One of My Other Jobs

I've been working a bit more at the chocolate shop to help them out through the holiday transition. One of my favorite tasks is designing to window display. We don't change it very often because you have to take down a bunch of shelves to do it but we try to at least with the seasons. Obviously,  this time it has been decorated for Valentines Day.  Sorry about the glare, I did the window this morning and the angle of the sun was working against me.

Don't these truffles look fantastic? Our head chocolatier is amazing. All of them are hand painted and filled with delicious flavored ganaches.

I was also super excited to come home to this. Our replacement dremel bits so that I can get more progress done on the kitchen! Yay!

Tonight we are going to dinner and a show. I got us tickets to an opera earlier in the year and now we finally get to see it. I'm trying to get Daniel more in to theater so hopefully he will enjoy this one. It is Atilla. I don't know much about it but it will be fun to dress up and check it out.
Cheers!

MMMMM Work

Hope you all had a great weekend. Mine was full of family, fall and work. But hey, when work involves going to the NW Chocolate Festival who can really complain?

It was a blast. There were four different rooms that focused on different aspects of chocolate. One was about learning about how chocolate is made.

This guy is actually hand grinding cacao nibs into chocolate. I would imagine you wouldn't eat as much if you had to do this every time you wanted a treat.

The room focused on the different parts of what makes up chocolate and the different types (dark, milk and white).

These are some of the components of chocolate. All chocolate comes from beans (bottom left) and cacao trees only grow 20 degrees north and south of the equator which adds to its rarity.

Then there was the cooking with chocolate room, the aphrodisiac room (which was odd) and the tasting room. You can guess which was the most popular.

The festival lasted all weekend with our chocolatiers and owner doing demonstrations and talks. Our Anise ganache stuffed fig won best confections which we were totally stoked on! To top it all off it was a beautiful fall day. Look at those colors!

I love fall don't you? I did manage to get some things done this weekend but not as much as I'd like but that's life right? We did make great fish and chips Friday for our Good Eats Challenge (I'll share later).

 Are you all ready for Halloween? For those of you who have trick-or-treaters, what time do they usually start? This is my first year with a house that might get kids so I'm trying to be prepared.

Cheers!

Falling

It is almost officially fall folks (tomorrow is the autumnal equinox) and cooler weather is on our doorstep (at least in Seattle it is). The leaves are just now starting to change colors and I can already tell it is going to be a great season.

It always seems to start slowly with a few leaves here and there but when we hit November look out! Everything will be a riot of color. The great thing about fall in the North West is that we get flowers all the way until the frost. Check out these Autumnal Crocuses

I swear they pop up over night. The other morning I took the dog out and bam! There they were. I love the ghostly white stems and delicate lavender flowers.

The only sad thing about the coming holiday season is going back to work (though I do love what I do)

Being back at Chocolopolis means getting back in to tempering and molding and all around fun with chocolate (I'm the sort of assistant chocolatier).  Though when one works with chocolate all day can you really call it work? The season starts slowly so I am there only a few days of the week right now but come Christmas it will be my second home. But hey, it could be worse right? For now I'll enjoy this crisp and not too cold (yet!) fall weather and the time off I still have.

Anyone else love chocolate like I do? If you live in Seattle stop by and see me some time!

Cheers!

Speaking of Broken...

Like my new computer?

Just kidding! The desktop I've been using for blogging (after I killed my last computer I got an iPad for general computer use but I still use the desk top for serious interneting) finally kicked the bucket so Daniel is ordering up new parts to get it working again for me. In the meantime I'm doing most of my blogging on the new TV. We have all of our TVs hooked up to computers to access our movies so they all have internet access too. Which means I will never be far from a computer! Though it is a bit harder to work with than my trusty desk top. Hopefully by next week I'll be all set up with a spiffy new computer, until then I might be short with you.

Cheers!