When we visited Portland in the late 1990’s, my husband and I have fond memories of going to The American Advertising Museum that was located in Old Town. Don’t know if it was because I thought Darren’s job as an ad designer on the television show Bewitched was fascinating (LOL), but I’ve always loved good advertising.

Opened in 1986, this museum was the brain child of Mick Scott and Leonard W. Lanfranco.  We had the good fortune of meeting Mr. Lanfranco because of his terrific daughter and family lived across the street from us. For 14 years the AAM was the only one of its kind in the world. It was even featured in a 1999 episode of PBS’s Antiques Roadshow. It is also interesting to note that Homer P. Groening, Matt Groening’s father, was one of the founding directors of the museum. Unfortunately this unique local resource closed its doors in 2004. However, their impressive collection of advertising exhibits from the 18^th century to the present was acquired by the Eisner Museum in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

On the international advertising scene, some creative minds have in recent years given birth to some outlandish chocolate ads in the forms of bulletin boards and videos.

Several years ago brought what appears to be the first edible chocolate billboard. It was unveiled in London and created for Britain’s Thornton’s Chocolates.  It took 3 months to plan and 300 hours for a team of 10 to build. 860 pounds of chocolate was used and the sign measured 14/5 x 9.5 feet in size.  They thought it would last a week. Apparently all of the edible portions were gobbled up by the public in only 3 hours!  What the gamble- luckily it wasn’t presented during a warm spell.

Across the pond in Toronto, there was a huge Cadbury Milk bar complete with human figures ripping the wrapper off. Although not edible, you have to admit this bulletin board had more staying power!

A video released just last month, featuring Cadbury’s Flake chocolate bar, is a bit more dramatic. Before you view this video, it may helpful to know that the manufacturing technique to create its folds of delicately, texture is secretly guarded. The ad took three weeks to create and used 600 yards of fabric to mimic the folds of the chocolate bar.

In February of 2009, Cadbury also designed an interactive billboard built to respond to the Toronto’s local weather conditions. Called Release the Goo, it included a long teeter-tooter that had a giant (almost 5 foot tall) Cadbry Crème Egg on one end with a container on the other to collect Toronto’s rain, snow and hail. As this catch basin was lowered the egg went up and with a plan of encountering a fan that would break the egg open and de-goo it, so to speak. Not sure if the egg was ever actually de-gooed before the Easter deadline. They had a live webcam available so the Canadians could keep tabs on the progress.

This last ad campaign got me thinking. Toronto gets about 31 inches of precipitation a year and we here in the Portland, Oregon area gets over 37 inches. Maybe our famous, yet ill-fated Weather Machine (it was rammed by a city garbage truck a few years ago)  in Pioneer Courthouse Square just needs a touch of… chocolate pr  : )

It will be fun to see what the advertising minds of the world come up with in the years ahead! Happy Chocolating!

Chocolate festivals are very popular and there seems to be one in every community.  Luckily for us here in Portland, we have several to look forward to each year:

The Portland Chocolate Festival, held at the World Forestry Center in  January, grows by leaps and bounds each year. Ashland’s Oregon Chocolate Festival, held each March,  is in it’s 7th year.  Then the 3rd annual Seattle Luxury Chocolate Salon is coming up on Sunday, July 11th.

Traditionally held on Bastille Day weekend, this event is hosted by Taste TV, the same organization that puts on similar events in San Francisco, Chicago, Los Angeles, and Las Vegas. The venue is the Bell Harbor Conference Center, beautifully located on Pier 66 along the waterfront.

Tickets are $20 with advanced purchase (until July 9th), and $25 at the door. This fee includes all chocolate & confection tastings, classes, and demonstrations.  There will be samples to savor from over 24 chocolatiers, confectioners, wineries, and other culinary artisans.  You can get more information and see footage from the 2009 salon here.

I attended the first annual back in 2008 and felt it was worth the trip. However, at an event like this here are a few suggestions to help insure a delicious and memorable experience:

*  It can get very crowded, so it is a good idea to get their early.
*  Pace yourself-there is no way a person can eat a sample from each of the vendors and not go into glycemic over-load. Bring a bottle of water, some crackers and a protein source like almonds to eat between treats.
*  Some folks, unfortunately, attend with the goal of getting their admission fee worth of chocolate. (It is the one feature of an event like this that can leave, well, a bad taste in your mouth). As a result, containers are not allowed in fear of this potential hording behavior. So I’d recommend bringing a discreet and sturdy baggie. That way you can nibble on a sample and save the remainder for later and to compare notes.
*  Since we’re ‘on the topic of containers, it is also good to have something to put any accumulated  literature or items you purchase.
*  Take breaks- especially if it is a nice day out. Just outside are amazing views of the Olympic Peninsula.
*  If you rather spend all your money on chocolate, you might consider bringing a lunch to enjoy either on the premises or outside along the waterfront.
*  Above all, I’d also encourage participants to ask the vendors questions. It will make your visit and their time more enjoyable.

There will be chocolate companies from the Puget Sound area, and some Portland companies have been represented in the past such as Alma Chocolates and Missionary Chocolates. Others may be from quite a distance away, such as Amano from Orem, Utah. Another chocolatier to keep your eye out for is William Dean Chocolates from Largo, Florida,  who has won awards at previous salons.

If you decide to make a day or weekend out of it, check out this blog post with other “chocolating” ideas in the Emerald City.

Please let us know your impressions if you do head up for this or any other chocolate event.

Q. Hi – We were on one of your early chocolate walks in Lake Oswego – and we continue to enjoy the best chocolate we can find. Lately we had some delicious chocolate cake in Cannon Beach and are wondering if we can find the near equivalent in the Portland area. Can you recommend a place or places where we could celebrate a birthday with a great chocolate cake treat?  BG

A. Here are some spots I’d recommend for scrumptious chocolate cake desserts in Portland, Oregon:

Urban Farmer Restaurant
525 SW Morrison Street
503-222-4900
At the Nine’s Hotel right off Pioneer Courthouse Square.
Try: Valrhona Chocolate Hazelnut Souffle with praline creme anglaise and a Warm Chocolate Cake with vanilla-champagne sorbet and blood orange sauce

Jake’s Grill
611 SW 10th Avenue
(503) 220-1850
Try: Almond Roca and Lava Cakes. What makes their Lava Cake most unique is their lavish presentation at your table!

Jake’s Famous Crayfish
401 SW 12th Ave. at SW Stark
(503) 226-1419
Try: World famous Truffle Cake, either by itself  or with the works. Pictures speak louder than words, so check out the Portland Chocolate Lover’s Meetup Group’s recent outing to this Portland landmark.

There was also an article several months ago in the Oregonian that mentioned two spots for chocolate cake in the Metro:

Papa Haydn’s
5829 SE Milwaukie Ave. (503) 232-9440
701 NW 23rd Ave. (503) 228-7317
Although most of the dessert making goes at their Sellwood location, both spots have a charm of their own.
Try: Triple Chocolate Torte

La Provence
15964 SW Boones Ferry Road in Lake Oswego/(503) 635-4533
1824 NE Alberta/(503) 284-6564
4834 SE Division/(503) 233-1121
Try: Petite Provence Cake

Recently received this inquiry. Thought others might find it useful:

Savina, I’ll be in Seattle for a conference in a few weeks. Would not mind checking out at a chocolate place or two.  Any recommendations? JH

Here are a few suggestions:

Dilettante
538 Broadway Ave East
(206) 329-6463
www.dilettante.com
 
Dilettante was the first non-SF Bay Area company to send me samples back in the early ’80’s, so they will always have a special spot in my heart. The founders first came to Portland in the early 1910’s  and established the Davenport Chocolate Company and then went to Seattle, so we are kind of connected : )  They have cafe’s now, too, with a number of locations.
 
Theo Chocolate
3400 Phinney Ave. N
(206) 632.5100
www.theochocolate.com

If you’ve ever wanted to take a factory tour of a chocolate manufacturer (bean to bar), this is the place on the West Coast. Please note: Reservations are highly encouraged and you are more likely to see their machinery actually running during the weekdays). Been told that there is good public transportation from downtown to the Ballard neighborhood if you didn’t want to take your car.
 
Caffe Umbria
320 Occidental Avenue South
(206) 624-5847
 
Staff in Portland tells me that this cafe is gorgeous. So if you love their location in the Pearl, you’ll definitely enjoy this one adjacent to Pioneer Square. Think Italian chocolate creations, gelato, and Nutella : )

Chocolopolis
1527 Queen Anne Ave. N.
(206) 282-0776
www.chocolopolis.com

Located in the Upper Queen Anne neighborhood of the Emerald City, Chocolopolis can be thought of as Seattle’s version of Cacao- although no one can completely duplicate Jesse and Aubrey’s PDX West End and Downtown creations!

Fran’s Chocolate
1325 1st Ave.
(206) 682-0168
www.franschocolates.com

Visit one of their locations to pay homage to Fran’s gray and smoked salted caramels. Others have been trying to duplicate these small treasures, yet she put them on the map years and years ago!
 
Simply Seattle Chocolate Box
(206) 443-3900
108 Pine Street
www.sschocolatebox.com

They are located up the block from Pike’s Market and offer a chocolate bus tour, Friday thru Sunday, that goes to Theo’s. Good alternative expecially if you have limited time in Seattle and Theo’s factory tours are booked.
 
Have a great time in Seattle and may Mt. Rainier be visible when you are there!

This question often sparks an engaging conversation among chocolate tasting program participants.

For me, it brings me back to our kitchen in our second floor flat in San Francisco’s North Beach and visions of my paternal Nana (my namesake) making a Sicilian specialty called Totos di Cioccolata. (The pronunciation of these treats isn’t like Dorothy’s little dog, but with the accent on the second syllable).  

This spicy, iced cookie version not only has cocoa powder in it, but chunks of dark chocolate as well. I fondly recall eating them while they were still warm. Yet after they are cooled and iced, these are still heavenly.  I called my Aunt Melina and Mama Maria and they shared this family recipe with me. As you might imagine, they both had slightly different variations on my grandmother’s recipe.  Big Savina (as opposed to Little Savina) never measured or wrote anything down- always cooking and baking “more or less by heart.”

Here are the ingredients you’ll need:

Cookies: 3 cups sifted flour (My family has always used Gold Medal), 1/2 cup chopped walnuts,  1/2 cup tiny raisins,  3 tsp baking powder, 3 tb Crisco, 1 cup sugar,  1 tsp allspice, 1 1/2 tsp cinnamon, 1/4 tsp cloves, ¼ tsp nutmeg, 1 12 oz package Nestlé’s mini semi-sweet morsels, 1 cup Ghirardelli unsweetened cocoa powder (Nana would have to have this brand or she wouldn’t make them.  Not sure if it was because of the quality or the fact that Domingo was Italian!), 1 big orange for the grated zest and juice, regular milk.

Icing:  Powdered sugar,  regular milk  and lemon juice.
                                                                                                                                                                                              Putting It All Together:  Mix the flour and Crisco with your hands until the shortening is in very fine pieces. Then put in all the additional ingredients.

Carefully mix everything together (“Easy, easy,” as my Aunt emphasized). Slowly add the milk, a little at a time. Work it with your hands and be careful not to make the mixture too wet.  Let it stand for an hour.

Take about a tablespoon of the mixture and roll into a ball. Arrange them on a greased cookie sheet- they don’t expand much during baking, so can be fairly close together. Bake at 350 for about 10 minutes. Be sure to watch the bottoms to avoid burning. Let the cookies cool completely.

For the glaze, mix powder sugar and milk with a fork. To make the icing shiny and add extra flavor, sprinkle in a tablespoon of lemon juice. Try to make it not too watery and not too thick. You’ll know the right consistency by sight and feel (Think Elmer’s glue). After the cookies have cooled completely, apply the glaze with your finger tips to the top and sides of the cookie. Let them dry overnight. (If you are especially motivated, you could then apply glaze to the bottoms).  Scrape excess icing from the bottom edges with a knife if you find that necessary.

Found a recipe that was similar to this one on the web, only they called them Chocolate Italian Wedding Cookies. I always thought wedding cookies were those powdered sugar-covered shortbread cookies from Mexico, Greece or Russia that just melt in your mouth. Who knows, maybe Italians were more realistic by adding those walnuts and chocolate chunks to symbolize the “rough and bittersweet spots” we encounter along the road of life!

Making these cookies can be tedious, but well worth it. Let me know if you ever try them. Happy chocolate reminiscing-  sharing of your memories is highly encouraged!

Buon Appetito!

For their 55th anniversary last November, NYC’s Serendipity 3 broke the Guinness’s Book of World Records for the largest cup of hot chocolate. Located in the Theater District near Times Square, this popular restaurant filled a huge white cup with approximately 4 gallons of luxurious hot chocolate.

It was made from 12 pounds of their specially blended cocoa (from 14 different cocoas), 8 quarts of heavy cream and one pound of finely shaven French chocolate. It was 100 times larger than the cup of hot chocolate on their regular menu. You’d need a giant group of chocolating loving friends to help you drink it, and you would all be divvying up the 19,000+ calories. This caloric count doesn’t even include the whipped cream which floated like white, fluffy islands on top of the unique beverage. You’d also be “spooning out” in the neighborhood of $600 for this luscious culinary experience.

We may not have NYC’s humongous record-holding cup of hot chocolate on the West Coast. However, Portlanders are blessed with a large selection of places to go “hot chocolating.” We can warm our tummies and nurture our souls with some extraordinary hot cocoa and drinking chocolates all around the Metro this winter.

Last month The Oregonian had an article by Danielle Centoni on “hot chocolate hot spots” in Portland. It included the following popular spots: Alma, Sahagun, Cacao, The Sugar Cube, Coffeehouse Northwest, and Pix Patisserie.

To that list I would also recommend visiting Sweet Masterpiece in the Pearl, your nearest Moonstruck Café, and the Pearl’s Caffé Umbria for a cup of great cocoa, drinking chocolate, and European-inspired mocha drinks. All these choices confirm how passionate Portlanders are, on both sides of the counter, about their chocolate.

Whether you are tasting solid eating chocolate, confections, or in liquid form, just remember that chocolate tasting is very personal. Have a great time “hot chocolating” this season to find your favorites! It is a great time of year to visit or revisit the list of shops mentioned here. Let us know about your top picks. Chocolating: it’s a wonderfully relaxing winter pastime, rain or shine, on either coast.

My first encounter with Gareth Mark was at Williams-Sonoma across from Pioneer Courthouse Square while doing research for my Downtown Portland Chocolate Walk. Upon meeting him one immediately senses that he is in his element surrounded by all the wonderful culinary products and when he talks about food, especially chocolate, you know that he truly loves his work.

Today I attended one of his free, Sunday technique classes. The topic: All About Ice Cream. Need I say more?! There were about 15 people in attendance on this unusually warm and humid overcast day to get “the scoop on the scoops. “

His Xocoatl Sorbet was truly amazing with its intriguing combination of dark chocolate, cinnamon, vanilla, chiles and sea salt. These ingredients all mingle together in a way that is hard to believe that the resulting creation contains no dairy. Way to go if you’re watching the fat or calorie meters.

The second sample was an even more surprising. Upon receiving my little paper soufflé cup with the light caramel colored ice cream, I immediately caught the wafting aroma of maple syrup. It tasted as good as it smelled. Then the shock came when he told us the ingredients. No maple syrup was mentioned. Did I hear him correctly? Yes, this was Candy Cap Gelato. Candy Cap is the common name of an orange colored fungus that grows in forests of western North America. I soon discovered that Candy Cap was this year’s challenge ingredient for this annual ice cream class. You can find both of these recipes on his blog: www.stumptownsavoury.com

Mark your calendar for next year’s ice cream class (No pun intended, Chef Mark!) to see what the next challenge ingredient will be. If you don’t want to wait until then to attend one of these weekly technique classes, check out the Williams-Sonoma website for upcoming topics at: http://www.williams-sonoma.com/cust/techniqueclass_popup/content.cfm

Just so you know, Gareth is known to offer a chocolate class every once in a while. So be sure to check back often.

Last fall I had an email interview with James from www.Tasting.com, a new website that was being developed in the UK. Unfortunately, for all of us, it seems the website never made it off the ground. You might want to check back periodically and see if it ever gets launched. In the meantime, here’s the interview. Thanks, James, for the opportunity and I wish Tasting.com all the best.

1. What is most revealing to you on your tours?
I’m continually amazed that even long time residents discover new shops and places during our tours.  Isn’t that human nature? We all tend to have our favorite routes and places. And everyone is quite surprised at all the chocolate we find. So it gives me great satisfaction in helping people look at a neighborhood in a slightly different way.

2. Do you pair chocolate with anything else, like wine and whiskey, when people taste during the tour?
Each tour may vary in regards to the different stops we make. We generally have 5 or 6 main stops. We’ve explored chocolate martinis and pairing chocolate with coffee, wine and beer.

3. Do you start with low cocoa and end with high cocoa content during a single session?
I realize that this is the preferred sequence, however, during our walking tours this can be a challenge. It’s also interesting because when I first started giving chocolate tasting programs in the early 80’s it was recommended to start with the higher cocoa content (less sweet) since it was believed back then that sugar would dull your sense of taste.

4. Do you cover chocolate products made with more specific types of chocolate, like single origin?
Some of the chocolate products we sample have contained more specific kinds of chocolate, like single origin. We explore a little of everything on our walks- bars, confections, drinks, desserts- you name it. You can think of our programs as neighborhood searches for ALL things chocolate.

5. A bit about you – how did you get introduced to chocolate or how did it become such a passion?
There is the saying, “First you eat chocolate and then chocolate consumes you!” Well, in some ways that saying could apply to me. I’ve always loved chocolate. I have fond memories of my grandmother baking Sicilian cookies that had wonderful chunks of dark chocolate in them. I also grew up in San Francisco not far from the Ghirardelli Chocolate Factory. As an adult I became an educator, and my main interests have revolved around natural and human history, science, and food, so chocolate was a natural topic for me.

6. What does it cost? Is there a minimum group size? What is the best time of year? How far or how short in distance? Do you do just walking tours? Can walks be made shorter or longer?
The public walking tours are geared for adults, are 3 1/2 hours in length, and cost $37 – 42. The minimum group size is three and maximum is 10. I feel it is important keeping the group size small to make it more personal and so people can ask questions. For me, anytime is a good time for chocolate! However, our programs are held seasonally from March through November. We cover 1-2.5 miles per walk depending on the route.  Private walking tours are also available for groups and are $28 for a minimum of 6 participants.  All of our programs can be tailored to meet a group’s specific needs.

7. What other tours do you do?
We currently have three walking tours in the Portland Metro Area: Downtown Portland, Pearl District and Lake Oswego. Right now all my programs have to do with chocolate.  I also offer a 6 week interdisciplinary, hands-on class called Chocolate Creations for 3rd-5th Graders, Arm Chair Chocolate Tastings, and an Immerse Yourself in Chocolate program that includes drinking and eating chocolate tastings, and making truffles. We’re also in the middle of planning two new routes and our first Mobile Tasting Tour.