Conversations in chocolate

I was in a chocolate awe this afternoon, and it had nothing to do with what I ate.

In connection with "Good Foods Month," I received an email about a panel discussion on chocolate careers featuring five of the Bay Area most accomplished chocolate professionals. Though I can't say that a chocolate career is in my future, I had the time, and I was curious about what they were going to say. Thus, I registered and spent about 90 minutes at the San Francisco Art Institute, the host site, listening and learning about what it takes to be in the chocolate business and the challenges these seasoned professionals face as entrepreneurs and women.

One reason I wanted to attend was to hear Alice Medrich (pictured right), my chocolate mentor through my study bake attempts last year. Unfortunately, I forgot to bring one of my growing collection of Alice's books for her to sign and to be the total groupie. And I forgot to bring my camera thus needed to use the camera function on my old (not smart) phone to take pictures. Thus I have blurry shots.

Another person on the panel I wanted to hear was Penelope Finnie (pictured left in the picture below), owner of Bittersweet, one of the few places in the Bay Area that serves a dark bittersweet cup of drinking chocolate. Because I have since sampled other types of drinking chocolate or "cioccolata calda" in Italy (and need to review more of them on this blog), I was able to talk with her and suggest she offer a thick European-style chocolate at their cafe, which I do love. She said she's heard this suggestion before and will consider it. I mentioned that I have been trying some samples of drinking chocolate which I picked up in markets while traveling in Italy, and she said to email her if I find one I like. I plan to, and hope to see a thick drinking chocolate at Bittersweet sometime soon!

Other members of the panel included Thalia Hohenthal (pictured left in the center), food scientist at Guittard Chocolate Company, Zohara Mapes (pictured left on the right), chocolatier at TCHO, and Kathy Wiley, owner of Poco Dolce.

Topics this distinguished group of chocolate professionals shared about included:

• how they first decided to enter the business,
  
• what an average day looks like,
  
• how their love of chocolate influences their choice of foods,
  
• how they are breaking ground as women in a male dominated field,
  
• what they think of the new "art" in chocolate with new flavor pairings,
• how they describe chocolate as tasting is a big part of what they each do,
• what they would suggest for someone looking to turn their "passion" into "profit"

While there were many stories shared of the hard work and dedication needed to succeed and the challenges faced including tasting after tasting after tasting, one thing I appreciated from the Q&A time was Thalia's 6 point rating of chocolate. It is:

• yum yum yum
• yum yum
• yum
• yuck
• yuck yuck
  
• yuck yuck yuck

For Thalia there is no zero, no middle ground when it comes to chocolate. You must decide one way or the other - yum or yuck. Alice agreed and confessed that she tends to not have an extensive vocabulary to describe chocolate and tends toward the "yum or yuck" scale. Rather than use standard chocolate descriptions as found in the media (like "fruity" or "floral"), she believes it is more valuable to have a kid's vocabulary when it comes to chocolate because it moves quickly to the bottom line - whether you like it or not. And that's important because chocolate is such a personal thing.

I appreciate this, because personally I too do not yet having an extensive vocabulary in my ability to describe chocolate. My taste pallet is not well develop and I don't have the words to describe what I taste. I simply know if I like something or not. It's nice to know that I have a chocolate professional like Alice in my corner. That's why she continues to be my chocolate hero.