Back to the market! Location, location, location!

We had a great vacation in Argentina. My sister-in-law got married and I had my first experience in celebrating weddings, Argentinean-style. The wedding started at 9 pm, the party ended at 8 am. There were so many people, so much food, and a lot of dancing! For a moment, I wasn't thinking about chocolate. For a moment.
But during a visit to the city, we visited a bookstore and I saw all these wonderful books about chocolate. The recipes were none that I have seen in Canada, and so I was inspired by the fact that I could explore chocolate further. Now, the book I bought is not available in English, so I figured, what better way to learn my Spanish than to read a book about chocolate?

So, during our visit, the market owner emailed me and asked if I would be interested in moving my booth to a better location. He would move the stuff for me and give me a rent-free week. That was promising. It was a lot of work. My husband went to the market on the Friday and worked the booth to make it appealing. But in the end I started from scratch, having sold all my chocolate from Valentine's Day. My new display case was empty for two hours as I laboured away at making chocolates. But in the end, I made new customers and it begins again. I didn't see my regular clients and I hope they don't think I closed. I'll have to find them again.


I am continuing also on my chocolate course and one of my assignments is to create some signature chocolates. I think that creating something that is your own from scratch is a challenge.
What you think might be unique has already been done. Most likely it has been done because there are hundreds of chocolate shops all over the world. Instead, I decided to work on flavours that will be memorable.





A friend of mine visited me last week and she gave me a box of 70% mint chocolates. She thought that perhaps I needed a break from all the chocolatle making and that I would enjoy just have a box from somewhere else. I have my own version of mint chocolates called Milky Mint. I used milk chocolate because it is creamy and I thought would off-set the sometimes strong mint.






So.... yes, after we tried it, we realized that, yes, chocolate makers have recipes just like any baker could make a cake with the same ingredients and they would all taste the same. (I guess you can say we preferred mine better or are we just biased?)






I practiced making recipes beyond chocolate since I realized that part of the chocolate are the flavours. So I made candied grapefruit, fondant, and fudge for the first time. The candied grapefruit was a multiple-step process. I had to peel, take out the pith, boil and blanched the peels twice, and then simmer them in a sugar syrup for three hours. With the fondant, I had a sugar recipe, which I had to whip over and over again until the clear liquid became an opaque white, thick mass. The chocolate fudge was a mix of a caramel, chocolate, and lots of sugar. I had to wait until the very hot liquid cooled to 43C (which took three hours) and then I whipped it. All the results were amazing but it took me a whole day for three recipes.





Along with the new flavours, I introduce to you lime-coconut rum truffle (see above). Mmm. I used the zest of a lime and Malibu coconut rum. The initial taste of the lime followed by the sweet rum reminds me of tropical heat. And just returning from the 40C Argentinean heat, that is a close reminder.





I mixed toasted pecans into the chocolate fudge and enrobed it in dark chocolate to off-set the sweetness. However, I didn't want to used 70% chocolate because fudge lovers are sweet tooths. I needed to use chocolate as part of my assignment but I think fudge was so fun to make and great to sell for the summer, that I might venture into fudge by itself but using different flavour combinations. I also used cocoa butter transfer sheets for the first time and I love the use of the colour on top of the otherwise brown chocolate. It's exciting to see that and it definitely made the customers look at the fudge.

Almost Valentine's Day!!!

Who cannot think about Valentine's Day without thinking about a heart-shaped box of chocolate bonbons? Yes, I am milking the idea of it. For a little sense of nostalgia, Valentine's Day in 2003 was the first time my husband and I revealed our feelings to each other.

We always look forward to our Saturdays at the Western Fair Market. There is always someone new who hasn't tried my chocolates before and are delighted with the results. There are the repeat customers and I always make sure that I have their favourite on hand, and there are the ones who look and look, and seem to be hesitant to try them. But then, they come around.

We have about 12 different flavours of truffles now, along with our barks and brownies. To name the ones I can remember:

• Classic
• 70%
• Dulce de Leche
• Fleur de Sel Caramel
• Lavender Vanilla
• Earl Grey
• Chai
• Milky Mint
• Guinness
• Ice Wine
• Orange Liquor
• Mayan Spice

I'm still working on a coffee ganache and there are requests for raspberry. Raspberry is one of my favourites too. I used natural and real ingredients, however, so finding the right combination presents a challenge since I do not use extracts (except for Vanilla).

But anyway, the best part of my job is seeing the immediate reaction of those enjoying my chocolates. Unfortunately, I will not be around on Valentine's Day because of a family event in Argentina. My sister-in-law is getting married so we're flying out on Thursday. We have some great friends who volunteered to run the booth.

Oh, but what other news we have? We are going organic! I'm very excited because in my chocolate heart I've been wanting to sell organic chocolates all along. So now I have this opportunity to highlight chocolate creations using organic and fair trade chocolate. The chocolate is magnificent. You can taste the highlights of flowers, fruit, and wine. It's amazing chocolate. Just like baking and cooking, you have to have the best ingredients to have an excellent end product. Once I return from Argentina, I will work on getting to know this chocolate and coming up with more chocolate concoctions.

Happy Valentine's Day!

This is a picture of me on my first day at the Western Fair Farmers' Market. I am bright and happy and cheery because it is the first day of following my dreams of becoming an entrepreneur in chocolates. It's hard to believe but I am almost a professional chocolatier.

I am currently enrolled in Ecole Chocolat, an online distance course based in Vancouver, BC. How could I be professional in chocolates in an online course? Let me tell you, the course is intense. Of course, I am not in any culinary institute and I don't have the time to spend years in that craft. I certainly admired the likes of Jacques Torres and Jacques Pepin, but I definitely want my focus to be mainly on chocolate and eventually desserts based on chocolate.

In the meantime, taking this course while running my own business is certainly a learning experience. First of all, I've taken two business courses in high school--entrepreneurship and economics. So, I sort of know the idea of supply and demand. So I try to apply what I know in the farmers' market. In my chocolate course, I have to learn how to make my own signature line of chocolates, not to mention a marketing plan and operations plan. In order to succeed in business, I need to learn not only how to make chocolates, but to sell them.

Western Fair Farmers' Market is fairly new. It opened about two years ago but has recently been bought by new management. So, there are changes, which is a good thing since I became part of that change.

One thing that people (vendors) told me is that it takes about four weeks for regulars to get to know me. A lot of people noticed that I was new. I introduced myself, introduced my chocolates, and hoped they like them and me. I really only had a few products available: three types of chocolate (lavender-vanilla, Earl Grey, and Classic truffles), chocolate barks, and brownies. The new flavours of truffles were unusual and people liked them. I knew it was a start.

My mom just said that as long as I could pay my rent, I was fine. I did okay on my first day. I was proud with what I accomplished. It was a long day. I forgot to take a break and even eat my lunch. I think when you are your own boss, you also have to take it easy on yourself. But at least I could reward myself with chocolate.

Getting ready for the market

It's Friday morning. We are still in Windsor and have to get to London that day in order to prepare the day before the opening of my booth. The weather has been finicky. We were almost in a car accident the Wednesday morning heading to Windsor when we were stuc

k in a snow squall storm. Quite scary. We celebrated New Year's Eve and New Year's Day with family and friends. Hence, a brief moment where I didn't think about my chocolates. Well, not really. In fact, I was baking and preparing chocolates at my mom's tea house well into the New Year's Eve. Repeated calls were made from my family, "when are you coming home to eat dinne

r?" Ah, food is important in my family. A full stomach equals a happy person.

We get to our booth around 2 o'clock and there are a few things we have to work on. Dave, the owner of the market has to use a forklift to move a butcher/deli-style cooler and replace it with a more quaint bakery display for my chocolates. In the meantime, Lucas and I are unloading the myriad of chocolate supplies and baking supplies onto tables, while our daughter is exploring the empty market. I have a bit of house

keeping to do with wiping down the display, the tables and the fridge.

We pretty up the area with a few tablecloths and plates, empty and waiting for the baked goods and chocolates I have prepared. I made a few signs with the ink-jet printer. Browns and greens were my theme, but eventually they started to beome pinks and blues when my cartridge started to run out of yellow ink.

At 5 pm when the market would shut down for the day, I was happy with the result. Tomorrow would be the official opening of Cocoa Earth, a dream finally becoming a reality.

The fun of starting a business

Years ago I watched the film Chocolat which transformed the way I looked at chocolate. One of my favourite films, Vianne Rocher owns a chocolaterie that dispenses healing and happiness through her magical chocolate concoctions passed on by generations. Vianne has a gift of knowing a person's favourite chocolate and one by one her customers are transformed from blah-living creatures to people full of life and vibrancy. I remember going home from the movie and adding chili powder to my hot chocolate to see if I could get a kick of magic. I had a fiery tongue, that's for sure!

But that was the start of my appreciative love for good, high quality chocolate. I abandoned the candy bars I once loved and began to experience a variety of dark and darker chocolate. I recall the first time I had bitter, 100% chocolate. Okay, the sweetness needs to be there too. Anything higher than 54% cocoa content makes me a happy person. Everytime the local drug store carried a new chocolate bar (not candy bar which is mostly cocoa fat solids, sugar and not the anti-oxidant stuff), I had to try it.

I realized that my love for chocolate was something I felt that I can share with others. I wanted others to appreciate and enjoy chocolate the way I did. But I also wanted to share the recipes for chocolate truffles, cookies, and brownies. Everytimes I made something new, it was met with open mouths and the feedback was amazing. I've had people tell me that my chocolates tasted better than some of the professional ones they tried.

So, with this on-going experience, I've decided to follow my dream and become a professional chocolatier. My truffles are currently being sold at my mother's tea house: http://www.thewindsorteaplace.com/ and is featured in their afternoon tea service. And this Saturday, I will be venturing into selling chocolates at the London's Farmers Market. I will be there every Saturday, from 7 am to 3 pm dispensing my chocolate happiness. I am excited. What I have planned to sell are my truffles, chocolate barks, brownies, and Mayan hot chocolate. What a way to start the New Year!

By the way, my favourite chocolates are dark chocolate truffles, with a touch of rum in it. Mmmm!