Celebrating 12 Yrs. of Chocolate Series - Chocolate Banquet - Sept. 19, 2018

Chocolate(s) of the Day: 

Seattle Chocolate Company
San Juan Sea Salt Milk Chocolate Truffle Bar
Good+
Weight: 1.25 oz. (35 g.) / 2.5 oz. (70 g.) in total bar
Calories: 190 calories in 1/2 bar
Cost: N/A - gift
Purchased from: N/A - gift

Wild Sweets Chocolate Factory
Black Onyx Truffles
European Black Cream Truffles
Good
Weight: unknown
Calories: 130 calories (estimate) in 2 pieces
Cost: $N/A - gift
Purchased from: N/A - gift

Greetings and Welcome to Day #9 of Chocolate and Celebrating 12 Years of Chocolate Series. Seattle, WA and Portland, OR, are both high chocolate IQ cities.

Today was a true Chocolate Banquet day, with a spread of different birthday chocolates from these two Pacific Northwest hot spots (thank you all). Chocolate is always sweeter when shared with others.

The first course was a San Juan Sea Salt Milk Chocolate Truffle Bar with crunchy coffee from Seattle Chocolate Company (Seattle, WA). (Thank you Michelle and Hali!)

The second course involved two dark chocolate creams from Wild Sweets Chocolate Factory (Portland, OR): a Dark Chocolate truffle and a Black Onyx Dark Chocolate bittersweet truffle. Both filled chocolates had smooth, creamy dark chocolate ganache fillings and dark chocolate shells. (Thank you Kaitlin!)

Other chocolates included a 72% Bacon Caramel bar (made with cacao grown in Ecuador) from Xocolatl de David (Portland, OR), and a Salt dark chocolate bar from Woodblock Chocolate (Portland, OR)—made with cacao from Peru and Ecuador.

10-Years of Chocolate Celebration - Sept. 11, 2016

Chocolate Banquet: Celebrating 10 Years of Chocolate
September 11, 2016

Ten years ago, I accepted a bet by my daughter to eat a different kind of chocolate every day for a year. That year was so enjoyable that I continued to eat a different chocolate of the day for ten years and to write about chocolate on ChocolateBanquet.com. Today marks the 10th year anniversary of that bet

This month I'm celebrating this 10th anniversary in 10 ways:

1.) Eating my usual Chocolate(s) of the day. Today, it's 2 Ecuador single origin bars from Arete Fine Chocolate
2.) Eating 10 different chocolate items this weekend as part of a Bay Area Chocolate Field Trip
3.) Continuing with Theme Weeks -- Ecuador this week, Cacao Nibs and French Chocolate after that
4.) Visiting and thanking some of my favorite local, San Francisco Bay Area suppliers where I've bought chocolates in the past decade
5.) Writing about my 10 favorite places to find chocolates
6.) Highlighting my favorite chocolates in the past 10 years
7.) Taking a look at Chocolate Maps and Chocolate Math
8.) Summarizing what I've learned in 10 years of chocolate research, tasting and travel
9.) Remembering chocolate field trip/travel highlights
10.) Continuing Chocolate Banquet and eating a different chocolate every day. After all, there are 1,000s of new chocolates to try.

So, stay tuned my friends. And thank you for your interest.
- Corinne

ChocolateBet: June 30, 2007

Chocolate of the Day:

Droste
Milk Chocolate Bar with Almonds and Honey Nougat
Good
Weight: .87 oz. serving/3.5 oz. total
Calories: 70 calories (estimate) in 1/4 bar

This "Superior Milk Chocolate Bar" from Droste (Holland) contained pieces of almond and honey nougat, and some hazelnut as well.

Earlier in the day, I was in Santa Cruz, CA, to help celebrate a friend's daughters graduation at their beach house. It was a very nice day, and it was great to talk with other people at the party as well. This got me thinking about chocolates, specifically about how food memories are often tied to celebrations, like graduations, birthdays, holidays, etc. One could write a book around this theme.