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        <title><![CDATA[@Susie Norris - Blogs]]></title>
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        <link>https://forums.thechocolatelife.com/susie-norris</link>
        <lastBuildDate>Thu, 07 May 2026 14:17:31 -0600</lastBuildDate>
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                <title><![CDATA[HOLIDAY DISCOVERIES - @susie-norris]]></title>
                <link>https://forums.thechocolatelife.com/susie-norris/blog/674/holiday-discoveries</link>
                <guid>https://forums.thechocolatelife.com/susie-norris/blog/674</guid>
                <description><![CDATA[This rainy December day marks the end of my first year back in the chocolate production business after a few years off teaching baking &amp; writing. Some things have changed! Many, many more artisans going bean to bar. I don't work bean to bar myself - I'm all about confections - but I've sampled some very delicious products from companies like AMANO in Utah. More chocolate shows. More health news, more "spin", more single origins and high percentages, more daring flavor combinations and certainly more expertise with transfer sheets and colored cocoa butter techniques amongst us chocolatiers. My break through this year was in new packaging (food safe gift boxes with see-through lids which are easy to ship), new techniques (air brushing &amp; cocoa butter spraying! Fun!) and more internet marketing (very hard to do with chocolate on your hands). I'm attending a workshop at the Barry-Callebaut Academy in January for technique, research and passion - those things which seem to motivate so many of us. Happy Holidays to all who read this and may they bring you much chocolate. Susie @ HAPPY CHOCOLATES www.happychocolates.com]]></description>
                <pubDate>Wed, 17 Dec 2008 18:45:02 -0700</pubDate>
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                <title><![CDATA[THE CHOCOLATE BOOK - she lives! - @susie-norris]]></title>
                <link>https://forums.thechocolatelife.com/susie-norris/blog/663/the-chocolate-book-she-lives</link>
                <guid>https://forums.thechocolatelife.com/susie-norris/blog/663</guid>
                <description><![CDATA[If your goal in life is to write a book, allow me to share what I know about the process. Heres my first piece of good news: the books on how to write a non-fiction book proposal are really good! These are the only self-help books that ever worked for me. What they will force you to do is to refine your idea (Great ideas are a dime a dozen - how do you make yours work as a book?). They will help you think competitively about the marketplace (What other books on the subject are out there? How is yours different?) Finally, they will help you WORK and pull the answers to these hard questions together in the form of a book proposal that might actually help sell your book. Heres a link to Amazons titles http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_ss_gw?url=search-alias%3Daps&amp;field-keywords=book+proposal. The bad news is, as you may have heard, its really hard to get an agent. The tools you need most are 1.) a great idea, 2.) resources such as these on how to write a professional book proposal and how to approach literary agents, 3.) a great book proposal, 4.) realistic and unwavering perseverance, 5.) (in my case) the blessings of the chocolate gods.My chocolate book started as a big, exotic photo-laden, coffee-table giant of a travel book - an $80 art splurge - and then morphed into a comprehensive guide to chocolate - say $32.00 - then morphed again into a gift book on chocolate with a focus on health, beauty, gift-giving and wellness - such a deal at $14.95!! Lucky for me, I loved all three of these books! It took 5 years from concept to proposal to working with my agent to working with the first publisher then working with the second and final publisher. 5 years!! Since chocolate was always at the center, much of the research was relevant to all incarnations of the project, and in the meantime I taught baking &amp; pastry arts, produced TV shows, sold artisan chocolates and made birthday cakes. I put everything I learned along the way into the final product, just by osmosis. Once the contract came through, I wrote 2-3 hours a day for 6 months, some days more but never less. If prose ideas got stuck, I turned the classical music up loud and worked on recipes. If a recipe bombed, I went back happily to the prose. In this way of going around in circles, I got to the end. I turned the book (all 168 pages/ 37,249 words) into the editor last week, and already I miss the daily dance of making those recipes work and learning more about chocolate botany. From here, Ill get my notes, do a rewrite, go to a dessert photo shoot featuring my very own chocolate babies, work on final edits then drum up a little fanfare when it comes out in September 2009. A friend occasionally asked me Hows your book going? even though he later confided what he really meant was Have you given up on that flailing book project of yours yet? On the darkest of days, when either the book or I were in some really bad configuration of torturous rejection, I could always say, Its not all the way dead yet. It was never dead because I refused to give up on it. And now, the chocolate book, she lives.]]></description>
                <pubDate>Fri, 19 Sep 2008 12:46:51 -0600</pubDate>
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                <title><![CDATA[MUST WE MUSHROOM? - @susie-norris]]></title>
                <link>https://forums.thechocolatelife.com/susie-norris/blog/658/must-we-mushroom</link>
                <guid>https://forums.thechocolatelife.com/susie-norris/blog/658</guid>
                <description><![CDATA[May 19th, 2008Accepting chocolate with crubled bacon bits was a stretch for me. Love chocolate and god knows, love bacon, but the unusual combination from a very fine American chocolate company made me suspicious. When I tried it, I gained insight. Its not that chocolate doesnt go with bacon conceptually because what is bacon after all but a lot of animal fat &amp; salt &amp; a little piggy essence. What made this bar so very, very bad was that the bacon tasted like Baco-os (those stale, imitation brown rocks you get at a really bad salad bar). It was not the crunchy, salty, savory cured bacon I might fry up for the hungry teenagers in my house on Sunday mornings. Chocolate with Baco-like-bacon is all the way bad. But theres one worse. Mushroom gravy in the dark chocolate bon bon I tried last week in Silver Lake. Wow. I looked helplessly for a garbage can to use as a spitoon - nothing in sight. I had to zoom out to the street, doing the wavy-chicken-arm thing people do when theyre gonna hurl or spit some nasty chocolate in the gutter. The mushroom gravy was SWEET. That poor, misguided chocolatier had added some white chocolate as if to improve things. I am a patience person. I allow for many flavor adventures as long as they are earnest. I forgave the lack of originiality in the work (the chocolates were made with molds painted with cocoa butter and contrasting transfer sheets - OK, but nothing too impressive). Ill forgive the $2.00 price tag for one piece of said chocolate. But I will not forgive the miscarriage of mushroom into innocent and otherwise inoffensive dark chocolate. No, no, no, I have to say no to the Bacos and gravy. Even if the goal of the artisan chocolatier who pushes the boundaries of flavors is to surprise and entertain us - I say to them: Common Sense, Por Favor!! Mushroom sauce, mushroom gravy, and mushroom caps stuffed with garlic have no place in the chocolatiers arsenal. Make some honey caramel and call it a day, fool. Onward.]]></description>
                <pubDate>Tue, 20 May 2008 20:11:46 -0600</pubDate>
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                <title><![CDATA[CHEFS &amp; CHAMPAGNE IN LA - @susie-norris]]></title>
                <link>https://forums.thechocolatelife.com/susie-norris/blog/656/chefs-amp-champagne-in-la</link>
                <guid>https://forums.thechocolatelife.com/susie-norris/blog/656</guid>
                <description><![CDATA[Not just any chefs, my friends, but the best chefs in LA were on the street at Melrose Place in West Hollywood last night. The guests - fashionistas &amp; foodies from Europe, New York, LA - were decked! Im neck-craning - where to look? Beautiful people or beautiful food? Ah, the food! Under white tents, elegant amuse bouce and bite size specialties popped out from the chefs' tables - marinated big-eye tuna from Sona, rock shrimp shooters from Zovs Bistro, sashimi &amp; soba from The Water Grill. Meat, too: salt pork from Spago, suckling pig burgers from Bastide, roast beef from Republic. Celebrity chefs, you know em: Tom Colicchio from TOP CHEF, restrauntrepreneur of CRAFT/cookbook fame; Joachim Splichal of Patina with his new restaurant PAPERFISHoh, the list goes on. In fact, heres a link to the list of chefs and the recpetion menu http://www.jamesbeard.org/?q=node/169 . In addition to spring colors of rhubarb reductions and fava green garnishes, we had flashy cars, designer bags &amp; kitchenware as silent auction items to support the James Beard Foundation http://www.jamesbeard.org. Could there be a Best of Show in such a spectacle of perfection? For me, it had to be chocolate of course, and it was JIN PATISSERIE from the shores of Venice, California. Pastry chef Kristy Choo brought refined style, flavor and thoughtful technique to her artisan chocolates and petit fours, and also served a marscapone, peach and passionfruit crumble that was signature stylish with a fragrant note of home. You gotta visit. www.jinpatisserie.com Was there any bad food at this event? Maybe one off dish or two. Was there bad champagne? Not a drop - this was Nicolas Feuillatte, Montaudon and Lanson. The effervescence of Chefs &amp; Champagne united the Los Angeles culinary scene in a bubble of excellence.]]></description>
                <pubDate>Wed, 07 May 2008 15:28:24 -0600</pubDate>
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                <title><![CDATA[Aloha, Hawaiian Chocolate. - @susie-norris]]></title>
                <link>https://forums.thechocolatelife.com/susie-norris/blog/655/aloha-hawaiian-chocolate</link>
                <guid>https://forums.thechocolatelife.com/susie-norris/blog/655</guid>
                <description><![CDATA[Here's a post from my chocolate blog (www.chocolateallthetime.com/blogspot). Comments?You don't get to see cacao pods in the USA unless you go to Hawaii, and even there they a rare sight. Cacao trees (from whence, of course, chocolate) are cultivated only sporadically around the Hawaiian Islands. But Tony Lydgate of Steel Grass Farm on Kauai hopes to change that. His botanical garden (www.steelgrass.org) specializes in cultivating organic plants that bring value to the islanders and the earth. Cacao, bamboo (the "steel grass" namesake of the farm) and vanilla are the favorites. In these crops, he and his family hope to start a cooperative that puts Kauai on the chocolate-making map and reclaims some of the farmland once owned by pineapple growers and sugar cane companies, all long-departed for cheaper labor in far-off lands. You can take a tour, eat some dark chocolate, learn about the health benefits and see a glimpse of cacao's USA future.Another producer is Malie Kai Chocolates (www.maliekai.com), rejuvenating old sugar fields on Oahu. They offer an exceptionally smooth milk chocolate and mellow bitter-sweet made of pure Hawaiian, single origin cacao. "The natural growing conditons on the islands give cacao potential to be even bigger than Kona coffee," says Nathan Sato, President of Malie Kai Chocolates. And check out the beautiful line drawings by Lynn Soehner (www.lynnsoehner.com) that adorn the packaging! For a stronger, earthier chocolate, try The Original Hawaiian Chocolate Factory (www.originalhawaiianchocolatefactory.com) on the Big Island. The owners (The Coopers) will tell you all about the importance of pure Hawaiian chocolate and how you can start your own crop.But you will have to move to Hawaii! Why no cacao in Florida's orange groves or next to Texas Ruby Reds? Why not nestled in northern California's salad bowl? Chocolate is finicky! Cacao trees only grow and bear fruit in a band 20 degrees north and south of the equator. They like tropical rain, shaded light and warm, moist air. They need forest mulch &amp; midges for pollination; they are susceptible to pests and diseases. Beyond that, however, cacao is a great crop (full of color, literally, and history), and it is easily grown on small farms throughout the tropics. Hawaii is the northern tip of its growing region, so we're lucky to have it and lets hope to see more..]]></description>
                <pubDate>Sun, 27 Apr 2008 22:04:02 -0600</pubDate>
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                <title><![CDATA[Day of Delicious - @susie-norris]]></title>
                <link>https://forums.thechocolatelife.com/susie-norris/blog/151/day-of-delicious</link>
                <guid>https://forums.thechocolatelife.com/susie-norris/blog/151</guid>
                <description><![CDATA[The biggest celebration of Dia de Los Meurtos or Day of the Dead in America is at Hollywood Forever cemetery in Los Angeles. Part art walk, part street festival, all souls are welcome. The tradition is rooted in the ancient civilzations of Mesoamerica (Maya, Aztec and more) and are the same ones that developed chocolate from their native cacao trees. People decorate alters with memorabilia, marigolds, candles, bread and sugar skulls to attract the souls of their beloved departed. In Mexico, where the tradition continues, a cup of hot chocolate entices with its fragrance, and then promises to fuel the travelling spirit as it continues its journey through the afterlife. Mexico has been serving a Halloween special of death and chocolate for a long time. Spooky!]]></description>
                <pubDate>Mon, 26 Oct 2009 14:46:38 -0600</pubDate>
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                <title><![CDATA[CHOCOLATE BLISS TODAY - @susie-norris]]></title>
                <link>https://forums.thechocolatelife.com/susie-norris/blog/143/chocolate-bliss-today</link>
                <guid>https://forums.thechocolatelife.com/susie-norris/blog/143</guid>
                <description><![CDATA[Hey, its today! My new book, CHOCOLATE BLISS: Sensuous Recipes, Spa Treatments and Other Divine Indulgences hits bookstores today (Barnes &amp; Noble, Borders, your local independent). Its a celebration of how chocolate touches the culinary heart of the world. Lots of info on tasting, health benefits, sustainable farming, gifting, plus recipes for brownies, cookies, marbled pound cake, cocoa chili, fondue; AND shopping tips on how to find great chocolatethe stuff we like! Of course THE CHOCOLATE LIFE is listed as a must-see site. Check it out on Amazon - if you like it, write a rave review, okay?]]></description>
                <pubDate>Tue, 20 Oct 2009 10:10:22 -0600</pubDate>
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                <title><![CDATA[Chocolate Doesn't Go With Velveeta™ - @susie-norris]]></title>
                <link>https://forums.thechocolatelife.com/susie-norris/blog/121/chocolate-doesnt-go-with-velveetatm</link>
                <guid>https://forums.thechocolatelife.com/susie-norris/blog/121</guid>
                <description><![CDATA[Call my crazy but I just dont want the makers of Velveeta messing with my Cadbury bars. Kraft Foods bid (underbid?) $16.7 billion for Cadbury this week, declaring they were offering stock holders a 42% increase on Cadburys median share price. Cadbury pushed back, declaring the proposal undervalued their stock and they were confident in their "stand-alone strategy and growth prospects as a result of...strong brands, unique category and geographic scope. The New York Times reports a takeover of Cadbury would help Kraft, the biggest food conglomerate in North America, compete with its larger rival, Nestle, especially in Britain and India. Nestle makes dog food, dont forget. Krafts next move will likely be a run at a hostile takeover, just when you thought those corporate vampires were dead and buried back in the 1990s. When a giant food conglomerate best known for bologne, hyper-processed cheese-like substances and Kool-aid seeks to attain a company best known for chocolate, I worry about my chocolate.Cadbury was founded in 1824 by Quaker John Cadbury in Birmingham, England. It is a national treasure in England. Even to its biggest critics (possibly investigative journalist Carol Alt, author of BITTER CHOCOLATE decrying corporate chocolates role in the history of slavery), or those who prefer higher grade couvertures, Cadbury does more good in the chocolate world than bad. Weve just seen what happens when giant corporations consume smaller ones - Hershey devoured premium brand Scharffen Berger, only to close SBs picturesque California factory and merge operations. Will the flavor be the same? How could it be? Something, something essential, is lost when these things happen. Cadbury milk chocolate - maybe you like it, maybe you dont - but you sure dont want it run through whatever hydrolic machine turns milk and whey into Velveeta; you dont want its essence scrutinized by people who specialize in watering down the Kool-Aid for higher yield. I hope the chocolate warriors beat back the food conglomerage vampires, and Cadbury continues to stand alone as a chocolate company with character and tradition.]]></description>
                <pubDate>Wed, 09 Sep 2009 12:07:50 -0600</pubDate>
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                <title><![CDATA[Chocolate Balsamic Vinaigrette - @susie-norris]]></title>
                <link>https://forums.thechocolatelife.com/susie-norris/blog/118/chocolate-balsamic-vinaigrette</link>
                <guid>https://forums.thechocolatelife.com/susie-norris/blog/118</guid>
                <description><![CDATA[One of the many things I learned in the the cookbook writing process was how to spell vinaigrette. Its one of those words that looks wrong even when it is right so thank you, eagle-eyed editors. Heres the recipe - it has garlicy, sweet and sour notes which you can adjust by using more or less dark chocolate.2 tablespoons balsamicvinegar2 tablespoons rice winevinegar (or white vinegar)1 ounce dark chocolate,melted2 tablespoons water1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil1 teaspoon minced garlic1 teaspoon kosher saltGround pepper to tastePut all the ingredients into a blender and blend on lowuntil mixed, less than a minute.]]></description>
                <pubDate>Fri, 04 Sep 2009 23:23:51 -0600</pubDate>
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                <title><![CDATA[CHOCOLATE TANNIC ATTACK - @susie-norris]]></title>
                <link>https://forums.thechocolatelife.com/susie-norris/blog/104/chocolate-tannic-attack</link>
                <guid>https://forums.thechocolatelife.com/susie-norris/blog/104</guid>
                <description><![CDATA[Oolong tea from Taiwan infused milk chocolate from Belgium. Dark chocolate from Venezuela drank up black tea from Ceylon. And Napa Valley red wine seeped into organic chocolate from Hawaii. Such exotic flavor and terroir matchups were among the many found at the 55th Summer Fancy Food Show in New York City in June. What inspired these new combinations? Large amounts of flavonols, the antioxidant-powered chemicals that occur naturally in wine, tea and chocolate. Industry watchers predict that health benefits, flavor infusions and global influences will drive a chocolate explosion through 2014. A record number of new chocolate products launched at this trade show reflects an overall increase of 76% since 2006. This means more tasty twists than ever can be found at your gourmet chocolate counter.When we launched Box of Bubbly last year, we were surprised by its instant success, says Ed Engoron, owner and head chocolatier of Choclatique, an online boutique in Los Angeles, about his line of champagne truffles ($20 for a box of eight.) We had to work for the balance that allows you to experience a hint of effervescence. Choclatiques new Napa Valley Collection features fruity reds and bittersweet darks. The chocolate, sourced from beans around the world and refined in its Los Angeles studio, encases a chocolate ganache infused with red wines carefully chosen from the grape-growing region of Californias Napa Valley. We wanted to introduce something special for the crush season of our favorite wines, says Joan Vieweger, Choclatiques co-owner and marketing specialist.Wine Lover's Chocolate Collection, from Bridge Brands in San Francisco, is a selection of dark chocolates to pair with wine, a way for people to experience the subtleties of wine and chocolate together without a lot of guesswork, says the companys website. In the heart of Napa Valley, Anette's Chocolate Factory offers Winter Cabernet Truffle Bar and Merlot Fudge Sauce among its many wine-inspired confections.Studies from medical institutions (Harvard, Yale and Johns Hopkins among them) confirm that wine, tea and chocolate contribute to heart health, and sales for each have shot up. Good news drives sales, sales drives marketing, and marketing supports new products. Chocolate generates an estimated $80 billion per year for international companies such as Cadbury, Cargill, Nestl, Hersheys and Mars, with dark chocolate sales increasing 49% between 2003 and 2006.Tea, a complex, storied and antioxidant-laden alkaloid, figures in more chocolate bars than ever before. Chicago-based Vosges Haut Chocolat, long a leader in the flavored chocolates trend, now offers an Earl Grey tea and sweet dark chocolate bar. Theo from Portland, Ore., has a chai tea dark chocolate bar. In a further twist, tea makers and vintners are putting chocolate into their drinks, no easy feat given chocolates high fat content (about 50%) and the inherent difficulty in emulsifying with liquids.All this brewing and crazy chemistry result in products ranging from the sublime to the silly. One chocolate drop I tasted gave me such a mouthful of raw green tea powder that I had to delicately remove it and desperately splash down the residue at a nearby passion fruit juice stand. (My palate thanks you, Ceres Fruit Juices!) One confectioner described a product as cabernet-flavored pectin jelly drenched in chocolate, which hints at neither deliciousness nor healthfulness, and tasted like a grape gummy bear dipped in reluctant chocolate.But even in this melee of fusion and confusion, quality products emerge. Harney &amp; Sons, purveyors of fine tea in upstate New York, created a chocolate mint tea that hits the best notes of both. The Tea Room, another chocolate specialist from Californias Napa Valley, won a silver Sofi Award, the Fancy Food Shows award for excellence, for its Green Earl Grey Dark Chocolate bar.Despite the grim economy, the Fancy Food Show drew a record crowd of more than 24,000 buyers and specialty food industry professionals from around the world. Chocolate is a robust category, says Louise Kramer of the National Association for the Specialty Food Trade, which produces the Fancy Food Show. While not recession-proof, gourmet chocolate is considered an affordable luxury, and many companies continue to post gains. Attendance at the show was up 4 percent from last year and higher than at any Fancy Food Show in the past decade.VISIT THE NEW SITE "ZESTER DAILY" AT WWW.ZESTERDAILY.COM TO LEARN MORE ABOUT THE CULTURE OF WINE AND FOOD.]]></description>
                <pubDate>Mon, 10 Aug 2009 20:31:23 -0600</pubDate>
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                <title><![CDATA[THE MAKING OF A CHERRY CHOCOLATE - @susie-norris]]></title>
                <link>https://forums.thechocolatelife.com/susie-norris/blog/86/the-making-of-a-cherry-chocolate</link>
                <guid>https://forums.thechocolatelife.com/susie-norris/blog/86</guid>
                <description><![CDATA[Cherry season is almost over - sniff, sniff - so now is the time for all good chocolatiers to honor this exquisite superfruit. Cherries come in sweet and sour varieties, including Bing, Morello, and Schmidt among many others. Historians suspect they are originally from China and first cultivated in Turkey by the Romans in the 1st century. They later captured the adoration of the Chinese brush painters; their blossoms became a national cultural symbol of Japan and many cities (notably Kyoto, Washington DC and Vancouver) incorporate them into their landscape and organize festivals around them.Sweet or tart to create a cherry compote for your chocolate confection? Given that tart cherries are naturally bittersweet (like you-know-what), opt for deep, dark red Morellos or Montmorency, pit em, give them a rough chop and boil them in 1/2 cup of water, 1 cup of sugar, 1/4 cup corn syrup with a pinch of salt and a splash of brandy for 5 minutes or so. While they cool, make a thin shortbread crust, baked very soft. A simple sugar cookie recipe or pate sucre will do - just roll it out to 1/4 on a sheet pan and bake just until light brown on the edges. Next, make a milk chocolate ganache (1 cup melted milk chocolate, 3/4 cup hot cream, a little black pepper; pulse them in the food processor for about 10 seconds). Put a 1/2 layer of ganache over the shortbread, then a thin layer of the cherry compote. Push the cherries into the chocolate ganache so they will stay put. Allow it to set, then slice into 1 squares or circles and enrobe them in dark, 72% chocolate. Top with pink chocolate plastique cherry blossoms. If this all sounds tasty but too much work, visit my on-line store at www.happychocolates.com and Ill send you a batch. Pssst. Either way, buy cherries now and freeze them! Youll thank me in September.Posted in Chocolate Adventures, All the Time Recipes | Edit | No]]></description>
                <pubDate>Tue, 14 Jul 2009 00:51:56 -0600</pubDate>
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                <title><![CDATA[SUGAR TALL AND HANDSOME - @susie-norris]]></title>
                <link>https://forums.thechocolatelife.com/susie-norris/blog/85/sugar-tall-and-handsome</link>
                <guid>https://forums.thechocolatelife.com/susie-norris/blog/85</guid>
                <description><![CDATA[The sugar and chocolate showpiece competition at the World Pastry Championship is a place to pick favorites. I pick favorites there the way I might choose giant lollipops at the amusement park - which one speaks to my heart in color and design. But heres the trick that sets the sugar artists of the pastry championship miles apart from the guys in the candy kitchen making giant lollipops. Sugar artists must make their sculptures tall. Not just big, but gravity-defyingly tall. Next, they must make its colors so luminous and harmoniously blended that you recognize the object as something worthy of a museum or a sugar art gallery (if only there was one). Unlike bronze, stained glass or canvas where youd expect exquisite color and form meaningfully rendered together, sugar melts in heat and humidity. Sugar breaks. Sugar shatters. Sugar buckles under extreme weight. Creating a brilliantly colored and shaped sugar piece that is also tall and sturdy is the high-wire act these artists must perform. As if thats not enough, they have to do the same dazzling work in chocolate. What a show!For more photos of the sugar artists and their sculptures, visit www.pastrychampionship.com or order the next issue of Dessert Professional Magazine www.dessertprofessional.com]]></description>
                <pubDate>Sun, 12 Jul 2009 23:04:32 -0600</pubDate>
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                <title><![CDATA[COCOA CHEESE DECISION - @susie-norris]]></title>
                <link>https://forums.thechocolatelife.com/susie-norris/blog/70/cocoa-cheese-decision</link>
                <guid>https://forums.thechocolatelife.com/susie-norris/blog/70</guid>
                <description><![CDATA[Rambling through the cheese section of the new Whole Foods market in Pasadena is an excerise in delerium. Should I get the sharp farmhouse cheddar I know? Should I try the oozy sheeps milk raw Ive never heard of? Blue with veins or white with orange rind??? Then, the little cheese that was meant for me appeared. Cardona with a cocoa powder rind. What a miracle of subtely - no sharpness to the flavor of the cheese, no bitterness from the wrapping of the cocoa. Richness all around. How did they do that?? Thank you, my new friends at Carr Valley. For great scoop on cheese, visit Culture Magazine at www.culturecheesemag.com]]></description>
                <pubDate>Tue, 16 Jun 2009 08:07:04 -0600</pubDate>
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                <title><![CDATA[MAKE MINE MARBLE - @susie-norris]]></title>
                <link>https://forums.thechocolatelife.com/susie-norris/blog/61/make-mine-marble</link>
                <guid>https://forums.thechocolatelife.com/susie-norris/blog/61</guid>
                <description><![CDATA[Imagine your very own chocolate workshop - shelf space for all your molds, spatulas, pots, pans and junk; room for all your machines which nobody loves but you; boxes and boxes of your fine couvertures from around the world. What is the one thing you need to make your vision complete?You need a marble slab! I am the proud owner of a new marble slab which now lives in my state-of-the-art-on-a-twizzlestick-budget chocolate studio formerly known as.my basement. Here I can store all my chocolate gear, develop new recipes, make chocolate decorations and tinker with the gadgets of artistry: molds, bands, transfer sheets, paint sprayers, flower cutters, leaf veiners, exacto knives. Endless fun. From here, I cart the new ideas &amp; designs to my co-op commercial kitchen for production, which is now a heck of a lot more efficient. In the words of Virginia Woolf, I have a room of ones own. Shopping for marble? I considered granite and marble and started pricing pieces from the usual suspects: Home Depot and Costco. You can beat those prices! I wound up in the stone works district of Los Angeles which is in North Hollywood (who knew?). This big boy pictured above cost me $400 with no delivery (borrowed my friend Garys truck and also my friend Gary to help carry the damn thing) which is 1/4 of the price Home Depot quoted me. Dont get me wrong, I love my peeps at Home Depot but these shiny slabs require some muscular shopping. I hear you get good deals at the graveyard but I had to draw the line! Granite is a little cheaper than marble; both natural stones are pourous so you have to use some caution with food colors and cleansers, but I chose marble because of this wonderfully clean color (against which all chocolate is easily visible) and its long history as the cool, clean favorite of confectioners.]]></description>
                <pubDate>Mon, 01 Jun 2009 18:35:39 -0600</pubDate>
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                <title><![CDATA[So Much Chocolate in San Francisco - @susie-norris]]></title>
                <link>https://forums.thechocolatelife.com/susie-norris/blog/31/so-much-chocolate-in-san-francisco</link>
                <guid>https://forums.thechocolatelife.com/susie-norris/blog/31</guid>
                <description><![CDATA[Today I joined 40 other chocolatiers - bayside with seagulls - thinking: this is a perfect day for chocolate lovers in San Fran to collect at the waterfront wharf and celebrate chocolate. Look out! 5,000 of them turned up! I was next to Chocolatique from LA, Jade from SF, Amano from Utah, William Dean from Florida, and nearly 20 wine and liqueur makers, 20 artists....and thousands of enthusiasts sampling the wares. My observatons: chocolate is still recession-proof! People were buying, chocolate was selling. New products: it's all about the bean: chocolate-enriobed beans, chocolate-covered nibs, raw, roasted....lots and lots of beans. Also, spicy chocolate is still in - chipotle chili, wasabi, ginger top the list. Caramel and toffee...decidedly old-fashioned flavors... lit up the eyes of many SF foodies when they appeared on our menus. Even so, most attendees were looking for daring spices and innovation. Who will win the best in show? What did the bloggers have to say about the event? Was there a definitive chocolate photo of the day?? More will be revealed at www.tastetv.com.]]></description>
                <pubDate>Sat, 21 Mar 2009 23:06:18 -0600</pubDate>
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                <title><![CDATA[CHOCOLATE IN CHICAGO - @susie-norris]]></title>
                <link>https://forums.thechocolatelife.com/susie-norris/blog/15/chocolate-in-chicago</link>
                <guid>https://forums.thechocolatelife.com/susie-norris/blog/15</guid>
                <description><![CDATA[The swirling snow through Chicagos bare trees seemed a long way from the humid breezes and thick leaf canopies of chocolates growing regions. Yet when I arrived at the new Barry-Callebauts Chocolate Academy in Chicago, I found the fragrant bags of chocolate from Costa Rica and Tanzania and Mexico ready for action. I had heard that this facility was the best of all chocolate work labs in the country, and maybe even the world. Could it be true? This was no ordinary candy kitchen - the kind with a greasy copper kettle and a few cracked marble slabs around. And it was not quaint in the way you imagine a storied kitchen of a European boutique. No, this was a long, well-lit room with a state-of-the-art granite workspace the size of a basketball court (OK, I exaggerate, but you chocolate people have spent plenty of time in the corner of a too-hot kitchen with nothing more than a bowl and a broken tempering machine. Youd love this! It was huge!). We had induction burners, ganache frames, guitars, temperature and humidity control, sunshades, convection ovens, Robot-Coupes, heat guns, pallette knives and a wall of chocolate from which to choose our flavors. We worked with automatic enrobers, continuous enrobers, chocolate warmers, molds, racks and pans all specified to the precise needs of chocolate practioners. If you could take your eyes off all this gleaming equipment, you could ponder the views of Chicagos snowy rooftops and river traffic below. My chef/instructor, Derek Pho, is also the technical director for Barry-Callebaut, and he chose most of the equipment in the place. Ask him anything about the Chicago facility, water activity in ganache, sugar density, the Canadian facility, beta crystalsyou name it, this guy knows it. Plus he can explain it to you in any of the 6 languages he speaks. My chocolate biz &amp; tech skills got a work out, my pastry chef skills got a work out, my student skills got a big work out becuase we were given lectures, hand-outs and detailed chemistry information along with our confectionary recipes. But now I have a problem. My tabletop tempering machines look like old vacuum cleaners to me now. Im just not living right. I need one of those $25,000 enrobers and a basketball court full of granite in my workspace. My aspirations may have a big price tag, but the inspiration from the Chocolate Academy was priceless. http://www.barry-callebaut.com/chocolate_academy or 866-443-0437]]></description>
                <pubDate>Fri, 13 Feb 2009 10:40:45 -0700</pubDate>
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