Spending two hours in a chocolate scented room at Campton Place is not a bad way to pass a Monday afternoon. I was at the posh Union Square outpost to learn about the fast approaching Chocolate Adventure Recipe Contest for home cooks. A Campton Place staffer directed me to the second floor and smiled as he clued me in to one of the twenty unique "adventure" ingredients, wasabi. (Other ingredients pictured at right.)
It helps that there were cuties involved with the contest event -- warm and gregarious Marcia the tablehopper, sweet and welcoming Lisa Schiffman of TuttiFoodie.com, sexy and funny chocolate maker John Scharffenberger and the sweet and smart Campton Place Pastry Chef Boris Portnoy. Scharffenberger gave a tutorial on many realms of chocolate: growing, fermenting, making and history. The twenty-five or so attendees sampled cacao and chocolate in various forms. Two rough samples that lacked any salt and sugar meant taking tiny nibbles. Nice to learn about and taste, but definitely not a ready for prime time product. We did work our way to a piece of finished 70% signature blend, which was a smooth and fruity reward with a long finish.
Then Portnoy played with some chocolate. A female food blogger whispered to me, "I want to marry him," when the thirty year old, Moscow born Portnoy was doing a demo (slang for demonstration) of how to make cocoa nib praline. As he worked the cocoa nibs, the room started to smell more nutty and toastier, and folks were sniffing and smiling.
Now to the contest and it's twenty ingredients. Cheffie and restaurant professionals, stand back. This one's for the home cooks only. The contest offers cash prizes of 5K and 1K, and one month of exposure at the Cafe Cacao restaurant located in Berkeley. It runs from September 1 to December 1, 2007. Cooks can create an app, entree, dessert, or drink (the tablehopper saucily offered up her services as a bevvie taster) using Scharffen Berger Chocolate Maker dark chocolate that is 62% to 99% cacao and at least one adventure ingredient. The Adventure Ingredients include: ancho chili powder, amchur powder (powder from a dried unripe mango), cacao nibs, cardomon, cloves, curry, ginger, green tea, grapefruit, lavender, lemongrass, lemon verbena, mastiha (a Greek resin), quince or quince paste, pomegranate, rosemary, saffron, sea salt, star anise or.... wasabi. Sweet or savory are both suitable, and there's no limit on prep method. Bake, roast, fry, blend, and on and on.
Bay Area Bites write ups here and here.
Complete contest details are here.
Scharffen Berger Chocolate Maker site here.
TuttiFoodie here.
tablehopper here.
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