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Swanton Berry Farm
Olalliberry chocolate truffle
Good - Good +
Weight: .4 oz. (11.32 g.) (estimate) in 1 truffle
Calories: 60 calories (estimate) for 1 truffle
Cost: $N/A gift ($1.50 each)
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Tayberry chocolate truffle
Good - Good +
Weight: .4 oz. (11.32 g.) (estimate) in 1 truffle
Calories: 60 calories (estimate) for 1 truffle
Cost: $ N/A gift ($1.50 each)
Purchased from: Swanton Berry Farm store, Davenport, CA
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I spent yesterday on a road trip along the California coast. It was a beautiful, winter day, a great opportunity to walk by the waves, enjoy a nice sunset, and discover new chocolates. We stopped at Swanton Berry Farm (Davenport, CA), a great place out of the city, with a smattering of small farms; and where it was easy to slow down and enjoy life.
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This morning I enjoyed two generously sized, dark chocolate truffles from yesterday's adventure -- 1 Olalliberry and 1 Tayberry* -- filled with fresh berry flavored chocolate ganache (centers). I believe they may have folded in some fresh berries, or berry jams into the ganache, as there were berry seeds in these chocolates as well.
Poetry and Chocolate
After a trip by the Pacific coast, it was hard not to include a few lines from poets and authors who were great appreciators of the outdoors, such as Wallace Stegner or John Muir. However, I settled on this poem which captured memories of lush, ripe, blackberries:
"Blackberrying" by Sylvia Path
Nobody in the lane, and nothing, nothing but blackberries,
Blackberries on either side, though on the right mainly,
A blackberry alley, going down in hooks, and a sea
Somewhere at the end of it, heaving. Blackberries
Big as the ball of my thumb, and dumb as eyes
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With blue-red juices. These they squander on my fingers.
I had not asked for such a blood sisterhood; they must love me.
They accommodate themselves to my milkbottle, flattening their sides.
Overhead go the choughs in black, cacophonous flocks ---
Bits of burnt paper wheeling in a blown sky.
Theirs is the only voice, protesting, protesting.
I do not think the sea will appear at all.
The high, green meadows are glowing, as if lit from within.
I come to one bush of berries so ripe it is a bush of flies,
Hanging their bluegreen bellies and their wing panes in a Chinese screen.
The honey-feast of the berries has stunned them; they believe in heaven.
One more hook, and the berries and bushes end.
The only thing to come now is the sea.
From between two hills a sudden wind funnels at me,
Slapping its phantom laundry in my face.
These hills are too green and sweet to have tasted salt.
I follow the sheep path between them. A last hook brings me
To the hills' northern face, and the face is orange rock
That looks out on nothing, nothing but a great space
Of white and pewter lights, and a din like silversmiths
Beating and beating at an intractable metal.
If you are moved to write poetry about chocolate, you may want to visit sites like this for inspiration: www.poemhunter.com, where there are hundreds of submitted chocolate poems.
*Tayberries are a cross between red raspberries and loganberries/blackberries
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