Downtown Local

After moving to Loma Mar from San Francisco over 7 years ago, spending time at a good coffee house always required a trek.  No longer.  Pescadero now has Downtown Local, a wonderful place for good coffee, quality baked goods, and comfortable space.  Rather than 40 minutes in the car, I now have a respite within 15 minutes from home. 

Opened just two months ago on Stage Street, just across from Duartes and down the street from Pescadero Country Store, Downtown Local seems a bit out of place in this small coastal town.  Yet, the motorcycle in the window, Italian newspapers on the walls, the turntable playing music, and the assortment of vintage items on display do create an inviting space that appeals to the diverse personalities that live in the area and tourists that come through. 

As usual, cacao-me ordered a mocha.  But my first sip caused me to do a double-take.  The mocha at Downtown Local is a far cry from the overly sweetened versions I've unfortunately grown accustomed.  Using TCHO chocolate, Downtown Local's mocha provides the shades of an excellent dark chocolate, which pairs with their Sightglass Coffee, to create a wonderful bite of complex quality and subtle fruity undertones.  The tastes echoed of the "hot cacao" I continue to make from ground roasted cacao beans.  In addition, Downtown Local had almond milk, which made their mocha even more perfect.


Though their selection of baked goods was small (4 items), each looked beautiful, screamed of quality, and were provided by Companion Bakery in Santa Cruz.  I enjoyed a dark chocolate cookie with sea salt that was divinely inspired.  Highlighted by just a touch of salt, the bittersweet notes of this thick, dense, crunchy chocolate cookie sang with perfection.  (And the banana nut bread was also excellent, dense and moist and not overly sweet.)

I stayed for nearly 2 hours, reading, journaling, chatting with a couple visiting from New Zealand, enjoying the eclectic hipster decor.  A spill of chocolate on the table, which someone outlined and wrote "Ooooh chocolate!" (see picture) also made cacao-me feel at home.  Downtown  Local is wonderful respite from work and school, now within minutes from home.  I now need to try their hot chocolate on my next visit.

Along with all the other wonders of the area, Downtown Local now provides yet another reason to visit Pescadero -- the coffee! 

(Click here for a great review of this place by the Half Moon Bay Review)

Not for the vegan of heart

A free afternoon brought me to 4th street in Berkeley for a time of reflection and of course chocolate.  I heard that Chocolatier Blue served hot chocolate at their Fourth Street location and wanted to try it out.  While I have been to their downtown store, which serves their beautiful collection of chocolates, their store front just off the 80 freeway is also a "parlor" and serves ice cream, sorbets, and frozen treats, along with hot chocolate.

The sun was out.  It was a beautiful day, made better by a wonderful cup of hot chocolate, which I enjoyed on their outdoor patio. They use 70% cacao with whole milk (no non-animal milks, unfortunately), creating a fruity, smooth, bright and floral undertones to the chocolate.  I chose no marshmallows as I didn't want extra sweetness.

Overall, it was a nice cup, made better with a fresh baked chocolate chip cookie that they served me warm from the oven.  It was slightly "undone", as I like it, gooey and buttery (definitely not vegan), with sweet vanilla notes.  There were warm, oozing chunks of semi-sweet chocolate, which melted all over my fingers when eating, but I wasn't complaining.

Definitely not a vegan experience as my "chocolate exception" kicked in today, with no plant-based milks and butter overload in the cookie.  Yet it was a nice treat.  Though both the hot chocolate and cookie were wonderful, I know that there are vegan options out there which would be just as yum.  I just need to keep looking for them.  The hunt continues.

Chocolate, Chocolate Chip, Walnut Cookies

The best breaks in life are free. With the thesis crunching in, time is a precious commodity. But thanks to my cousin, I was able to break, bake, and enjoy some homemade chocolate cookies, without having to do more than pop open the lid and scoop. It was almost as easy as "open box and bake." And the results - definitely much more delicious, though a bit crunchier than I would have liked!

My cousin Janeen (who won my 2009 "perfect" chocolate cake contest) was telling me about some of her recent baking experiences. There was a new VEGAN recipe she wanted to try from Veganomicon by Moskowitz and Romero. "Chocolate Chocolate Chip Walnut Cookies" sounded yummy, veganly perfect, and not being shy when it comes to chocolate, I of course volunteered to be her guinea pig.

Since Janeen lives about 30 minutes away, sampling a fresh cookie from her is a challenge. But because my parents are in her area on Sundays to visit our grandmother, it worked out that they could be the cookie couriers. Rather than baking the cookies, Janeen decided to send the raw dough and let me bake them fresh and enjoy them hot from the oven because when it comes to home baked cookies, there is really no better way to enjoy them.

With the rain coming down this afternoon, thoughts of warm, fresh-baked cookies filled my mind. A perfect day to bake and to take a break from the thesis. And with Janeen already having done the hard part in assembling the dough, I just needed to form the dough into one inch balls, flatten them on the pan, and bake.

Now my mom isn't really much of a baker and supplies are a bit scarce here. "I have a non-stick pan for you to use," she said. With a high learning curve in baking, I consented, warmed the oven to 350 degrees and began to place the cookie dough on the dark non-stick cookie sheet. Though a bit oily, the dough was a deep dark brown with a wonderful chocolate smell, packed full of walnut and chocolate chips. I was so ready to eat the raw dough but I resisted.

(Come to think of it, I could have eaten them raw as there are no eggs and thus no salmonella fears to contend with. Next time...)

Soon the smell of warm baking cookies filled the air, and at the end of the allotted 10 minute baking period, the cookies came out of the oven looking wonderfully appetizing. My mom and I were both ready to get at them, but we let them cool, and my mom was patient as I took my pictures. In no time, however, the taste test began.

The cookies were still slightly warm and had a wonderful deep chocolate-flavor. "Not very sweet," my mom said. And personally, that's how I like them as the bittersweet undertones lifted the rich subtle sweetness in the chopped walnuts and the chocolate chips. There was however a clear crunch to the cookie, and an "almost burnt" taste that lingered. While my preference is moist and chewy cookies, my mom loves crunchy cookies (along with nuts and chocolate) and so for her, it was a perfect combination. She loved them.

For me, I adored the taste combination and the fact that they are VEGAN. I would, however, have preferred a chewy, fudgy texture. Now if I had listened to Alice, I would have known better.

In her book Bittersweet (my new Bible on chocolate baking), Alice Medrich notes that "cookies will have the best flavor and texture if they are baked on sheets lined with parchment paper, or even wax paper, which insulates them just enough but still allows the cookies to be a little crusty on the outside and soft within." She goes onto to write, "Pans with dark surfaces (even if they are non-stick) tend to scorch rich chocolate cookie bottoms before the centers are cooked." There is my answer. I baked these rich chocolate cookies on my mom's non-stick dark pan and the pans scorched the bottoms.

Alice knows best. And I know better now.

But in any case, the cookies were (and still are) excellent. What makes them better is that the ingredients were blended and sent with love by my cousin, and baked fresh and enjoyed with my mom. And I learned something about baking too.

Overall, it was a wonderful baking break on a rainy day. Now it's back to the books, until the next chocolate adventure when the baking plan will be Alice's Bittersweet Deception. "Cake," she writes, "doesn't really begin to do justice to this dense, moist, melt-in-your-mouth bittersweet chocolate dessert." Definitely, my kind of indulgence. When the thesis editing is done, the baking will begin. Stay tuned