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Showing posts with label chocolate. Show all posts
Showing posts with label chocolate. Show all posts
Saturday, May 1, 2010
Wednesday, July 29, 2009
Six-Packs (the abs, darling, not the beer!)
In French, they are les tablettes de chocolat, consumption of which will definitely not lead to the desired result.
Thursday, July 9, 2009
Death By Chocolate
Quite literally.
The Trentonian reports: Death by Boiling Chocolate.
A 29-year-old temporary worker slipped and fell this morning while loading raw chunks of chocolate into a melting tank, a spokesman for the Camden County Prosecutor’s office said.
A blade used to mix the raw chocolate struck Vincent Smith II causing him to fall into the boiling chocolate that was being prepared for shipment to be turned later into candy. The Camden man's screams attracted the attention of his co-workers with one trying to shut the machine off and two workers working quickly to release him, said Jason Laughlin, spokesman for the prosecutor’s office.
Initial reports say Smith was trapped in the 8-foot-deep vat for 10 minutes. He was pronounced dead at the scene.
The Trentonian reports: Death by Boiling Chocolate.
A 29-year-old temporary worker slipped and fell this morning while loading raw chunks of chocolate into a melting tank, a spokesman for the Camden County Prosecutor’s office said.
A blade used to mix the raw chocolate struck Vincent Smith II causing him to fall into the boiling chocolate that was being prepared for shipment to be turned later into candy. The Camden man's screams attracted the attention of his co-workers with one trying to shut the machine off and two workers working quickly to release him, said Jason Laughlin, spokesman for the prosecutor’s office.
Initial reports say Smith was trapped in the 8-foot-deep vat for 10 minutes. He was pronounced dead at the scene.
Thursday, January 22, 2009
Panglossia
From Voltaire's Candide:
“Oh, Pangloss!” cried Candide, “what a strange genealogy Is not the Devil the original stock of it [syphilis]?”
“Not at all,” replied this great man, “it was a thing unavoidable, a necessary ingredient in the best of worlds; for if Columbus had not in an island of America caught this disease, which contaminates the source of life, frequently even hinders generation, and which is evidently opposed to the great end of nature, we should have neither chocolate nor cochineal.”
“Oh, Pangloss!” cried Candide, “what a strange genealogy Is not the Devil the original stock of it [syphilis]?”
“Not at all,” replied this great man, “it was a thing unavoidable, a necessary ingredient in the best of worlds; for if Columbus had not in an island of America caught this disease, which contaminates the source of life, frequently even hinders generation, and which is evidently opposed to the great end of nature, we should have neither chocolate nor cochineal.”
Wednesday, January 23, 2008
Too Clever By Halves?
OK, they are truly brilliant chocolatiers, and the CC has been promised some chocolates by this master if he dashes to LaGuardia to collect them from the guest with the connecting flight. ("Hells yeah! Like wild dogs could stop me.")
Theobromine, anyone?
Friday, November 10, 2006
Controversial Recipes
Who knew that this bipartisan blog would draw controversy?
The recipe that seems to have generated much finger-waving, and hand-pointing is the recent recipe for Chocolate-covered garlic.
Comments (all private!) have ranged from, "Really?" to "I don't believe you!".
Thankfully, nobody so far has run a campaign to trash the CC's character on televison.
So let's understand why this recipe works from a scientific point of view. Out comes Harold McGee's tome, On Food and Cooking, which the CC will note is both exhaustive and exhausting.
Like the sunchoke family and its relatives, the onion family accumulates energy stores not in starch, but in chains of fructose sugars, which long, slow cooking breaks down to produce a marked sweetness.
Incidentally, these fructose sugars are not directly digestible by humans explaining the "gas" produced when eating raw onions, garlic, shallots, etc. Both the sulphurous content, and the indigestibility are Darwinian "defense mechanisms" against mammals eating the food store. (Hence also, the "sting" of sharp onions.)
But, we humans figured out a way.
Roasting garlic (and the whole onion family) is a time-honored way of changing its aggressive sulphurous character into a much sweeter one. In this particular case, the recipe is really braising (along with a ton of sugar) which will turn the garlic both soft and sweet while eliminating the volatile sulphurous molecules that make it "garlicky".
Hopefully, this intellectual argument will detract some of the objectors, but really, the best way is to just experience it first-hand!
The recipe that seems to have generated much finger-waving, and hand-pointing is the recent recipe for Chocolate-covered garlic.
Comments (all private!) have ranged from, "Really?" to "I don't believe you!".
Thankfully, nobody so far has run a campaign to trash the CC's character on televison.
So let's understand why this recipe works from a scientific point of view. Out comes Harold McGee's tome, On Food and Cooking, which the CC will note is both exhaustive and exhausting.
Like the sunchoke family and its relatives, the onion family accumulates energy stores not in starch, but in chains of fructose sugars, which long, slow cooking breaks down to produce a marked sweetness.
Incidentally, these fructose sugars are not directly digestible by humans explaining the "gas" produced when eating raw onions, garlic, shallots, etc. Both the sulphurous content, and the indigestibility are Darwinian "defense mechanisms" against mammals eating the food store. (Hence also, the "sting" of sharp onions.)
But, we humans figured out a way.
Roasting garlic (and the whole onion family) is a time-honored way of changing its aggressive sulphurous character into a much sweeter one. In this particular case, the recipe is really braising (along with a ton of sugar) which will turn the garlic both soft and sweet while eliminating the volatile sulphurous molecules that make it "garlicky".
Hopefully, this intellectual argument will detract some of the objectors, but really, the best way is to just experience it first-hand!
Monday, November 6, 2006
Chocolate-covered garlic
This recipe sounds downright stupid at first but it's actually really really good.
Ingredients
24 cloves of garlic (peeled)
1/2 cup red wine
1/4 cup sugar
4 tbsp lemon zest
1 bar "high" cacao chocolate
Recipe
Bring the first four ingredients to a boil. Cook on very low heat uncovered for 25-30 minutes (stirring occasionally.) Let it cool for a bit. The cloves should be quite sticky.
Melt the chocolate (you can either microwave at a low heat, or dip a glass bowl in boiling water.)
Dip each clove in the melted chocolate, and place them on a piece of foil. Transfer to the refrigerator and let it cool for at least an hour.
Best eaten fresh.
Ingredients
24 cloves of garlic (peeled)
1/2 cup red wine
1/4 cup sugar
4 tbsp lemon zest
1 bar "high" cacao chocolate
Recipe
Bring the first four ingredients to a boil. Cook on very low heat uncovered for 25-30 minutes (stirring occasionally.) Let it cool for a bit. The cloves should be quite sticky.
Melt the chocolate (you can either microwave at a low heat, or dip a glass bowl in boiling water.)
Dip each clove in the melted chocolate, and place them on a piece of foil. Transfer to the refrigerator and let it cool for at least an hour.
Best eaten fresh.
Sunday, April 30, 2006
Food of the Gods
When one of the enlightenment figures, Carl Linnaeus, the father of modern taxonomy, completely and utterly loses his reason and christens the seed as theobroma cacao, what more can the CC say?
It is truly the food of the gods.
It is truly the food of the gods.
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