BELIZE - Caribbean Update

Cacao farmers in the rain forests of Belize are expected to benefit from a new deal with a British food company which is giving them a guaranteed price for their crop for three years. Green and Black's 'Maya Gold' chocolate bar, made from the cacao grown by Maya Indians in Belize's Southern Toledo district, is now on sale the Sainsbury's, the major supermarket chain, and health food shops throughout the United Kingdom. A contract signed with the Toledo Cacao Growers' Association (TCGA) means that all the cacao from over 300 farmers is exported directly to Britain at 48 pence per pound, a price that significantly exceeds that currently available on the open market. The deal was signed by Green and Black's after director Josephine Fairley learnt of the Maya crop while on a vacation. 'We were impressed by the quality of the cocoa beans produced by the traditional organic growing methods that the Maya growers used,' she says. The recipe for the 'Maya Gold' chocolate, using a blend of orange and spices, is based on a method used by the Maya, who were the first people in the world to grow cacao, and turn it into a drink called 'kukuh.'

5 questions: Cathy Bouchard; Owner of Le Chocolat Bar - The Sun - Naperville (IL)

Cathy Bouchard knows chocolate. Owner of Le Chocolat Bar in Naperville, she has traveled to South America to learn how Mayan cultures used the so-clled food of the gods. Bouchard said that eating an ounce of dark chocolate a day has cured her of fibromyalgia.

Chocolate is more than a confection to Cathy Bouchard. It is a miracle drug.The 54-year-old Naperville woman suffered from debilitating fibromyalgia for five years when she began eating an ounce of quality dark chocolate every morning. Less than two months later, her symptoms vanished.

Now she is spreading the word about the health benefits of dark chocolate in the seminars she holds as well as at her shop, Le Chocolat Bar, located at 408 W. Fifth Ave. Some of her customers say dark chocolate also has reduced symptoms of such chronic conditions as arthritis and migraines.

Bouchard grew up in La Grange and attended Northern Illinois University. She was a professional watercolor artist for 15 years. While living in Denver for seven years, she owned an art gallery in a mall and had a studio at Stapleton International Airport.

Forty-seven of her landscape paintings were published beginning in the early 1980s and she has sold more than 1 million limited edition and open edition prints in 45 countries. Her work has hung in galleries around the world and she was the best-selling female artist in the United States and eight other countries, she said.

Coming back to Illinois in the early 1980s, she and her second husband settled in Bloomingdale. In 1983, she entered, and won, the Mrs. Illinois Pageant and was third runner-up in the Mrs. America Pageant.

Her world changed when her husband died in 1984. Grief-stricken, she stopped painting. A few years later, heavy rain storms flooded her basement, destroying the majority of her artwork and other important possessions.

Bouchard went on to open a women's boutique in Bloomingdale and later, in Schaumburg. She married Martin Lillig 19 years ago and moved to Naperville. She sold her business and later opened Bouchard Limited, a bridal keepsake company in Naperville, which she ran for 14 years. In 2004, she opened Perfect Details, a women's boutique, and expanded it last fall to include chocolates. Now, operating under the Le Chocolat Bar name, the business will move to downtown Naperville later this summer.

Bouchard is the mother of three daughters.

1. How did you cure yourself of fibromyalgia?

There's a formula, a way that I've come up with, based on all the studies that I did and the research. . . . I came up with something where I tracked down high cacao content, not cocoa content, but cacao. All chocolate is made from cacao which is the bean which is actually the seed. ... I take one ounce a day of dark chocolate, very dark chocolate, 70 percent cacao content, every morning on an empty stomach. That's my theory. I figured it out based on the fact that through thousands of years, mankind has always treated it as a medicine, an elixir, a tonic. ... The conquistadors, the Mayans, the Aztecs after them, all knew that it was a sacred drink. It was always called food of the gods. It was a sacred drink. It was a man's drink. It was used for all kinds of not only religious ceremonies, but for health purposes. ... It was always a drink. It only became a bar in 1870.

2. What makes dark chocolate so good for you?

There are between five and 60 compounds, complex compounds in every food we eat. Broccoli has always topped the charts, tops out at 60. At the discovery of DNA they were able to analyze the foods better and now we've found that cacao has more than 512 and counting. ... Because it's loaded with these 512 complex compounds, it has got just about every good thing coming out of the soil that you need. I'm not a doctor. I'm not even a nutritionist. I just know what happened to me so I just started telling people my story. Then, as I opened the store I would have them buy some of the chocolate and eat it and enjoy it and (told them) here's how much I take and they'd say, I wonder if it will work for me? I said report back to me. ... By now I've got a study a mile long of people who have come back to me with results.

3. What is your biggest challenge as a businesswoman?

The only time I come up frustrated is women dealing in, quote, a man's world. I know it sounds archaic but it's still happening today. I talk to other female entrepreneurs who have the same frustration. It is still a man's world. ... We still have to deal with bankers and businessmen and vendors that don't give you the time of day because they don't really believe you are as big or as good as you say you are. They tend to want to work and deal with men. I had to overcome that and now I'm pretty confident anytime I walk into a trade show that I can command respect immediately.

4. Who inspires you?

I do sort of like watching how Hillary Clinton has commanded respect, gone through what she did and has still come out on top.

5. What is your favorite pastime?

I read approximately 150 books a year (about) the world around us, the pyramids. I'm not an expert on Egyptology, but I do have millions of useless facts, as my husband refers to. I find it fascinating. This is a whole world and when you go and see this King Tut stuff that they've brought up, and everything that I've read and know, I feel like I've been in the pyramids or been in these sacred places. I started studying it all because I thought I'd never be able to travel. So I traveled in my mind. Every night it was my ritual. And to this day, I still read no less than two hours a day and some days I'll read as much as three-and-a-half, four hours every night.

Bulgarian Scientist: Chocolate is Sweet Salvation. - Sofia News Agency

Need another reason to eat chocolate? A Bulgarian scientist who reinvented her life in Minnesota says that eating fine, responsibly raised cacao can save the world.

By Kim Ode

Star Tribune

Slow down. Sit on your hands, if you must. First, just look at the piece of chocolate before you. Consider its particular shade. An earthy umber? A glossier Hershey?

Now bring it to your nose. Rub the chocolate and ponder. Is that vanilla? Raisins? Hay? You may wonder how in the world your brain is saying 'hay.' Patience.

Next, snap the morsel in half. Did the sound surprise you? Has anything filched from the kids' Halloween bags ever cracked like that?

OK, now put a bit on your tongue. Slow down. Let it melt. Close your eyes and think of nothing but chocolate melting in your mouth. Only that.

This is the flavor of revolution.

That's what Anna Bonavita says, at least, and why not believe her? She may have more chocolate.

Bonavita is the champion of what she calls a chocolate revolution that's happening in our midst and, indeed, must happen if we are to preserve the Earth, our health and our peace of mind.

If that sounds a little over the top, so is the story of how Bonavita moved from a career in microelectronics behind the Berlin Wall to leading yoga students in Minneapolis through the finer points of a Trinitario chocolate with 75 percent cacao content.

'We are here to experience pleasure, not just to suffer,' Bonavita said in a Bulgarian accent more musical than you might expect. Yet for most of her life, pleasure was an afterthought. Pursuing a career in science, she moved to Russia at 19 to get a doctorate in microelectronics. Ten years later, she returned to work in Bulgaria, only to discover, with the toppling of the Berlin Wall, the superiority of science being done in the West.

'We were in open waters,' she said of the mixed feelings of freedom and futility. She came to Minnesota to work at Seagate Technology but felt a growing restlessness. 'I wanted a purpose bigger than me,' she said. So eventually she and her Italian husband, Massimo, helped to found the Italian Cultural Center in Minneapolis in 2006, a nonprofit whose language classes enable the center to stage an annual Italian film festival (this year's is March 30-April 1.)

Then in 2009, she was laid off from Seagate, a casualty of restructuring. Again at sea, she decided to visit Italy, ending up in Romagna, in the north region, where on a damp, cold-to-your-bones evening, she decided, on a whim, to attend a chocolate tasting.

Questioning her sanity

'The chocolates I tasted were nothing I had experienced before,' Bonavita said. In short order, she learned about chocolate's role in the world economy, its role in the fight to preserve and restore rain forests, its role in medical discoveries on the beneficial role of antioxidants. She began educating herself about some of the 600 flavor notes in chocolate -- wine, by comparison, has 200 -- by starting each morning with a chocolate-tasting, before her palate had been compromised by coffee, or even toothpaste.

Eventually, she met Gianluca Franzoni, an Italian who makes Domori chocolates -- a level of chocolate that inspires critiques such as having 'extraordinary roundness and great persistence.' He's also a rock star in the sustainability movement, in which cacao growers in Central and South America are allies in the fight to maintain biodiversity in the face of lumber, mining and oil interests. Bonavita's path seemed clear, albeit ill-advised.

'Sometimes I asked myself, 'Are you insane?' At a time when people are watching their budgets, I'm pushing expensive chocolate,' she said. 'But I have to do it if we are going to change into a better world.'

She, Massimo and a friend, Ella Chamba, started Chocolate Bonavita in 2010, offering tastings and classes at the Italian Cultural Center, 528 Hennepin Av. S., and even a tasting in tandem with a yoga class, believing that a calm mind is most receptive to the nuances of fine chocolate.

Chocolates are for sale on the center's website, www. chocolatebonavita.com, where a 1.75-ounce bar of the award-winning Porcelana goes for . Goals include a retail store and development of a curriculum for chocolate sommeliers, in the vein of those for wine or olive oil.

Heart health, brain health

People love chocolate. And while U.S. citizens ate more than 3.6 billion pounds of it in 2010, according to the U.S. Department of Commerce, we are mere amateurs when compared with Europe, which has 16 of the top 20 chocolate-eating countries.

All predictions point to rising consumption, partly thanks to studies about chocolate's health benefits. The Harvard School of Public Health, in a survey of 65-year-old men, found that eating moderate amounts of chocolate was a factor in prolonging their lives.

Cacao is rich in dietary copper, magnesium and iron, and dark chocolate has been found to lower blood pressure, along with being a source of antioxidants, which help reduce the risk of developing cancer or heart disease, according to Boston University's School of Medicine and the German Heart Journal.

The most recent, and perhaps more controversial, study was published last month in the journal Nature, in which obesity researchers at the University of California argued that sugar is so perilous to public health that it should be regulated as a controlled substance in order to reduce overall consumption. Far from hearing that as bad news, cheerleaders for fine chocolate heralded the findings as another ally. Chocolate with high cacao content actually contains very little sugar, Bonavita said.

Yet it's clear that Bonavita's passion is less about health and more about a belief that chocolate is good for our brains and for the planet. (Ten percent of Bonavita's profits go to the Rainforest Rescue program.)

DARK ATTRACTION: Adventurers in chocolate craft a niche in Chicago. - Chicago Tribune (Chicago, IL)

Byline: Bill Daley

Feb. 7--Chicago has long been known as the candy capital of the world, thanks to large operations such as Brach's, Fannie May and Mars. What may come as a surprise is that the Chicago area is home to many individual chocolatiers, people dedicated to handcrafted bonbons made with artisan chocolate, plushed with flavors exotic or familiar, and shaped to look like works of art. Just be prepared to pay for the pleasure, $2 and up for a bite at some places. Increasingly, folks are willing to pony up to the premium chocolate counter. Sales are up 30 percent over a year ago for the so-called 'gourmet' chocolates sold in supermarkets, drugstores and mass-market stores, said Susan Fussell, director of communications for the Chocolate Manufacturers Association, a Vienna, Va.-based trade group. These statistics show growing consumer interest in gourmet chocolate, she said, interest that is bound to also affect those artisans crafting chocolates by hand. Artisan chocolate is a relatively new sector within the chocolate industry, according to Andrew Garrison Shotts, owner of Garrison Confections in Providence, R.I. 'As pastry chefs have become chocolatiers, bringing their artistic abilities to the art of making chocolate, the entire look and feel of luxury chocolates have changed,' he writes in 'Making Artisan Chocolates.' Uzma Sharif, chef and owner of Love in Disquise Chocolates Ltd. in Chicago, said the appeal of handmade chocolates is simple.

'People want something more creative that shows what's coming from their hearts,' she said. 'A lot of my customers want something unique.'

More and more chocolatiers like Sharif are seeking to feed the demand, so evident now as Valentine's Day approaches. Most do only chocolates; others sell cookies, cakes and pastries as well. What unites them is a passion for quality you can taste and see, and an innate respect for the mysterious ways of the raw ingredient they're using.

'It's tricky stuff,' said Bob Piron, whose 23-year-old company, Belgian Chocolatier Piron of Evanston, could be considered the granddaddy of the region's makers of prestige chocolates. 'As soon as you think you understand it, it slaps you in the face and you lose a batch.'

Yet, chocolatiers keep plugging away, buoyed by the sense of artistry and creativity given by this ancient food, once favored by the Mayans and Aztecs. Tastes in chocolate are changing, Chicago chocolatiers say, as Americans develop a more European palate for chocolate. That means less sweet, more intense chocolates. Cacao is the bean from which chocolate is made. The percentage numbers found increasingly on chocolate wrappers boasts how much pure cacao bean is in that chocolate. The higher the cacao percentage, the more intense is the flavor.

Knowing the cacao numbers is all the rage these days, with consumers seeking out chocolates with percentages ranging from 64, 70, 75, to even 90 percent. Fussell said this is another sign of how consumers want to know more about chocolate. While cacao affects flavor, the Chocolate Manufacturer's Association noted one can't automatically link the cacao percentage with the amount of flavanols found in a particular piece of chocolate. Flavanols are compounds that researchers believe may lower blood pressure. Health claims have fueled interest in chocolate. Like green tea and red wine, chocolate is rich in good-for-you antioxidants. Dark chocolate is especially rich in antioxidants, and Chicago-area chocolatiers report a boost in dark-chocolate sales. At Belgian Chocolatier Piron, for example, dark has outsold milk chocolate about 3-to-1 in the last year. In years past the demand was more evenly split, Piron said. A number of chocolate-makers are seeking to boost the healthful aura in the choice of the other ingredients used in their confections. Sharif, for example, spoke of working 'super foods' such as blueberries and pomegranates into her chocolates. And Rieko Wada, owner of Sweet Endeavours in Schaumburg, has even made raspberry bonbons using berries from one of her customer's own raspberry bushes. Chocolatiers feeding the area's sweet tooth benefit from the city's long candy history, said Matt Hancock, director of the Food and Candy Institute, a non-profit, public-private partnership working to strengthen the food and candy industries in Chicago. But getting the word out about these artisans is important too. Hancock said many of his friends are surprised to learn that Vosges Haut-Chocolat, a nationally respected maker of gourmet chocolates, was born right here in Chicago rather than, say, San Francisco. 'No one is surprised Hershey's is made in Pennsylvania; we're not as good at promoting our candy,' he said. Many of Chicago's chocolate artists are going about their work in their own way as they hone their vision and express themselves. Their stories appear on this page. Brandy truffles

Preparation time: 20 minutes Chilling time: 30 minutes Freezing time: 1 hour Yield: 36 truffles - This recipe comes from Mary Winslow of Chicago's Chocolate Gourmet, maker of the Ugly Truffles line of chocolate. Center: 12 ounces milk chocolate, finely chopped 1/3 cup plus 2 tablespoons sweetened condensed milk

1/4 cup brandy 1 tablespoon corn syrup Coating: 1 pound each: bittersweet chocolate, confectioners' sugar 1. For the center mixture, place the milk chocolate in a bowl over a saucepan of hot water. Stir to melt the chocolate, about 2 minutes. Remove from heat; stir in the remaining ingredients. (Mixture will become temporarily firm.) Cover; chill 30 minutes. 2. Beat mixture with an electric mixer (with a whisk attachment, if you have one) set on low until the mixture comes together and is smooth and silky, about 1 minute. (Be careful not to get any water inside.) 3. Scoop small balls of chocolate onto paper-lined pans with a pastry scoop or teaspoon, or use a piping tool with 1/2-inch plain tip to create oval shapes. Freeze about 1 hour. 4. Meanwhile, for the coating, melt the bittersweet chocolate in a bowl over hot water. Sift sugar into a separate bowl. Remove balls from freezer; dip into the melted chocolate, using two forks. Place truffles in the sugar; toss to coat. Let set 10 minutes; shake truffles in a strainer to remove excess sugar. Refrigerate in an airtight container. Let come to room temperature before serving. Nutrition information per serving: 177 calories, 40% of calories from fat, 8 g fat, 4 saturated fat, 3 mg cholesterol, 27 g carbohydrates, 2 g protein, 13 mg sodium, 1 g fiber Uzma Sharif Love in Disguise Chocolate Ltd. 866-464-9866 loveindisguise.com Big doings are in store for Uzma Sharif, the chef-owner of Love in Disguise. She is poised to move into a 1,200-square-foot facility at 2010 W. Fulton St. that will nearly triple her space. She's streamlining her collection of truffles, introducing a new line called Cocoa Sutra decorated with the imagery of her ancestral homeland, Pakistan. And she's revamping her Web site, important since a retail space isn't foreseen in her business plan until 2008. Not bad for an 11-year food-industry veteran out on her own for only two years. 'I'm learning as I go along,' she said, smiling. 'My biggest lesson is just having patience. I get so excited by new techniques and new tastes.' Sharif clearly brings an energy to her chocolate-making, but then she proudly proclaims there's a little bit of love in everything she makes, hence the company name. 'My life and my passion are in my chocolate,'' she said. 'When I came up with the name, I wanted something that really, really brought that out.' The flavor, texture and appearance of her bonbons are all-important, as one can tell by watching her coat one with plump lashings of melted chocolate until the confection is glossy. She sweats the details, just as you'd expect an instructor in chocolate (at Triton Community College) to do. She works carefully to bring out the artistic touches in her work--even the boxes holding the chocolates are handcrafted.

'Every chocolate has its own beauty,' said Sharif, a graduate of Chicago's French Pastry School. Her chocolate-covered almonds, for example, first are caramelized by hand so each nut remains separate. Each is then hand-dipped three times in molten dark bittersweet chocolate and finally coated with extra brute (dark) cocoa powder. The result is deliciously illusory. You feel like you're eating a candy bar even though you're not. Customers looking to order her chocolate should visit Sharif's Web site or telephone. Mary Winslow Chocolate Gourmet 1635 W. Walnut St., 312-850-1051 chocolategourmet.com

Ugly may not be pretty but it sure can be delicious. Mary Winslow, owner of Chicago's Chocolate Gourmet, makes and sells a line of hand-rolled 'Ugly Truffles' with such sassy names as 'homely hazelnut,' 'put your clothes on chocolate,' 'you suck lemon' and the biggest seller, 'oozy boozy caramel,' made with a brandy-laced milk chocolate ganache.

These are not the elegant-looking orbs of perfection found in the windows of fancy chocolate shops, but they seem more Chicagoan for their gutsiness--fitting, given Winslow is a native. 'They're all hand-rolled,' she said. 'I didn't want them to look perfect.' Still, the flavor of these 'ugly' truffles is no less sophisticated. Just consider a new addition to the product range, the 'gordito picante.' It's a velvety smooth ball of cinnamony Mexican chocolate warmed with chili spices and ground-up corn tortilla. The chili doesn't kick in for a few seconds, allowing the rich chocolate to fill the mouth first. Then the heat enters. At first it's like a gentle tingle but it slowly blooms and lingers as the sweetness of the tortilla unfolds. Winslow turned to chocolate and cookies (that line is called 'Damn Good Cookies') last year to offset the seasonal variability inherent in her 10-year-old cake business, Take the Cake. Chocolate-making is another way for this mother of two teens and self-described obsessive baker to express her creativity. She said she likes to deliver 'good, basic flavors' but at a high level of quality. She also enjoys playing a bit with spicy or salty tastes as long as they're not overwhelming. Winslow sells her chocolates over the Internet, and customers come to her facility in a warehouse-style building in West Town. The look is bright, clean, modern but warm--sort of postindustrial with a smile. She would like to open a small retail shop at her location someday. Rieko Wada

Sweet Endeavours 1101 Tower Rd., Schaumburg, 224-653-2700

chocolatines.com Perhaps it's the surgical masks Chizuko Edgington and Terumi Shimizu wear, but walking into the chocolate production room at Sweet Endeavours in Schaumburg is like entering a hospital operating room. Hairnets and booties must be worn by visitors watching the two women handcraft dozens of little chocolates with an almost lyrical precision. Owner Rieko Wada would have it no other way. She brings an intensity for perfection to the production of her Chocolatines line. There are 50 flavors in all, and all look like miniature works of art. Just look at the samples in her showroom, which is open to the public. Some are molded into squares, others into circles. Still more are swirled into roses or faceted to look like gemstones or crystals. A few are topped with intricately patterned cocoa-butter appliques while others are adorned with bits of dried fruits and nuts arranged into edible mosaics. Everything is genuine, all-natural, she boasted: 'I won't use any imitations.' Born in Tokyo, Wada came to the United States about 20 years ago intent on earning an MBA degree and then returning to Japan to teach. But fate intervened. She began working as a travel agent to earn money for tuition but found herself drawn increasingly toward food. As a student at the French Pastry School, she loved working with chocolate, partially because of the science involved and the creative ways it can be used. 'And you don't have to have an oven,' she added with a smile. Her background gives Wada unique insight into the chocolate tastes of the region's various ethnic communities, notably the Japanese. Americans like nuts in their chocolate, she said, while the Japanese do not. Americans tend to be vocal in their likes and dislikes; Wada said the Japanese are more accommodating, although they prefer their chocolates to be more traditional and less sweet. Wada is looking to the future. She's working on her own candy molds, including a rose shape that will allow for three petal layers each made from a different chocolate. She's also open to expanding her business into pastry, such as wedding cakes. Bob and Fred Piron Belgian Chocolatier Piron 509-A Main St., Evanston, 847-864-5504 belgchocpiron.com Credit Bob Piron's Belgian-born father for pushing him in the direction of chocolates. It was the early 1980s, fancy imported chocolates were hot, and young Bob was looking for direction and a career. Taken with his father's directive, he moved to Antwerp for a year and apprenticed himself to a chocolatier. Bob Piron and his brother, Fred, who co-owns the business, still make many chocolates according to the recipes Bob learned in Belgium--for the focus at Belgian Chocolatier Piron remains squarely fixed on classic European chocolates done the old-fashioned way. Don't expect to find chichi balls in wild flavors inside the glass-fronted counters. Rather, look for diamond-shaped bites of milk chocolate-hazelnut praline with chopped pecans, rough squares of macadamia nut bark or fingerlike segments of chocolate-covered candied orange peel. 'We stick to our guns,' Fred Piron said. 'We haven't really felt [competition]. Evanston is growing so much our business just grows from the increased population.' At Christmas, 'you work your tail off,' added Bob Piron. 'You've got 500 pounds of capacity and 1,000 pounds of demand.'

Despite a burgundy-colored awning over the store window, the Piron shop is pretty plain. A Valentine's display is in the window, an assortment of pink molded-plastic chairs are aligned in a row, and a set of shelves holds various products, including a box of Tanzanian chocolate. The focus is all on the illuminated glass-fronted candy display cases.

The Pirons and their staff make the chocolates by hand in the large back room of the store, using 11-pound bars of Callebaut chocolate from Belgium as the raw material. It's time-consuming piecework as they coat molds with chocolate, fill the chocolate shells with various flavors, and put the chocolate bottoms on to hold the fillings in place. This is the way it has been done and will be done. 'There's always a certain amount of curiosity for new things,' Bob Piron said. 'Trends are just that. People always come back to the classics.

wdaley@tribune.com

Copyright (c) 2007, Chicago Tribune

Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Business

News.

Chocotherapy: the daily dose of chocolate: everyone seems to love chocolate. With all the positive news about dark chocolate's antioxidant properties, plus the influx of chocolate ingredients on today's menus--from martinis to cheeses--there has never been a better time to explore the delectable attributes of chocolate.(culinary creations) - Prepared Foods

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With all the positive information coming out these days about the health benefits of chocolate, one should be sure to have a daily dose of this delectable treat. While doing chocolate research, it is delightful to find that a guilty pleasure becomes like a magical food, with a number of health and wellness benefits. Once it becomes a guilt-free treat, it seems worth taking the indulgent bite to reap even a few of its amazing benefits.

Most people have heard in the news that dark chocolate has antioxidant powers, but they may not know that cacao, the source of chocolate, also has antibacterial agents that may reduce tooth decay. Even better, the smell of chocolate can increase brain waves and help relax the body. Maybe that is why cocoa powder and chocolate body scrubs are all the rage at upscale spas around the country--making one smarter while basking in the scent of sweet chocolate. So, when patrons of beauty salons relax while being dipped in chocolate, they should also nibble on a little of the same, as chocolate contains phenyl ethylamine--a mild mood elevator. The list of chocolate's benefits goes on and on, but one favorite is that men who eat chocolate live longer. Ladies should share that box of gourmet chocolates with their guys--with flavors that might pique their mood.

Bacon is something men usually crave. Vosges Haut-Chocolate, based in Chicago, combines exotic infusions of rare spices and flavors with premium chocolate to layer the chocolate experience and test the taste buds. The shop has an intriguing milk chocolate bar infused with Alderwoodsmoked bacon and smoked sea salt. It is quite different, and the flavors really work together. Bring a box of those to the next Sunday football party, and score a touchdown with the best dessert!

Many love the personal indulgence of cheese flavors, and Vosges Haut-Chocolate has an Italian collection that includes an abstractly shaped truffle called The Rooster. It is made with Taleggio cheese, organic walnuts, Tahitian vanilla beans and bittersweet chocolate. The natural saltiness in the cheese enhances the chocolate ganache--just like an old-fashioned pretzel stick dipped in chocolate brings out the best in both the pretzel and the chocolate. These flavors may initially surprise, but the building blocks of flavors are traditional in savory cooking. Balancing sweet, acid and salt is key to any successful dish.

Latin American flavors and concepts are as hot as ever. Many love chocolate and caramel, so why not combine the traditional Argentine dulce de leche with chocolate for a Latin American-inspired truffle? The Mayans first used chocolate in a drink by crushing cacao beans and mixing with water, chilis and Mexican vanilla. This beverage was reserved for special ceremonies. Vosges' Aztec collection revisits these roots of chocolate in Mexico with on-trend flavors like spicy ancho chilis with Mexican vanilla. One can even try a corn tortilla chip dipped in chocolate and finished with a dusting of chili powder--a gourmet take on potato chips with chocolate.

While these may not be the chocolate combinations seen every day, they are representative of the direction in which chocolate is going. Hershey's chocolate bars used to be what everyone thought of when they heard the word chocolate. Now, there is a huge spectrum of chocolate varieties available to fit everyone's palate. Chocolate is as complex as wine, and tasting it can follow many of the same rules. Try tasting three dark gourmet chocolates, side by side: Valrhona, Callebaut and Scharffenberger. They are as different as three pinot noirs. Their bouquet (or aroma), mouthfeel and flavor are distinct. Scharffenberger is the most complex--like a full-bodied red that continues to open up as it melts in the mouth. Valrhona is dark and very smooth, and Callebaut has a versatile, milder flavor. Specialty companies even refer to their exotic bars from around the equator as Grand Crus.

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A trip to the store can be like embarking on a tropical vacation. The cacao tree only grows within 15 degrees of the equator, and it requires constant warmth and rainfall. Think of this shopping trip as a gourmand vacation that brings you to exotic regions like Venezuela, Ecuador, Java and Madagascar. Hershey's Cacao Reserve line even has signature and single-origin chocolate bars.

These trends and flavors are being incorporated into desserts around the country. Just as the savory side of the menu lists out the 'organic and grass-fed' branding on a meal, keep an eye out for beautiful chocolate desserts that list out the brand and origin of the chocolate used. Taste the out-of-the-ordinary, but extraordinary, flavor combinations being used, and step outside the chocolate box to try a never-imagined combination. For all who crave a piece of chocolate at the end of the day because it lifts the mood--go ahead and indulge the senses!

Juliet Greene, Corporate Chef Charlie Baggs Inc.

Single-Origin Chocolate Goes Mainstream - AP Online

WASHINGTON - Call it chocolate with a pedigree. Like a good Bordeaux or Chianti, some chocolate comes from a particular place - the Indonesian island of Java or Venezuela's Sur del Lago, for example.

As with wine grapes, the source of cacao beans is supposed to result in distinct flavors and aromas. Chocolate from Colombia might seem peppery while chocolate from Venezuela might smell like vanilla.

'It's like colors on a palette,' says Gary Guittard, president and chief executive of San Francisco's Guittard Chocolate Company. 'There is a tremendous parallel between wine and chocolate.'

He mentions terroir (pronounced tehr-WAHR), a French word used for wine and coffee that translates loosely as 'taste of the earth.' The idea is that beans grown near a vanilla orchid plantation may carry notes of vanilla, depending on fermentation and processing.

'Terroir, weather - there are so many things that are very similar to wine,' Guittard says. 'I think people are beginning to understand that complexity of flavor.'

Guittard was among the first U.S. companies to make 'single-origin' chocolate, which had been available in Europe for many years. The term refers to chocolate made from beans from a specific region or even a single farm. Most choices today are dark chocolate, though milk chocolate varieties are produced.

Like other single-origin chocolate, Guittard's is sold in upscale supermarkets and specialty shops.

Until recently, high-end retailers such as Whole Foods Market have been the province of pedigreed chocolate.

But this year, Hershey's began making single-origin bars that are sold by Wal-Mart Stores Inc., Target Corp. and most grocery stores.

'It's all about the exploration of chocolate and learning about different cacao levels and how that influences flavor, as well as the origin of the beans,' says Tom Hernquist, senior vice president of the Hershey Co., the country's biggest chocolate company.

Labels on single-origin chocolate say how much cocoa - really cacao - the chocolate contains. Cacao percentage has become important as people explore the potential health benefits of eating dark chocolate.

Cocoa beans have natural antioxidant compounds called flavanols. Many studies suggest flavanols help ward off vascular disease, which can cause heart attacks, strokes, diabetes, dementia and hypertension. A Hershey-funded study in 2005 found the more cacao in chocolate, the higher the antioxidant levels.

The higher the cacao percentage, the higher the price tag. A giant-size 5-oz. Hershey's bar costs $1.59 - 32 cents an ounce. Hershey's single-origin bars cost $3.29 for a 3.5-oz bar - 94 cents an ounce. Guittard chocolate costs $1 for a 10-gram bar - $2.86 an ounce.

People want higher-end chocolate with more distinctive flavors, Hernquist says. Baby Boomers are aging, have more disposable income and are looking for quality over quantity, he says.

In pursuit of those high-end consumers, Hershey's recently purchased three premium chocolate companies, Scharffen Berger Chocolate Maker Inc., Joseph Schmidt Confections Inc. and Dagoba Organic Chocolate.

Wine drinkers are also trading up. The strongest sales growth over the past year has been in wines priced $12 to $15, according to the marketing information company ACNielsen.

Part of the fun of eating single-origin chocolate is comparing chocolate from different places.

The various flavor notes can be subtle and harder to detect than in wine, so companies are providing guidance.

Hershey's bar made of beans from the African island of Sao Tome has 'hints of aromatic coffee,' according to its package. Guittard provides a pocket guide with its tasting kit of bars from Venezuela, Madagascar, Ecuador and Columbia.

Industry consultant Joan Steuer describes how to do the chocolate version of a wine tasting:

-First, notice whether the chocolate has a high gloss or sheen, an indication of quality. Listen as you break it to hear the snap, then smell the chocolate to see if you can detect specific aromas.

-Then put the chocolate in your mouth and hold it against the roof of your mouth. Is it creamy? Smooth? Chalky? Move it from side to side as different notes - perhaps fruity, toasty or tart - come through.

-Unlike wine tasting, do not spit out the chocolate, Steuer says with a laugh. But do not bite it. 'These are bars you really should let melt in your mouth and not bite,' she says. 'We're tasting, not just eating.

'This is not chocolate to be gobbled,' she says. 'This is chocolate to be savored.'

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On the Net:

CHOCOLATE'S SWEET ALLURE.(News) - The Seattle Times (Seattle, WA)

Byline: Sandi Doughton; Seattle Times science reporter

If the healthful benefits of broccoli could be distilled into a pill, veggie haters worldwide would rejoice.

But who would choose to get their chocolate fix by gulping a tablet?

The rush to cash in on chocolate's apparent ability to lower blood pressure, improve circulation and maybe even fight diabetes is threatening to take the fun out of indulgence. Products like purified cacao capsules are already on the market. A Texas company filed a patent last year on chocolate bars bulked up with fiber.

Not exactly the kind of thing to make a girl swoon on Valentine's Day.

Brace yourself for more of the same as manufacturers push to turn chocolate into what a recent trade article called 'a suitable vehicle for functional confectionary.'

One small Seattle chocolate company hopes to subvert that trend.

In a former brewery in Fremont, Andy McShea of Theo Chocolate is trying to tease out the molecular basis of scrumptiousness. In the short term, the former pharmaceutical-industry biochemist is using scientific insight to optimize Theo's artisan approach to chocolate making. In the long term, he's aiming for the same goal as the candy industry's biggest players: a way to maximize chocolate's health benefits while minimizing its baggage of fat and calories.

But if it isn't delicious too, what's the point? asks McShea, Theo's sole scientist and chief operating officer. 'The hair-shirt approach doesn't work.'

Consumers were not enamored of Cocoa Via, one of the first health-themed chocolate products. The granola-type bar from candy giant Mars, Inc., was fortified with flavonols, the antioxidants credited with many of chocolate's health effects. Mars' newest attempt is a dietary-supplement drink mix billed as a 'concentrated source of cocoa flavonols,' and next up is a fruit-flavored drink fortified with flavonols from cocoa.

The company is so convinced of chocolate's biomedical potential it created a new division to develop and patent foods and possibly drugs based on cocoa and its components. Mars is even helping sequence the genome of Theobroma cacao, the species that is the source of so much delight -- and Theo Chocolate's namesake.

'We see a lot of potential,' said Mars spokesman Hugo Perez, who estimates the company has spent tens of millions of dollars on cocoa research.

If McShea is fazed by the competition's scientific firepower, he doesn't show it.

'We're going to do things better,' said the cocky Brit, who studied at Harvard and also worked at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center.

The tough talk comes from a company 4 years old, with about 50 employees. But Theo's organic, fair-trade products, like dark chocolate with dried cherries and almonds, have earned raves in publications from Time Out New York to O Magazine.

Theo says it's the only Northwest company that manufactures chocolates from beans to finished product.

An artisan operation has advantages over megacompanies when it comes to producing a healthful product, McShea says. Industrial processing can destroy flavonols and other key compounds. McShea says his lab analyses of popular chocolate brands show mass-produced candy doesn't have as complex a flavor profile as artisan chocolate.

McShea also has graphs and charts that show the heirloom varieties of cacao trees favored by Theo produce more flavonol-rich and flavorful beans than the varieties that dominate large cacao plantations.

The main stumbling block to a yummy chocolate health food is the fact that flavonols are bitter, McShea said. Chocolate stripped of sugar has a mouth-puckering quality. Chocolate that skimps on cocoa butter is chalky.

'We're working hard to figure out a way to separate the health effects from the calories and retain the flavor,' McShea said. 'Nobody has been able to do that yet.'

His chemical analyses, which are helping reveal what makes chocolate taste, feel and smell good, are a step in that direction. But the goal isn't to engineer chocolate into something else, McShea said. It's to find that magic mix of tree, bean and roasting method that will lead to the prize.

To get there, McShea will need to make the most of every advantage he has.

His Super Secret Chocolate Laboratory is the size of a bedroom. He turns to researchers at the University of Washington and their million-dollar machines to help him bore into chocolate at the nano-level.

McShea also acts as his own guinea pig. He says he logged a 20 percent drop in blood pressure after dosing himself with pure chocolate extract. He self-medicated a back strain by eating cocoa nibs, and claims the anti-inflammatory effects sped his recovery.

Don't try this at home -- and don't take McShea's high jinks as proof. But reputable research does appear to validate many of the medicinal effects first noted by the Maya and Aztecs.

More than 200 clinical studies have shown eating small amounts of dark chocolate can lower blood pressure, improve circulation, reduce levels of bad cholesterol and increase sensitivity to insulin, a marker of diabetes resistance. Most of the studies are small, though, and most were paid for by candy makers.

'The evidence is not conclusive,' said Jeffrey Blumberg, director of the Antioxidants Research Laboratory at Tufts University. The research has largely focused on indicators of health like blood pressure, rather than actual heart disease, Blumberg pointed out.

'I think it's critically important to remember, no matter how you cut it, chocolate is still not a health food.'

Blumberg doesn't dismiss chocolate's potential. But the reductionist approach of isolating compounds, putting them in pills or powders and expecting the same benefits as from eating carrots, oranges and other whole foods has failed repeatedly, he pointed out. Beta carotene didn't live up to its hype, nor did vitamin E.

Adam Drewnowski, director of the UW Center for Obesity Research, endorses the value of whole, healthful foods, and considers good chocolate among them. While chocoholics await the supercharged confections of tomorrow, he says it's possible to maximize health benefits today by eating only premium dark chocolate, in small quantities.

'Do not accept inferior imitations,' said Drewnowski, who nibbles from a fine French chocolate bar every day. 'If you're just grabbing bags of Hershey Kisses on the way to work, you're not doing yourself any favors.'

Sandi Doughton: 206-464-2491 or sdoughton@seattletimes.com

CAPTION(S):

Erika Schultz / The Seattle Times: Can Valentine chocolates be both delicious and good for you? (0411358342)

Erika Schultz / The Seattle Times: Licorice ganache enrobed in dark chocolate from Theo Chocolate. The Fremont candy maker is working on making a more healthful and still tasty chocolate. (0411358333)

Erika Schultz / The Seattle Times: Erin Holzer, chocolate maker and chief engineer, and Andy McShea, chief operating officer, of Theo Chocolate. (0411358304)

Erika Schultz / The Seattle Times: Suzann Vaughn works on the luscious treats at Theo Chocolate in Fremont. (0411358297)