February 2010

  • Turin Bailey's Irish Cream Chocolates

    By lisala on 2/21/10 9:56pm
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    Turin, who seems to have a Spanish site but not an English one, makes a wide variety of liquor filled chocolates. They produce chocolates filled with Grand Marnier, Jack Daniels, Jose Cuervo Especial, Kahlúa, and Bailey's Irish Cream. On a whim, I decided to try the Bailey's Irish Cream filled chocolates. These are milk chocolate filled with a ganache made with Bailey's. Now, I like Bailey's but I'm not a huge fan; mostly I've used it for cooking (note: Irish coffee is not made with Bailey's) or served it over ice.

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  • Dagoba Xocolatl Bar

    By lisala on 2/12/10 9:11pm
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    Dagoba is a maker of fine organic chocolates. It's an interesting company, though it's now a wholly owned subsidiary of Hershey. Even now, though, Dagoba adheres to the original principles of the founder, Frederick Schilling. Schilling was interested in chocolate production based on sustainability and quality ingredients.

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  • Washington Wine and Dark Chocolate: Valentine's Day Pairings

    By lisala on 2/11/10 10:30pm
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    If you and your beloved like Washington wine and chocolate, I suggest you go right now and check out the amazing Yakima Valley events for Valentine's, featuring wine and chocolate. Seriously, it's a fabulous list. You can "Celebrate Valentine's Day at Chandler Reach Winery" on Friday the twelfth. It's an incredible menu paired with wines. You need to make reservations, but I'm told there are still some openings. There are some nifty "Red Wine & Chocolate Hotel Packages," running right through the 15th, and an entire "Red Wine & Chocolate" celebration centered in Yakima Valley. For a lot of people Monday is a holiday, so the celebration extends over the three-day weekend.

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  • Tea Room Earl Grey Green Tea Infused Dark Chocolate

    By lisala on 2/10/10 12:07am
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    A friend who knows I love chocolate sent this bar as a gift. I was intrigued by the notion of tea-infused chocolate. While I love both red wine and coffee with good dark chocolate, I had not given any thought to tea as flavor, even though I'm a tea drinker. As it happens, I'm quite fond of both green tea and Earl Grey. This Tea Room Green Tea Earl Grey Dark Chocolate bar is 1.8 of 58% cacao dark chocolate. It's organic, all the way, made with unsweetened organic chocolate from Belgium and France, organic cane sugar, organic cacao fat, organic green tea, organic bergamot oil. It does contain soy Lecithin as an emulsifier, and it has the usual warning that it may have been contaminated by peanuts or nut products in production. The chocolate is made in small batches in Napa, California.

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  • Chocolate Covered Cherries

    By erika on 2/9/10 4:19pm
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    Ah, Valentine's Day!  A lame holiday, but an excellent opportunity to get yummy candy at half off on February 15th.  Traditionally this is the time of year when I start stalking stores for chocolate covered cherries, even though I think technically they are a year-round candy.

    This is another "fringe candy" that I associate with drug stores like Walgreen's.  They always have an entire aisle devoted to candy, and you have to stock it with something, you know?  Why drug stores have entire candy aisles, when grocery stores devote only about 1/8th of an aisle to candy, is just another mystery.  


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