I was there to talk salt for a chocolate and salt class for 30 people at Recchiuti’s factory in San Francisco.  While there, I took it upon myself to assume the role of in-house naturalist.  Below are a handful of examples of my attempt to capture, with a cell phone camera, Michael Recchiuti in action.  For my own purposes, I also tried to soak up as much information, technique, and ideas as possible.  I’m still processing the experience, but this is sort of how it went:

Me just off the plane from Portland, he just out from a marathon morning at the chocolate factory, we meet at Piccino, share a bitter salad and a pizza with mildly junipery speck, chat and share a bite of burnt caramel ice cream (made by Recchiuti) with two beautiful women at the table next to us (who introduce themselves the moment the ice cream arrive), then race off to buy glasses for the salt and chocolate class, scheduled for the following day.

Returning to the factory, located in a huge industrial building in the uber hip Dogpatch district of San Francisco, I park my luggage at the door and am introduced to everyone in the “kitchen,” then everyone in the office.  The “kitchen” has mixers, temperers, coaters, conveyor belts, warm rooms, cool rooms, and giant kettles reminiscent of jet engine parts.

We survey the presentation area, chat over ideas about how to seat people, how to present salted caramels (there will be a flight of eight with six salts), where lights should go, where the tent went that was supposed to be here already, where homemade graham crackers can be set out alongside palettes of chocolate melting atop a Himalayan salt block, the general drift of how people will arrive, how they will dredge said graham crackers in said chocolate atop said Himalayan salt block and then find a seat.  How all their knees are going to be touching because the event is fully booked.

Then Michael starts disappearing.  He’s in the humidity controlled walk-in.  He’s rummaging for tubs under a worktable.  He’s grabbing something from a file.  He’s tossing a heavy cast iron pans on a counter top and pouring sugar over butter.  He is up on top of the giant walk in fridge fumbling with octopus plugs.  I intersect with him from time to time, busy either wondering what to do, brainstorming about something that will or will not happen, helping with some random task, photographing something.  We do this for two days together. Michael and his team had been working on it for a least a few days prior to my arrival as well.

I realize that somewhere along the line I’d started eating things.  Michael throws me a cherry bomb, I pluck a caramel-encrusted pecan from a tray, snack on a few real-mint-junior mints, dip my finger in some apricot, gouge a glop of sorbet from the spout of the ice cream machine, gouge a glop of sorbet from the spout of the ice cream machine after some egg white has been added, sprinkle some bamboo salt or sel gris or fleur de sel or smoked salt on each of the above and try them that way. (I’m also not 100% sure that it’s okay for me to be tasting things; this is, after all, a real factory, with spoken and unspoken codes of behavior, defined economies, ongoing production streams, etc.)  But I realize that I’ve already learned something from Michael: eat what you preach, and eat it often.  Which may be simplified as: eat.

(This is not to say that we relied exclusively on chocolate as a fuel source for the long days leading up to the salt and chocolate event.  Recchiuti has just bought a new espresso machine, and he is eager to try it out at every opportunity.)

But by now everything was coming together, which has a soothing effect on me and an intensifying effect on Michael.  Now he is almost impossible to see.  Suddenly spun sugar appears on a tray.  Tarte tatin appears in neat squares.  Marshmallows of flash frozen lime foam glow mysteriously on the counter.  The dish washing station is piling higher and higher with bowls, spatulas, knives, molds, beakers, trays.

I am taking pictures, still, and helping where I can.  I rim glasses for malted milk in powderized cocoa nibs and smoked salt.  I roll chocolate swizzle sticks in flaky salt.  I eat.

The guests arrive, we serve cocktails, and soon, the event is under way.

Menu:

Welcome Cocktail
Champagne Apricot Freeze made with Schramsberg Blanc de Noirs, celery and radish juices, and a salted chocolate swizzle stick.

Dip-It-Yourself Breadsticks
Recchiuti’s housemade graham crackers and single origin chocolate on a Himalayan salt block.

A Classic Opening
Tarte Tatin baked with Sel Gris de L’ile de Noirmoutier and finished with a suspended animation sprinkle of Okinawa Snow salt.

“Palette” Cleanser
Single Origin “Ocumare” by Amano Chocolate. Topped with pistachios, rosemary foraged from Michael’s street and 3x Roasted Korean Bamboo salt.

Frosty Beverage
Chilled Chocolate Malt drink made with El Rey 41% Milk Chocolate and organic roasted barley malt from Oaktown. Finished with a rim of Iburi Jio Cherry salt.

Intermission
Recchiuti factory tour.

Salt Flight
A comparison of six artisan salt caramels: Pangasinan Star, Kona Deep Sea, Shinkai Deep Sea, Halen Mon Gold, Amabito no Moshio, Cyprus Silver.

One Last Dance
House-churned Burnt Caramel Ice Cream (the same one that elicited the attention of the two women at the restaurant the previous day). Garnished with a drizzle of Stonehouse Olive Oil and Haleakala Ruby Salt.

And to take home…
A box of salt caramels to share (or not) with friends.

Two articles I’ve found on (or relating to) the Recchiuti Bitterman Chocolate Salt event so far:

http://www.foodporn.com/pescygourmet/2009/05/recchiuti-salt-and-chocolate-tasting.html
http://www.thedinnerfiles.com/?p=1089

Profits are a nice thing for a company.  What is not nice is when they come at the expense of brand integrity.  Hershey is winding down its “Global Supply Chain Transformation program,” which aims to increase shareholder value rationalizing and restructuring various operations.  To date the company has spent over half a billion dollars on the program.  Buried in all this financial information lurks an inconvenient truth:

“During the fourth quarter of 2008, the scope of the Global Supply Chain Transformation program increased modestly to include the closure of two subscale manufacturing facilities of Artisan Confections Company, a wholly owned subsidiary, and consolidation of the associated production into existing U.S. facilities, along with rationalization of other select items.”

Hershey, the nation’s second-biggest candy maker, owns Artisan Confections Company, which in turns owns Dagoba, Joseph Schmidt, and Scharffen Berger chocolate companies.  Those two “subscale manufacturing facilities” are bay area chocolate companies Joseph Schmidt and Scharffen Berger. 150 people in the area will lose their jobs. (more…)

The main thing is that we have been eating (ahem, I mean tasting) a lot of chocolate bars.

Our Meadow Salted Chocolates were back in stock for a short while!  But no, they are gone again, darn it.  If anyone knows a great, secret local chocolatier who can mold and package our salted chocolate, please do tell.

Also made locally, we now carry Sahagun Handmade Chocolates‘ legendary fleur de sel liquid caramels, and an expanded collection of her lovely “barks.”  There is the Palomitapapa, the Pepitapapa, the Oregon Bark.

Michael Recchiuti fleur de sel caramels have also landed on the shelves, along with boxes of his wild and delicious chocolates.  I confess that part of the reason does not have to do with the fact that his caramels are ridiculously, annoyingly good.  Part has to do with the fact that we just love Michael and his wife Jackie so much, we want to be feel their presence in the shop.  (I’ll post something on a Japanese fusion salt-festooned dinner we all shared at the Heathman not long ago on Saltnews.org sometime soon!).   Local chocolatiers include Sahagun, Xocolatl de David, DePaula Confections, and Lulu’s Chocolate! (more…)

But chocolate as a theme, as a concept, as a pattern, a fashion, a mode — no.  Nay.  I do not like it.  My initial, invertebrate response when my personal friend and professional chocolate supplier David Briggs said he was making a chocolate dinner was to recoil into a dark crevice somewhere, staring through the briny depths of my eyes with octopus horror.  Sucking cold brine through my gills, my brain is reduced to its bivalve origins.  Chocolate, my dear friend, is a food.

But immediately after that my knowledge of Dave, who owns and operates Xocolatl de David and is also Sous Chef at Park Kitchen, returned to assure me.  Mr. Briggs’s unassuming manner cloaks a sophisticated palate, unflinching creativity, and an ever-expanding set of skills .  So why not?  A seven course chocolate-based meal paired with seven beverages, served at Park Kitchen, one of Jennifer and my favorite restaurants in town, and a place we freely recommend to out of town visitors and locals alike who visit The Meadow.

If Jennifer had qualms she didn’t express them; she just grabbed my hand and dragged me to Park Kitchen where 14 people (two cowardly louts failed to honor their reservation) were seated with the preliminary awkwardness that inevitably attends such public-private group encounters. (more…)

This is an intellectually welcome and culinarily exciting addition to the small but fundamentally key (a gourmand of no less magnitude than Jean-Anthelme Brillat-Savarin  repeatedly refers to the unsurpassed drinking chocolates originating in the “sokonusco” region of Mexico.  Askinosie Chocolate not long ago introduced its own Soconusco chocolate bar from a small band of growers in Mexico. 

According to Larry Slotnick, co-founder of Taza with Alex Whitmore, the beans in the Chiapas bar are from the farm community of San Felipe in Southern Chiapas. Only 1,392 bars were made, and each is hand numbered. Larry and Alex don’t give cellaring recommendations, but I think the bar is eating pretty nicely right now. (I’m kidding around…)

The Taza guys say this about the bar: “We carefully blended the chocolate as a 75% dark that is a perfect balance of sweetness allowing the very unique flavor characteristics of this bean to shine. The beans exhibit a very nutty flavor profile and a dry, tannic finish not found in most chocolate bars.”

Some background on Taza: Pulling some very old technology from the shadowy recesses of history, they have resurrected ye olde grinding stone (molino) to create a more rustic, less processed chocolate.

Taza’s mission is stated: “Taza is a true bean-to-bar chocolate maker located in Somerville, Massachusetts, and is the only maker of 100% stone ground chocolate in the United States. Taza sources organically grown cacao beans directly from small farmer cooperatives ensuring those farmers receive more than fair trade prices for their high quality cacao. Taza is uniquely positioned as one of the only independently owned, socially and environmentally responsible chocolate makers in the country.”

In addition to the rougher grind and lack of conching of the chocolate, Taza roasts their cacao beans lighter than many, leaving more intense fruity acidity.

Below is the Ultimate Salted Caramel Recipe as perfected by David Briggs of Xocolatl de David.

The format of the salted caramel class was the usual: Attendees (we had over 32 last night!) were given a glass of wine to help keep their palates lively as we moved through a somewhat rigorous tasting format.

• Mark Bitterman gave the selmelier’s mini-lecture on the four types of sea salt currently used in the assorted salted caramels offered in the shop.
• Halen Mon Gold oak smoked sea salt from Wales - oaky and warm and mellow with hefty filo dough like flakes
• Iburi Jio Cherry cherrywood smoked deep sea salt form Japan – heady and bacony and silky at the same time
• Amabito no Moshio seaweed salt from Japan – a round and mild mineral-rich salt with lots of savory brothy (umami) flavors.
• Pangasinan Star fleur de sel from the Philippines – brambly and warm and delicately sweet with outsized yet delicate white crystals.
• The David Briggs talked about how he formulates the salt-levels of his caramels as people tasted:
• Unsalted burnt caramel cubes
• Lightly salted caramel cubes (the light is Briggs’s term, as the man loves salt)
• Fully salted caramel cubes (whoa Bessy!)
• Then Dave demonstrated how to make a salted caramel sauce (note: Dave declines to go by the title of caramelier either because he thinks a caramelier fellow in France will be offended or because he worries it might constrain future projects involving bacon or ice cream—or maybe both).
• We took a vote and let the guests choose which salts to put in the caramels based on their tasting.  Every class has been different.  This time the choices were Halen Mon Gold and Pangasinan Star.
• Last, Dave served up home-made chocolate ice cream and guests were allowed to ladle out the salted caramel sauce (or sauces) of choice onto the ice cream.

Jittery, maybe a little buzzed, the crowd at the end of the evening was slow to drift off, doubtless uncertain as to whether dinner, bed, sea kayaking, or something else would be the best outlet for their energy.

Recipe for the Best Salted Caramel Sauce
The first step is to make invert sugar to prevent the sugar in the caramel from spontaneously crystallizing.

Salted Caramel Invert Sugar
3 C          Sugar
1.5 C       Water
1/4 t        Citic acid OR juice of 1/2 lemon
Put ingredients in a non reactive pot and bring to a boil.  Lower heat and simmer for 30 minutes.

Caramel Sauce
2 C  Sugar
1 oz  Invert Sugar
1.25 C   Cream, warm
1 oz   Butter
Fleur de sel

Put invert sugar and sugar in a wide high sided non reactive pot on high heat.  Every minute or so slowly mix in granulated sugar with some that is liquefied.  Eventually you will have a paste.  Warm Cream separately.
Continue to cook sugar until it begins to caramelize.  Using a candy thermometer monitor the temperature of the cooking sugar.  The classic caramel stage is around 330-350 degrees F.  You can cook it longer for a less sweet more bitter sauce.  Do not go above 390 F.

When your desired temperature is reached turn off the heat and slowly and very carefully add the warmed cream in small increments.  When the cream is fully incorporated, turn the heat on high and heat the caramel to 230 F.  This will go quite quickly.  Turn off heat and add the butter.  Stir until the butter has completely melted.  Add your desired amount of Fleur de sel or other sea salt.  Let cool.

It will store in the refrigerator for up to 4 months.

Fondue recipes proliferate. Many are unduly fancy. Some are simply mired in preconceived notions about food inherited from the roly-poly days when butter and flavorings were the esteemed foundations upon which we constructed our culinary fantasies. Sometimes it’s nice to dispense with the curlycues, or more savagely, just take those crusty habits out to pasture and put them out of their misery.

The other day at our Himalayan Salt Block Cooking Class we made an original sort of chocolate fondue. More viscous, richer, more complex, and, (of all things) crunchier than your typical fondue, we ate fondue was at once more sophisticated and yummier. The only ingredient in the fondue is chocolate.

No good pictures of our Himalayan Salt Block Very Dark & Nibby Chocolate Fondue have survived for posterity, but a shot taken that evening (right) gives an idea of the basic setup. The Himalayan salt block works like a double boiler, protecting the chocolate from excessive heat while contributing the temperature stability necessary to work the melting chocolate without allowing it to separate into oil and solids. The salt block also makes a beautiful serving platter. Because there is virtually no moisture in chocolate, the Himalayan salt block does not add any perceptible amount of saltiness to the chocolate.  To prepare this dish, you will need the following:

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Striving for the World’s Best Chocolate

In a remote corner of the global village, an Italian believes he’s developed the best of all chocolate recipes. Claudio Corallo lives on an island off Nigeria and ships his small-batch chocolate around the world.

Most people, says Claudio Corallo, don’t have the slightest idea what chocolate is — or what it can be. The article continues>>

I imagine Alessio and Cecilia Tessieri, the brother and sister founders of Amedei, were drowning in Champagne on the night of the announcement. Nonetheless, they managed to comment: “We are very proud of this award. Our objective shall always remain that of producing the best chocolate in the world, dedicating it to all our supporters. We thank the Academy of Chocolate for this award, and for the seriousness and passion it puts in its worldwide work in search of good quality chocolate.”

Here is their announcement, edited slightly, because while I respect their palates, “harbouring” all those “colourful” extra ‘u’s hogs up RAM on my “computour.”

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With these words ripe on the tongue, bite into the Vosges Bacon Chocolate Bar, officially known as Mo’s Bacon Bar. The bacon bar is a dark milk chocolate, combined with applewood smoked bacon, alder smoked salt, and 41% deep milk chocolate.

Vosges Haut-Chocolat is rightly famed for the witty and trendy blends concocted by Vosges founder Katrina Markoff, who possesses that rare blend of skills that ranges from concocting to packaging to marketing chocolate. As the list of chocolate candy bars grows (and I will always take off my hat to Katrina for making flavored chocolate bars and calling them “candy bars.” Humility? Playfulness?), the genesis and of ever-more daring and bold entries seems inevitable. My personal feelings toward the incessant perfection of the Vosges candy bar has gone from weariness to resignation to acceptance to embrace to enthusiasm. Vosges candy bars exhibit the clarity of purpose and democratic elegance of a backyard chicken coop.

So what does it taste like?

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