink snowsuit to wear. She added that later, I waded in Lakes Ontario, Huron, and Superior from the Canadian sides, just as at home I splashed in Lake Michigan. My love of the immense saltless seas that are the glorious Great Lakes began early and expanded, just like my love of Nature’s perfect food: chocolate!
I visited Canada most recently to speak at the Ottawa Chocolate Show in October 2024, and to rent a lake house in the woods of the Laurentian Mountains north of Montreal for six weeks after that! (Two summers ago, I visited Canada accidentally for fifteen minutes during a harmless mishap at the Minnesota border; a story for another day! : )
The Ottawa Chocolate Show consisted of an impressive array of Canadian craft chocolate makers, confectioners, and chocolate enthusiasts. I felt honored and grateful to be part of the event and the excitement by speaking on how to make ethically conscious chocolate choices, and sharing delicious chocolate from both sides of the border! Here are the slides from my talk, as I promised my fantastic audience members.
I hope you will enjoy scrolling below for text and photos describing and depicting moments from awesome Ottawa and captivating Canada.
Thank you!
Valerie (Valérie en français)
Part I. At the Ottawa Chocolate Show with Canada Friends / Chocolate Wizards
What did I find at the Ottawa Chocolate Show? An almost incredibly large abundance of top-notch craft chocolate made in Canada, and a heart-warming plentitude of top-notch Canadian and other friends old and new!
It was a delight to see my dear friend and first-class bean-to-bar chocolate maker Taylor Kennedy of sensational Sirene Chocolate at the Ottawa Chocolate Show, where he shared his exquisite new Nootka Rose dark milk chocolate bar. Yes: edible flowers are involved! Taylor crafts the chocolate from Semuliki Forest Uganda cacao, and adds flavor and petals from wild roses native to Vancouver Island. The chocolate has a pleasing complexity and is easy to eat; here come some of my signature non-flavor-related tasting notes:
The Sirene Nootka Rose bar tastes like a Golden Age pink-tinged afternoon dream in the dynamic yet comforting verdant heart of Nature.
The aroma brings out pink geraniums and roses on a sun-splashed windowsill.
A bar to love!
I was also thrilled to catch up with dear Christine Blais of refined yet down-to-earth Palette de Bine (who generously allowed me to present the world premiere of her deeply rich new Hawaii chocolate to my Ottawa audience; perhaps I will write a separate post about my visits to her bean-to-bar chocolate production space and shop).
And I loved chatting with second-meeting-friend Vince of sophisticated yet fun Kasama Chocolate (could I stop eating Kasama’s unique Moreyna Muscovado “Tanned” White Chocolate with Roasted Cacao Nibs? I could not); and with online-turned-in-person-friend Serge of ultra-creative Vaka Chocolate (could I stop eating the tahini+ fig + sea salt dark/white chocolate bar? I could not)!
At the Ottawa Chocolate Show with Taylor Kennedy of Sirene Chocolate of Victoria, British Columbia, Canada, and Christine Blais of Palette de Bine of Mt. Tremblant, Quebec, Canada; thank you to both for allowing me to share your scrumptious chocolate with audience members at the talk I gave at the Show!With Vince Garcia of Kasama Chocolate of Vancouver, Canada, at the Ottawa Chocolate ShowWith Serge Savchuk of Vaka Chocolate of Ontario, Canada, at the Ottawa Chocolate ShowCCC on my tote bag = Cacao, Chocolate, and Community, or Curiosity, Character, and Contribution — the 3Cs either way!
It was also wonderful to meet Instagram friend and artist Cyndi Clement of @canadianchocoholic, and to catch up with legendary cacao importer Juan Gonzalez of The Mexican Arabica Bean Co., both based in Canada!
With cacao-inspired artist CyndiClementWith Juan Gonzalez of MABCO – the Mexican Arabica Bean Company
Part II. Sweet Speaker: My Talk at the Ottawa Chocolate Show, and a Few More Thank-Yous, Plus More Chocolate
I felt fortunate to speak to amazing chocolate lovers and hold a presentation on “Exploring Chocolate from Bean to Bar: Making Conscious Chocolate Choices.” We discussed how to identify ethical chocolate by looking for the cacao country of origin and a clean ingredients list on the bar, and by considering my 5 Ss of first-class chocolate:
slavery free,
soy- and synthetic-free,
sustainable and soil regenerative,
small-batch,
scrumptious!
We tasted some amazing chocolate as I shared chocolate history, health benefits, and hopes, and as we had a fun, fascinating, and delicious time during an upbeat almost-hour!
Staged after the show; some of what I shared at my talk during the show: Sirene Chocolate of Canada, Palette de Bine of Canada, Potomac Chocolate of the US (which is made by dear Ben Rasmussen near the US capital of Washington DC, and which I brought to Canada’s capital city of Ottawa to represent cross-continental friendship. : ) Not shown: the Golden Age cookies I baked for the audience (though photos of some Golden Age cookies I baked later in Quebec are below), plus cacao from Zorzal of the Dominican Republic by way of Crow & Moss Chocolate of the US.
Thank you to Erik Hansen of (exquisitely precise and delicious) DesBarres Chocolate and Joanne Mutter of (gorgeous chocolate shop) JoJo Coco for co-founding and organizing such a marvelous show, and for kindly including me — a Chicagoan in Canada! Thank you too to the volunteers who kept the Show running and the samples at my presentation organized and circulating, and to the fantastic Canadian craft chocolate makers and chocolate lovers!
With Erik Hansen of DesBarres Chocolate and the Ottawa Chocolate Show, and (my fellow American) Barb Genuario of DC Chocolate Society. Barb and I didn’t get the chance to chat at the Show, and I still need to ask her what she was doing there : ) With Joanne Mutter of JoJo Cocoa and the Ottawa Chocolate Show
Keep scrolling down for:
the links and slides from my talk, as incorporated into an email with Erik,
followed by more photos from the show,
photos of Ottawa, and
photos I staged of chocolate from the show after the show —
plus photo montages of Thanksgiving and Holiday 2024 at the lake house I rented in the Laurentian Mountains 1 hour and 40 minutes north of Montreal!
(and a funny customs / border crossing moment at the end, before a few more photos, that is : )
*****
Part III. Pre-Show Email, with Links to Videos and Slides
Hi Erik,
Thanks for the helpful information! I’m excited for the show.
Valerie Beck is a graduate of Harvard Law School and Harvard College; a chocolate services entrepreneur who founded Chicago Chocolate Tours and grew the business to 5 cities with 50 employees; a consultant through Chocolate Uplift to small-batch chocolate makers and growers in ethical cacao supply channels; a mentor of students who seek to follow their own paths; and a believer that we are creating a Golden Age of empathy and equality, courage and common sense, justice and joy, liberty and love.
I’m all set with Sirene Chocolate from Taylor and still need to finalize Palette de Bine with Christine, plus I am bringing Potomac Chocolate from the Washington DC area, for a taste of craft chocolate in the Canadian capital from near the US capital, in a show of cross-border chocolate friendship : ) And, I’ll bring some Zorzal beans and some Venezuela or Bolivia nibs (and a dried cacao pod to show). So how about this for a title:
Exploring Chocolate from Bean to Bar: Making Conscious Chocolate Choices
And a blurb if helpful:
*****
Chocolate can be a standardized bulk ingredient in an industrial product with a tainted supply chain, or an exquisite and ethically created specialty that delivers complexity, flavor, and health, while uplifting people and planet. Enjoy a tasting trip from cocoa bean to chocolate bar, focusing on the rise of “craft” or “bean-to-bar” chocolate, and spotlighting Canadian and other chocolate makers. We’ll look at how cacao is harvested, fermented, dried, roasted, ground, and more, and at how to choose chocolate consciously, as we peer back into the history and ahead to the future of one of the most beloved foods in the world.
*****
A question for you: will internet and equipment be available to show a few video clips or slides? I’d love to show bits of a few clips from YouTube for example:
Founder Valerie Beck in the news
The Chocolate War documentary trailer
Ethical cacao farm
And I often have these slides on hand at talks, not to go through them all but to be able to pull up the appropriate one if someone asks about cadmium or what a ripe cacao pod looks like or if you can bake with craft chocolate; here they are in case handy to have attached to this email:
Part IV. More Photos: More Ottawa Chocolate Show, Capital City Ottawa, Art, Chocolate, More Chocolate
With César Aguilar of Cacaitos, of Colombia and Toronto, at the Ottawa Chocolate ShowChocosol hot chocolateCanada Parliament from Major’s Hill ParkFairmont Château LaurierCanada’s capital city, Ottawa, sits at the confluence of the Ottawa, Rideau, and Gatineau rivers. The latter two flow into the Ottawa River, which is a main tributary of the St. Lawrence River, into which the Great Lakes, an inland saltless sea, thunder and form an immense estuary, past Montreal, where dolphins and whales are among the abundant life. The word “river” does not begin to encompass the St. Lawrence, as the word “lake” does not approach expression of the enormity of this massive freshwater system, as you know if like me you live or have traveled in our glorious Great Lakes region on the US or Canada sides or both. Inside the National Gallery, Ottawa, with Earth and Sky (2008, 2012) by Shuvinai Ashoona and John Noestheden overheadA.Y. Jackson and Clarence Gagnon paintings at the National Gallery of Canada in OttawaTom Thomson tree portrait paintings at the National Gallery of CanadaEuropean and Indigenous works meet at the National Gallery of CanadaStaged after the Ottawa Chocolate Show: here is another view of some of the chocolate I shared in my talk at the Show; yes, I brought chocolate from near the US capital (Potomac Chocolate of Occoquan, Virginia, 20 minutes from Washington DC) to my talk in the Canadian capital because: international chocolate friendship!I loved baking Golden Age cookies with Canadian craft chocolate at the Canada lake house that I rented, located around 1 hour and 40 minutes north of Montreal, in the province of Quebec.
More Canadian chocolate I brought to and enjoyed at the lake house:
Brisk Quebec weather called for cozy Sirene Chocolate-topped oatmeal!
Part V. The House in Quebec (Montage 1)
Part VI. A Border Crossing Moment
As promised, a funny customs / border crossing moment: I flew from Chicago to Ottawa, and the Canadian customs officer looked me intently in the eye as customs officers do, and asked:
“What is the purpose of your trip?”
I looked him intently in the eye, as I do, and replied:
“Chocolate.”
“Oh!” he said. “What do you mean, chocolate?”
“I’m excited to speak at the Ottawa Chocolate Show.”
The officer asked: “Where is it being held?”
Pause.
“Oh! That’s a good question. I don’t know, a college, but I can’t remember which one!” (Sorry Algonquin, you were great, and I couldn’t have handled the videos and slides without student Kent, an A/V star!!)
The officer let me into Canada, to find the chocolate show, and voilà!
Part VII. The House in Quebec (Montage 2)
I am already looking forward to my next trip to fantastic Canada (Canada again-ida :)!
Part VIII. More Photos; Keep Eating Real Chocolate!
En route to charming Ottawa, Canada, from sweet hometown Chicago, as my latest Canadian adventure began in Fall 2024! I didn’t know until after this trip that for my first trip to Canada, when I was an infant, my mother dressed me in what she called a “fluffy pink snowsuit;” here I am now in a pink era again. Onward and upward as the spiral of life continues into the (evidently pink-tinged!) Golden Age!
What a blast to hold a special event for innovative Chicago attorney and dear friend Daliah Saper’s exciting Saper Law Immersion Program https://www.saperimmersion.com/, during which a bright and motivated cohort of high school and college students hear from lawyers in different specialties and work environments — including lawyers-turned-entrepreneurs like me!
Note: I’m offsite on a small organic berry farm in Minnesota – scroll down for photos – and can’t seem to hyperlink text from the app on my phone; please forgive that the URLs in this post are spelled out, which I hope you won’t find too distracting.
We sampled three exquisite craft chocolate bars as I shared legal experiences from three eras:
* before practicing law (while in college and law school), paired with Sirene Chocolate https://sirenechocolate.com/ of Canada Dark Milk 65% on Guatemala cacao,
*while practicing law (at big firms and in-house), paired with OBOLO Chocolate https://obolochocolate.cl/ of Chile 70% dark chocolate with sea salt on Pangoa Peru cacao, and
We also discussed how to identify ethical chocolate, like the chocolate I chose for us, which is free of child slave labor or deforestation. Tips: in general, a) look at the label to make sure a cacao country of origin is listed, as this tends to demonstrate transparency, and b) look for small brands, as big brands are complicit in abuses.
Bonus: see new documentary The Chocolate War, in which my friend human rights lawyer Terry Collingsworth takes on Big Choc! Trailer: https://youtu.be/tzlG1WoKfao
Thank you to dear Brook of Yahara Chocolate https://yaharachocolate.com/ in Wisconsin for sending my chocolate selections to Saper Law Firm in Chicago and to me 500 miles north of the city while I’m volunteering on a solar-powered organic farm near Lake Superior.
[Update: a German nuclear scientist friend and former UCLA Extension student of mine think we have discovered why I got what I call electrical poisoning on the farm – I experienced headaches, muscle cramps, nausea, hair loss, eyebrow loss, loss of appetite, more. The solar panel inverters, which convert DC electricity to AC, were all housed in one space, concentrating the electricity. The dangers of such concentration are known, which is why electrical power plants have substations, to spread out the energy. My cabin was near the utility room, and the electrical buzz was audible and palpable. I’ve learned lots; a topic for another day. For now, I am happy to report that immediately after leaving the location, I felt better, and my hair and eyebrows are growing back!]
Thank you to dear Taylor of Sirene and dear Mark of OBOLO for crafting delicious and ethical chocolate.
And thank you again to Daliah for including me even though I couldn’t be there in person this time, and to the very impressive students for participating!
By the way, here are the videos and blog post I designated as backup just in case internet went out at my beautiful and remote Northwoods location:
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
Chocolate Uplift 