cookiesinheaven

A new sweet spot to go to at 
32 West Anapamu Street.

Labels: Chocolate, downtown, Santa Barbara

Labels: Carpinteria, Chocolate, intern, jobs, Santa Barbara

Labels: Chocolate, fundraising, movies, Santa Barbara, Unitarian Society

Share Our Strength’s Taste of the Nation® Santa Barbara has inspired several local chefs to lend their extensive talents to this premier culinary fundraising event. The goal? Raising money and awareness of childhood hunger in Santa Barbara County and the Nation. The locavore spirit not only resides in the foodie nomenclature, but in fundraising, too. Giving back to community, in more ways than one, is what these chefs are all about.

Jessica Foster, of her eponymous confectionery, has participated in Taste of the Nation Santa Barbara since its inception five years ago. Having been raised in the Central California area, Jessica knows that hand making every truffle, using quality local ingredients, makes all the difference. Asked why she has been involved in Taste of the Nation Santa Barbara, Jessica replied, “I’ve been asked to do alot of fundraisers but I keep coming back to Taste of the Nation because it involves good food and good people passionate about a good cause. And, it’s fun.”

Ron True, of the recently opened Arlington Tavern located at 21 West Victoria Street, began as a young chef at very same location when it was then the SOhO. He attended cooking school in Bourgogne France and ventured into kitchens worldwide, including NYC, Spain and Italy. He also spent time at the renowned San Francisco restaurant, Zuni Cafe, where Roast Chickens and Ceasar Salads have become foodie Meccas. Using the many influences from his experiences he has brought an inspired menu to the Arlington Tavern that he calls “New American Farm Fresh.” Chef True is excited to participate in Taste of the Nation Santa Barbara. “I’ve participated in Taste of the Nation events back in New York and it’s a great way to give back to the community, and I am very happy to be back.”

Mossin Sugich, of Blush Restaurant and Bar, was born in Santa Barbara yet raised in the United States, England and The Middle East. He was inspired by his grandmother and aunt to start cooking at twelve and continued his passion by enrolling in Santa Barbara City College’s Culinary Program. Chef Sugich has worked at many of the top restaurants in Santa Barbara, including Elements, the Four Seasons Biltmore and the San Ysidro Ranch before becoming the head chef at Blush. He has been participating in Taste of the Nation since 2008. He says that childhood hunger issues “hit home for me because growing up my mother’s family were all very involved with charity, and feeding the needy, but not in the just donating to charity type of charity. In the middle east melting pot, where a lot of different immigrants came to work, there was a lot of poverty. My family used to go buy bags of rice, and portion it out and go to the slums of the city. We would need to distribute it with a truck on-the-go, because we would get mobbed. It also hits home because I have a daughter and son on the way, so needless to say, it saddens me to see children hungry in any part of the world.”

Brian Champlin, of the Succulent Cafe and Trading Company in Solvang, had been working in the Santa Barbara restaurant scene for many years at venues such as Elements and The Wine Cask before following his dream of opening up his restaurant earlier this year. “Cowboy Western comfort food with French cooking techniques” is how Brian’s food has been described, but his fare can be summed up in one word; delicious. Actually, add another word to describe the cafe’s deliciousness; bacon. Brian started a charcuterie and Succulent actually makes and sells their own bacon that lives up to their name. Keeping it local and caring about community is important to Brian, so his involvement to help childhood hunger locally comes as no surprise.  “This is a great event. Food, fun and all for a good cause. And, doing something for the kids helps me sleep at night.”

On May 20, you can meet these chefs, along with many more and you too can give back to our local Santa Barbara community. All funds raised by Taste of the Nation Santa Barbara help support Share Our Strength’s efforts to end childhood hunger and benefits the Foodbank of Santa Barbara County.

Taste of the Nation® Santa Barbara is nationally sponsored by American Express, Sysco, Food Network, and is presented locally by The Daily Sound, The Montecito Messenger and 805 Living Magazine.

Additional local sponsors include the Montecito Country Club, Mentor Worldwide LLC, Montecito Bank & Trust, DCH Lexus of Santa Barbara, The Naked Grape and DRY Soda.

Tickets for Taste of the Nation® Santa Barbara are $65 for General Admission and $95 for VIP and can be purchased by visiting http://ce.strength.org/events/taste-nation-santa-barbara

Labels: Chefs, Chocolate, local, Santa Barbara, Taste of the Nation

Labels: Chocolate, For Sale, Paseo Nuevo, Santa Barbara

Labels: Chocolate, Paseo Nuevo, Santa Barbara, Santa Monica

Labels: Chocolate, Paseo Nuevo, Santa Barbara, stores

La Arcada Turtle guys
Originally uploaded by santa barbarian.

Chocolat CaliBresson has designed some special "turtle" chocolates. Delish little melt in your mouth chocolates in the shape of the little shelled guys just outside their door in La Arcada.

You gotta try them. They are just too cute...and delish.

Labels: Chocolate, downtown, La Arcada, turtles

Labels: Chocolate, horror

...In a stroke, a hedge fund manager here named Anthony Ward has all but cornered the market in cocoa. By one estimate, he has bought enough to make more than five billion chocolate bars.

Chocolate lovers here are crying into their Cadbury wrappers — and rival traders are crying foul, saying Mr. Ward is stockpiling cocoa in a bid to drive up already high prices so he can sell later at a big profit. His activities have helped drive cocoa prices on the London market to a 30-year high.

Mr. Ward, 50, is not some rabid chocoholic, former employees say. He simply has a head for cocoa. And, through his private investment firm, Armajaro, he now controls a cache equal to 7 percent of annual cocoa production worldwide, a big enough chunk to sway prices.

...Now, traders here are buzzing that Mr. Ward has placed an audacious $1 billion bet in the London market for cocoa futures. This month, he bought 241,100 metric tons of beans, they say.

His play has some people up in arms. While some see it as a simple bet that cocoa prices will rise on falling supply, others say Mr. Ward has created a shortage of cocoa simply to drive up the price himself.

The German Cocoa Trade Association and others wrote an angry letter to the London exchange on which cocoa is traded, demanding that it take action against what the association characterized as a “manipulation.” - NYTimes

Labels: Chocolate, cocoa, Financial

Labels: Chocolate, Fancy Food, NASFT, YouTube

At a farm in Manteca, in San Joaquin County, workers smack labels onto watermelons freshly cut from the vine, each sticker bearing a unique string of letters and numbers that identifies where they were harvested.

"With food safety as big as it is, we can give each watermelon its own code so a consumer can check on the Internet to see where it is grown," said Ryan Van Groningen of Van Groningen & Sons Farms, which sells watermelons under the Yosemite Fresh brand.

This new code, called the HarvestMark, is being developed by the Redwood City startup YottaMark Inc. at a time when Congress is considering food-safety legislation that could make some type of tracking system mandatory.

...The tracking system is not unprecedented. For example, premium San Francisco chocolatemaker Original Beans prints similar locator codes on its wrappers to show where the cacao beans in an individual bar were grown. - SFGate

GottaLove it

Labels: California, California Agriculture, Chocolate, food safety, San Francisco

Labels: Chocolate, Pinkberry

The Hershey Co. said Tuesday it plans to close Scharffen Berger's West Berkeley manufacturing plant as well as the San Francisco factory that makes Joseph Schmidt chocolates and consolidate production at other facilities.

Hershey, which in 2005 bought both Scharffen Berger, which specializes in premium dark chocolates, and trufflemaker Joseph Schmidt, will continue to produce those brands, but the chocolates will no longer be locally made. - SFGate

Labels: California, Chocolate, Hershey

Move over sugar. Make way for salt, fennel, rosemary, chile powder and even curry. Across the country, bitter, salty and savory flavors are working their way into a growing number of dessert menus and specialty chocolates. It is a trend towards innovation, as well as a move away from saccharine-sweet desserts and confections that often overwhelm with sugar. This new generation of sweets possesses uncommon flavor dimensions and provides a shortcut to sophistication.

...It may be having a gastronomic moment, but [the savory-sweet combination] is nothing new, says Iacopo Falai, chef/owner at his much-acclaimed namesake Italian restaurant in lower Manhattan. “The contrast between sweet and savory is one of the most basic in food, somewhat like the contrast between cold and warm. It is a way of expression, a way of playing with things in the kitchen. The idea of adding salt to chocolate, for example, is 5,000 years old. It is our heritage.” - Specialty Foods

Labels: Chocolate, Food, Food Trends, Recipes, Spices

Holy guacamole! An avocado shortage is looming next spring.

California farmers expect to harvest the smallest avocado crop since 1990 and possibly even as far back as 1980. Hot weather in June, at just the wrong point in the growing season, is responsible for the shortfall. - Latte Times

Labels: Agriculture, avocado, Chocolate, food prices, shortages

...Drawing upon the premium chocolate expertise of Artisan Confections Company, a wholly owned subsidiary of The Hershey Company, master chocolatiers have created a portfolio of chocolate that showcases the artistry of the bean-to-bar chocolate-making process and flavor experience of Starbucks. The chocolates are crafted with high-quality, flavorful cacao from around the world and then thoughtfully blended with premium natural ingredients, authentic Starbucks® coffee, Tazo tea and other authentic coffeehouse flavors.

...The collection includes: signature dark, mocha and milk chocolate bars and tasting squares; Tazo® Chai, Passion and Citron tea-infused chocolate tasting squares; Caffè Mocha, Chai, Espresso, Caramel Macchiato and Madagascar Vanilla Bean Truffles; and Milk Chocolate Covered Caffè Verona® Coffee Beans.

...Now available nationwide, Starbucks Chocolate retails for $2.99 and up and will be sold at grocery, mass retailers, club and drugstores. The Starbucks Chocolate portfolio will not be available in Starbucks stores at this time. - Yahoo/BusinessWire

Labels: Chocolate, Coffee, Hershey, Starbucks, tea

Heat oven to 350 degrees.

Cream together butter and sugars until light and fluffy. Mix in eggs, one at a time. Add peanut butter and mix until incorporated.

In a separate bowl, sift together flour, salt and baking powder. Add the dry ingredients 1 cup at a time to the butter mixture, scraping the bowl as needed. Stir in peanut brittle and bacon.

Roll dough into ½-inch balls and place on parchment-lined cookie sheets. Flatten each cookie with the palm of your hand to about 1 inch in diameter. Bake about 15 minutes, or until the edges begin to lightly brown. Remove to a cooling rack to cool completely. Store in an airtight container up to one week.

Makes about five to six dozen cookies.

But...I shouldn't be so quick to judge as I tasted amazing chocolate down in Sandy Eggo at the Fancy Food Trade Show. It was from Vosges (a Chicago Chocolatier) and was quite unusually delicious.... "Mo's Bacon Bar",

The treat, recently introduced, features crumbles of applewood smoked bacon and flecks of Alder wood smoked salt coated in 41-percent cacao milk chocolate. Think of a what a Nestle Crunch bar might be like if you substituted smoky crispy bacon bits for the puffed rice and gave it a nice little salty kick. - The Stew (A Chicago Tribune blog)

Labels: Chicago, Chocolate, Cookies, Peanut Butter, Recipes