On the Chocolate Trail

Having just eaten my daily portion of chocolate covered coffee beans, I am primed to consider the questions I hear about coffee when I teach on the chocolate trail. How do the two foods really differ, other than taste? I think back to when the layout for On the Chocolate Trail was being designed and

Heading into October and its culmination in Halloween, I find myself hankering for Devil’s Food Cake, despite its initially derogatory name. Supposedly in 1690 Pilgrims traveled to Plymouth Rock via Amsterdam. They stayed in a house near the city’s biggest chocolate houses and called that chocolate “the Devil’s food.” Later, a chocolate cake, perhaps simply

Choco-dar first erupted on our multi-country circuit of Europe in a VW van. That adult onset, self-diagnosed radar for chocolate experiences led us serendipitously to many wonderful chocolate discoveries and surprises. In the process I learned some chocolate travel tips.  Chocolate travel generated the book and the website that I came to call On the

As temperatures drop, these three historical recipes for drinking chocolate beckon with rich warmth. Bicerin: This very unusual, rich, layered drink of chocolate, coffee and cream, a specialty of Turin, Italy, connects us with memories of the earlier days of women drinking chocolate at the time of Mass. Bicerin is still served at a café

Excerpted from my remarks at Opening Night at Temple Emanu-El, NYC, October 20, 2017: Some people have books optioned for movies. I am so delighted that my book, On the Chocolate Trail (2nd Edition, 2017) has become a museum exhibit… Thank you, Warren Klein, for your professionalism, creativity and collegiality in creating Semite Sweet, which displays some

Published July 13, 2016 at The Forward I happened into a chocolate shop, L’Atelier du Chocolat de Bayonne in Paris in 2006 with my husband. As we were tasting and browsing, I randomly picked up a company brochure. In my high school French, I slowly deciphered this astonishing statement: À Bayonne l’origine de la fabrication

Sephardi Jews contributed to the availability of drinking chocolate when that became a very popular substitute for politicized tea in North America around the time of the 1773 Boston Tea Party. The Gomez family members (NYC) and Aaron Lopez (Newport) were among the several North American Jews who engaged in the manufacture, retail, and consumption

If, as one of my friends has taught me, food is love, then chocolate manifests the densest, deepest and sweetest of loves. When we slather our mothers with chocolatey tributes in a few days, we will be stepping onto a chocolate trail pioneered by Jewish mothers before us, notably Rebecca Gomez of the 18th century.

This year make room for chocolate in your Sukkot celebration. Sukkot’s theme of openness symbolized by the leafy ceiling and flimsy walls tempts creative approaches to menus, decorations, and customs. Deuteronomy 16:14’s challenge “v’samachta b’chagecha” (to rejoice in the festival) could easily be fulfilled by layering chocolate onto the holiday’s menus. Sukkot’s custom of welcoming

The chocolate batter splattered our studio’s microwave, the stove, and the floor as Hannah Gross energetically tested chocolate recipes constrained by my primitive and limited cooking equipment. Within two hours, this amazing sister of our wonderful daughter-in-law, masterminded the creation of three recipes, each quite delicious, all finished in time for a very respectable and

Today’s tough economics send many of us to sweets and chocolate to find comfort on tighter budgets. Candy satisfies us today; in the Colonial Period in North America, the daily menu often included drinking chocolate. In 1747 a minister only identified as “Your humble Servant, T.W.,” published a lament about his congregation not maintaining his

In the pioneering days of chocolate in our country, pastoral ministrations using chocolate took several forms. Judge Samuel Sewall, (March 28, 1652 – January 1, 1730) a Massachusetts judge involved in the Salem witch trials, (he later apologized) recorded in his diary that his pastoral ministration bundled visits and sermons with gifts of chocolate: “Monday,

Tired from the long flight from NYC to Mexico City, via Cancun , my energy level spiked as I meandered into a Mayordomo chocolate shop at the airport. Smelling the recently ground chocolate, marveling at the piles of cocoa beans I aimed directly for several small dishes set out on the counter filled with dark,

Chocolate has entered my life at fun and surprising moments, causing me to suspect cocoa-dar. One such experience occurred as my husband Mark and I traveled in 2006 in our van from Paris south on a small road to Carpentras via the towns of Dijon, Lyons, and Avignon. As Mark drove, I usually read or

June 18 – 19, 2007 Barcelona There’s a lot of chocolate here, partly because the 18th century port welcomed ships containing chocolate cargo. It therefore had and still does, chocolate factories and chocolate stores. Some of the chocolate factories do not have their own stores, such as Blanxart. Again, there are many opportunities for hot

June 10, 2007 The quantity of chocolate in Bayonne more than compensated for the lack in Bilbao. We arrived on Sunday, so we found the chocolate shops closed, sadly, but we did discover an Italian brand of hot chocolate at a local creperie.