Ahhh, macaroons. I love them. And Pix has some wacky ones!
At the main location, there's a restauant...and you can have Chimay with your clafoutis. Or Paris Brest. Or Marjolaine.
There's a lot to look at, arranged in a rather interesting way
I'm particularly fascinated and repulsed by the cheese n chocolate combo:
From Naomi's divorce party:
From Bouchon Bakery, NYC...a Boston Creme Donut made from what tastes like brioche dough. Mmmmmm
And those specs are vanilla bean in the pastry cream. So good!
Technically, scrapple is not cake. But at this year's Scrapplefest at Reading Terminal Market in Philadelphia, there was a wedding cake - made especially for the event - composed of scrapple and decorative ribbon. For the Mid-Atlantic raised, scrapple sculpture is probably not so unusual. For those of us from elsewhere, not only is a scrapple sculpture or wedding cake potentially nausea inducing, it is unfathomable and somewhat mysterious. The mystery: why would anyone want a scrapple wedding cake. Unless they were these guys:
Apparently they've got a scrapple page on myspace.com. Check out their T-shirts!
If you didn't click the link above and still don't know what scrapple is, allow me: scrapple is corn meal mush, sometimes buckwheat (a grass, not technically wheat), pork and pork trimmings, simmered up and formed in a loaf pan. Apparently the treat was introduced by the German "Pennsylvania Dutch" settlers in the 17th or 18th centuries. To eat it, you slice off a piece and pan-fry it. You can incorporate it in a sandwich or eat it on its own.
And until Scrapplefest, I (a New Englander) had never tried Scrapple. Given my self-imposed culinary restrictions and banishment of pork from my diet at age 14 (a long time ago) I was lucky that one vendor brought along some turkey scrapple for sampling.
Let me lay out the scene: imagine table full of little sample cups of fried scrapple, piggy balloons, Amish farmers, older scrapple manufacturers, and young scrapple enthusiasts, duking it out in front of a panel of judges for coveted scrapple prizes.
Or I could show you a picture:
Here contestants show off some of their scrapple sandwich creations...I think.
Of course, every Scrapplefest needs poetry. Here is a booklet sold by two young hipsters who feel more than just a minor affinity for the Pennsylvania treat:
While I loved my introduction to scrapple and look forward to locating some (or making it) in Chicago, my traveling companion, herself an artisan cheesemaker, was not as moved. I think the term she used was "disgusting".
I'm usually not a fan of inedibles as garnishes. Unless a rind has been candied or a stem removed,I won't use it to make my plates (or, in this case, hotel pans) look prettier. But I give a pass card to Capogiro Gelato Artisans, who make some of the best authentic gelato this side of the ice cream triangle. I still am a food for The Bent Spoon, but they have admitted that their product is more of a hybrid of styles than a straight-up Italian gelato.
For the last year I've been buying Capogiro by the pint from my friends at Bouffe and Provenance Food and Wine in Chicago. I've spent several hundred dollars (it is $10 for a pint) on this creamy cold fresh and delicious confection, and won a few converts in the process. Eating out of a pint, however, is not even close to the experience of visiting the shop.
Just looking at this makes me hungry. Dang. Make sure you stop in for a visit next time you are in Philly.
I don't know how I managed to bring home a box of truffles from Coco Rouge and not dig into them within a few minutes. I actually waited 12 hours between buying them and photographing them...I wanted to make sure the light was natural and that the truffles looked beautiful, and not slightly yellowed or overexposed. Rest assured - any truffles that were cross-sectioned were promptly and eagerly eaten.
I won't say much about the people behind Coco Rouge- you can do a quick google search and read what others have written. I simply appreciate their product - it is beautiful, clean, and sensual, above all. And fun to photograph.
Sometimes when I've gone chocolate shopping, I try something and the experience is instantly forgettable. Either I've tasted it before or something is lacking. Perhaps balance, perhaps texture, perhaps quality. Coco Rouge truffles are outstanding on those three measures, and a fourth one as well - creativity. The appearance of each truffle is picture-perfect, and each truffle is like a small treasure chest, filled with a rich surprise. My current favorite is Cassius (with the gold leaf) - a butterscotch caramel made with single malt scotch. Here are a few others I tried today:
Ann made these
I am so tired of seeing chocolates made with the ubiquitous transfer sheet, the cocoa butter-and-food coloring designs and logos that many chocolatiers are using to give their products a little visual 'oomph'. Transfer sheets can be interesting, but in most typical uses they are a cop-out, a convenient way for the low-skilled to make a product look 'cool' without having any talent.
Just about everyone is using transfer sheet designs these days, even Target is selling chocolates with transfer sheet designs. The above box of chocolates comes from Starbucks. And anyone can use them -- they aren't particularly challenging to work with if you have a chocolate tempering machine...or even a simple ganache cake.
A better use is selective use, as in this box of Valentine's day confections from Michael Recchiuti in San Francisco. Most large scale chocolatiers seem to be developing their own custom designs, but even that gets tired.
I really appreciate what Coco Rouge in Chicago is doing -visually, aesthetically and organoleptically - with their products.
Thank you Ari for letting me take pictures of the store.
Here's Coco Rouge at night. It almost looks as if it is part of an installation by Dan Flavin:
The refurbished cash register is gorgeous, but as you can see, it has limited functionality - Ari needs a calculator to add up more complex orders as the register won't. No matter - I haven't seen a polished chrome register like this ever. It certainly deserves its place of importance next to the chocolate case. That's Ari putting together an order.
Managed to snap a few pictures of a few new things at Starbucks...an organic croissant and a 'naked' cinnamon roll...they actually tasted pretty good...not exactly fresh-baked, but better than anything I've tasted there before.
The 'organic butter croissant'...is it 'organic butter' or 'organic croissant made with butter'?
And then there's the 'morning bun' -- hmmmm...odd name...slightly tough texture, but nice flavor - sugar/cinnamon/butter: 
They serve the 'morning bun' warm -- in the new turbo chef ovens. Warm is good...this product isn't quite perfect, but at least it looks good.
(disclaimer: I do not dine regularly at starbucks, just happened to make an unscheduled stop there)
Quail potstickers with smoked Tofu, Verge Melbourne
Vanilla Slice with Cappuccino, some cafe in Fitzroy, Melbourne
Smoked salmon with poached eggs and potato cake, Van's Cafe, Cottesloe WA
Muffins at Jasper Cafe, Melbourne
Just a few images from a recent visit to SF:
Much has been said about Soyoung Scanlan and the cheese she produces under the Andante Dairy label. Sold mostly to restaurants and from her table at the SF Ferry Plaza Farmer's market, Andante Dairy's cheeses are truly sublime.
I first met Soyoung in 2001 at the American Cheese Society's conference in Sonoma. She and I had become pen pals when I was cheesemongering at Star Provisions in Atlanta. In 2000 I had been trying to order cheese from Barbara Backus at Goat's Leap in St. Helena, and Barbara told me that though she did not have product, her assistant was producing her own line of cheese, and she would sell it to me. Soyoung sent me my first batch, by two day Fedex, later that week.
I was completely blown away by the first batch she sent me -- nocturne and melange, I think. They were creamy smooth and had rinds that were very much like the French cheese that I was bringing in -- there was nothing else in the US at the time that was even close to what she was making. A friend who happened to be the main food writer at the AJC came by the shop and I pushed some of the cheese on him. He mentioned it in a small writeup in the paper the next week. We were, at that time, the only retail shop outside of California selling her cheese.
Then, as now, Soyoung was embarrassed by the attention. She didn't really want to talk about herself, just the cheese. This has largely remained the rule over the years, although she occasionally lets slip a tantalizing detail or two about her life every once in a while.
Over the years I have gotten to know Soyoung very well...and I will honor her request not to write about her, but her cheese.
This past week, during my trip to California, I spent a few hours with her after the farmers market at Ferry Plaza. She gave me Baton, a long thin aged goat cheese with a white fleurie rind -- it was simply incredible. It is pictured below:
It was strong and creamy and delicious -- not at all what I was expecting. Coach made a similar cheese, but they sold it as a grating cheese. These was something completely different. It was celebration-inducing.
She also gave me some of her fresh goat in olive oil and spices. Also remarkable, golf-ball shaped rounds of fresh chevre - it wasn't bitter, which is a primary complaint I have with most goat cheese packed in oil. I brought it home and we ate it all (5 pieces) within 30 minutes.
The last cheese she gave me was Piccolo -- which has always been a favorite. It is her triple creme, enriched with creme fraiche. When perfectly ripe, it is capable of bringing tears to my eyes.
Unfortunately, Soyoung does not produce enough cheese to sell it commerically around the country. She has tried to work with distributors in the past, but her cheese is so delicate that it does not survive transport and then the harsh conditions of the warehouse. She handles her cheese better than anyone else, and it is always best to buy direct.
Alternately you can go to one of Thomas Keller's restaurants, or eat in a handful of other places around the Bay Area and NYC...
Here's her booth at the Farmers Market:
I went to California last week for Thanksgiving. I stayed in my friend's brother's place, high in the foothills of the Santa Cruz Mountains. Because I was flying on Thanksgiving day, I decided it would be best if instead of making a pie, I made some candy. So Sunday I began, making caramel and marshmallows and buying ingredients for filled chocolates.
My first attempt at marshmallows was disastrous -- they didn't set because I didn't use enough gelatin. Eventually I did get it right, and even managed to mix some of the 'unset' marshmallows into a peanut butter/caramel filling I made, producing a sort of soft peanut nougat filling. I made chocolate caramel filling, yuzu marzipan filling, caramel-marzipan filling, butter filling, and a couple other random things like chocolate almond croquant that I am not remembering. I didn't do anything too weird because I hadn't met the guests before and I didn't want to scare them.
Here's what I ended up with:
The guests were very very happy. Unfortunately, I did a terrible job of making each type of chocolate distinct, so I told the guests that they had to take their chances, and if they didn't like something, I would eat it for them.
No one asked me to, by the way.
I also ended up cooking the turkey, making the gravy and cranberry sauce. Since I'm not the most social person in the world, it was a very good thing to have the kitchen as a distraction and a place to hide. And everything came out quite tasty...
So it wasn't really a field trip and it definitely isn't a museum. We went and visited one of our plants somewhere in the US that makes some pretty spectacular artisan-type breads. This isn't actual artisan bread (made by hand, time-honored traditions) but artisan-type...which means it is hand made but has a lot of help from machines. Sounds like an oxymoron but it makes sense if you saw production. They slash the bread by hand with razors, make traditional forms and shapes by hand...but all the kneading is done by a machine. Hence the dual-identity. They make boules, ciabatta, peasant breads, nut breads, fruit breads...and market it under a very homey name in retail stores. I'd tell you but I'd like to keep my job.
I took some pictures around the plant which do not show anything that I couldn't show my most sneaky competitor. Shortly after I dumped a bottle of water on my camera and killed it. Accidentally. Really.
Below: Fresh Bread ready for delivery; cutters; dumpster full of rejected bread. Above: Pan bread baking in a rotating oven.
A couple days ago I came across an old recipe for marshmallows that I developed back when I was still cooking at the Four Seasons. It is a great recipe, but it lacks that 'it'll survive a nuclear holocaust' feel of more commerical marshmallows. What do I mean? It keeps its shape but it is much softer.
My first attempt, using glucose as a substitute for refined white sugar (stupid me, didn't have granulated white sugar at home and was too lazy to head to the market), was an utter failure. The glucose wasn't sweet enough, the texture was too soft, and I didn't use enough gelatin. I threw the entire tray out the next morning and told no one (until now) about my failure.
This morning I woke determined to succeed. I bought organic granulated sugar and used two envelopes of gelatin. I could tell after a few minutes of mixing that it was going to work. A few hours and some tempered chocolate later, voila! They aren't perfect but I'm going to bring some to a post Chicago Marathon party in a couple hours. And a bottle of wine. Because the marshmallows may not be everyone's idea of fun.
Recipe:
2 egg whites
12 oz granulated sugar
6 oz corn syrup or glucose
2 envelopes Knox gelatin (or equivalent)
1/2 t vanilla (or other flavoring)
pinch salt
***************************
Place egg whites in bowl of mixer. Combine sugars in a pan and just enough water to wet. Turn on heat. Meanwhile, sprinkle gelatin over vanilla and add about 2T water. Allow gelatin to bloom. Wash down sides of sugar pan and make sure no crystals stick to the side. Use a wet paper towel to prevent excessive water from getting into bowl. Add gelatin. Allow to heat to around 160-170 degrees.
As mixer is on high speed, slowly add sugar/gelatin/vanilla mixture. Allow to mix until cooled. Place mixture in a piping bag and pipe onto a tray lined with cornstarch. Make any shapes you like. Cover with corn starch. Allow to set for six hours or more.
The extras - bagged up.
Naomi Stepanek opened Tipsycake 4 months ago in Chicago's Humboldt Park neighborhood, about 1 mile south of my house. I met Naomi at Angela's bridal shower - they met by chance several years ago and both happened to be Australian. Or they were introduced because they were both Australian. I don't know, something like that. When I met Naomi, Angela had long since moved to NYC but was in town for her shower.
Within a minute of seeing Angela at the shower, she effused about her friend Naomi who happened to supply the beautiful cake at the center of the table. She called Naomi over and introduced us. Naomi was chatty and expressive and spoke enthusiastically about her new bakery, Tipsycake, where everything was made from scratch.
Driving home from work one day, I decided to stop in and visit. Naomi greeted me with a Lamington and a cup of coffee. Lamingtons are a made from two layers of genoise with a thick layer of raspberry jam in between. The entire hand held cake (it is a little larger than a brownie) is then completely painted in a chocolate icing and then rolled in coconut. It was delicious - love at first bite.
Today I went back again and took more photos. What follows are pictures from my day at Tipsycake.
Cupcakes at Tipsycake...scary enough for Halloween, designed by Anne, who is one of two decorators:
Ann is responsible for the super scary vampire, skull, spider and bat cupcakes. Oscar, the other decorator, does his share of cakes.
Here are a some
views of the shop and some sweets:
Read all about Tipsycake at http://www.chicagoreader.com/features/stories/restaurants/061020/
Stupid me. On the one day of the week when it really mattered what I had in my wallet, I was walking around with four one dollar bills. At the pie contest, four dollars buys two 'half' servings of pie, or the equivalent of whole piece. With 44 entries, I would only get to taste 1/21st of the possible pies to try, or a paltry 4.7% of the bounty on display. As an "innovation manager" during the work week, shouldn't I taste at least 10%, and bid up the silent auction price for the winning pie, and expense the whole durn thing?
Guess not.
This is not an uncommon problem for me. I frequently walk around with not-quite-enough cash, and in most cases it prevents me from spending foolishly. On apple contest sunday, though, it was a burden. Given that I had no connections to the contest, other than an early round judge who had opted not to stay for the 'public' tasting and a contestant who hadn't made it to the finals, I could find not a soul to beg for a few extra dollars. With four dollars -- two tastes -- I had to choose wisely. And as anyone knows from experience, things do not always taste as good as they look. To improve my odds of getting a taste of something good, I stuck with a couple semi-finalists who didn't make it to the next round:
The first one I tried, with the leaves, above, was attractive but had a terrible, overworked crust. No tenderness there. The apples were undersweet and there was a layer of grainy apple mush at the bottom. 'A' for effort, 'F' for execution.
The next one I tried was modest (no fancy decoration) but had a marvelous crust. It was buttery, flaky, tender...all the things a girl could want in a crust. The apples were slightly oversweet, slightly over cinnamon, but kept their shape and texture. It was good, not gold medal good, but certainly better than the attractive leaf pie.
After I used up my four dollars, I tried to think of things to do. I took some photos and milled around, hoping someone with too many tickets might, out of a spontaneous act of kindness, give me a few. No such luck. I'm just not built for sympathy (I've been told I look mean...sigh). Lula was waiting for me outside, and I just couldn't keep traumatizing her (she hates spending time alone, unless she is asleep). I left before they announced the winners. So much for taking home the gold ribbon pie.
Here are a few more images from the pie contest:
Why??? They look pretty nifty but have no taste (but plenty of texture)... and look like little frog eggs or just hatched tadpoles. This month's Pastry Art & Design features the "Best Pastry Chefs of 2006" (unsurprisingly, more avant than interesting, and wayyyy NYC-centric). Two of the eight showcased desserts garnished with the basil seeds (that have been hydrated to develop that somewhat scary looking transparent film). I suppose this is just the latest in a volley of fusion-type desserts -- pull a lovely if but a wee bit scary ingredient from south & south east Asian cuisine and land it in the middle of a European-influenced dessert. In the right context, basil seed is pleasant and fun -- in beverages, in dessert soup. I dunno, I'm not convinced yet. It smacks of...pretension alert...inauthenticity. I could kick myself for saying that.
In this week's Nations Restaurant News, Bret Thorn has a piece on basil seed, creatively titled "Basil Goes to Seed" -- you'll have to register to see the article. Yep, chefs love it. And not just pastry chefs.
Here's a picture from Bunrab Daily Feed (linked here) of basil seed gelatin:
I have not yet mastered the tomato. It may be my soil, it may be the location, it may be the watering. It may also be the neighbors, one of whom gave a 'haircut' to my tomato plants, two full months before they are likely to die from frost. The tomatoes, not the neighbors. In any case, I have had a good, not great, harvest this year. Several of my plants were felled by virus. Several just didn't lead inspired lives.
My woe was intensified by a visit yesterday to the garden of a prominent Chicago chef. As a successful restaurateur, he can afford both a landscape architect and a gardener. As a regular person who does the work herself, I don't quite have the skills to coax state fair-winning fruit from the ground, though I try. Unfortunately, an "A" for effort in gardening is about as meaningful as drawing a zucchini on a piece of paper and trying to eat it.
So this garden was remarkable. Bean plants that climbed 20 feet into the air. An arbor, covered not with grapes but with butternut squash. And lovely tomato plants that grew like trees, reaching ever skyward. I was heartened to see that they used the same seed starter kit that I do. Well, at least we had that in common.
So here are some tomatoes from this year:
That's roasted yellow cherry tomatos with basil.
I just came back from vacation. I get two weeks of vacation a year -- actually, ten days -- to play with as I like. I try to juggle and arrange the days so that I can maximize my time off and minimize the days I use. Last year it was a blockbuster trip to Napa/Sonoma/Monterey/SF - four days off, seven days total. This year I took a full five days - yep, no creative planning at all - to make a wedding cake for my business school friends Mandy and Leti. Boston Magazine's Elegant weddings covers their wedding here.
I made the cake in stages. Stage 1: send pans from Chicago to my mom's place outside of Boston. Stage 2: purchase items that I will need that I don't already have and send them to mom. Stage 3: Fly to Boston. Stage 4: Go to cake supply shop and buy more supplies -- cake boxes, cake circles, dowels, fun and useless tools. Stage 4a: In preparation for Stage 5, find all recipes and make copies so that cookbook does not get in the way. Do math to increase quantites 3x. Stage 5: Go to Costco and buy industrial-sized quantities of everything that I will need, e.g. butter, flour, sugar, eggs, fruit, cream, cream cheese, vanilla. Stage 5a: Buy non-bulk things from another supermarket. Stage 6: Measure cake pans and cut parchment paper. Sleep.
Stages 3 through 6 took two days. Which was a good thing, because when I arrived my mother's kitchen was not quite ready to go. The renovation, which began in March or April, was predictably not complete. The electricity was not on and the appliances were not completely installed. On Tuesday, when I was ready to start baking, the electricians were still underfoot and some painters were running around the kitchen. After making a few adjustments, the electricity was turned on and I was able to get to work, albeit very carefully -- there was sawdust scattered around and everything was stacked on the counter, as the drawers didn't yet have the hardware to make them completely functional.
Stage 7: Bake took one complete day, from morning until about 11 pm. I baked nine cakes, including three 15" diameter cakes. Since mom hadn't yet moved her old refrigerator to the basement, I was able to clean out her freezer and use the whole thing to freeze the cakes, which is essential to easy handling in later stages. I made five flavors of cake: chocolate, lemon, coffee, milk chocolate and coconut.
Stage 8: Make fillings and icings took the entire Wednesday. I made three kinds of curd: lime, passionfruit, and mango, which was truly foul. I made buttercream and flavored some of it with lemon, some of it with coffee, some of it with mango and some of it with chocolate. I made three kinds of mousse, two varieties of icing, and two kinds of ganache. I also candied pistachios and ground them up.
Stage 9: Fill the cake took another day. I cut each cake into four pieces and filled each with its own special combination of cake and fillings. I then did a 'crumb coat' of icing and froze the cakes.
Stage 10: Ice the cake was a half-day process, including making the icing. Cakes were then put back in the freezer.
Stage 11: Day of the wedding - drive supports into the cake. I cut dowel, skewers, and straws and placed them inside the cakes to provide better support for the cake layers. I used skewers to hold layers together, like legos. I used dowels to hold up layers and prevent the cake from squishing. Here's a picture:
Yep. A little dangerous. Spikes and all protruding from the cake.
Here's how much product I used up until this point:
15 lbs butter
15 lbs cream cheese
100 eggs
15 lbs sugar
14 lbs confectioners sugar
10 lbs flour
2 lbs vegetable oil
and a whole bunch of other stuff....
Stage 12: Drive cake to wedding site. This was pretty complicated, as my mother's car is rather small, although it does have four doors. I kept one of the cake layers on my lap as I couldn't fit it on to the back seat or the back floor.
Stage 13: Set up wedding cake at wedding site. There was no going back. The cakes were mostly defrosted and the skewers made it impossible to easily dissemble the cake.
Stage 14: Apply edible flowers to cake. I still have no idea how much these cost, but I'm getting ready for sticker shock. It took me a week of calling to find these things, which were shipped fedex to me at my mom's house.
And voila, cake:
So you can have some idea of size, here's my mom next to the cake:
And here's another view
:
And here's Leti and Mandy, 
cutting into the cake. Note that the cake is now listing. After 7 hours in a warm room, you'd list too...
I guess they liked it.
I had a single objective last week during my long weekend in New York City: buy pastry. Buy lots of pastry. And don't let it melt. It was hot, really hot. High '80s, low '90s and crazy humid. Not an ideal temperature for a pastry binge but since I put off my mad shopping until the last day of my visit, I had no choice. It was do or...don't.
I went to Citysearch and put together a list of the places I wanted to visit: Payard and Crumbs on the Upper East side near the apartment where I was staying; Cupcake Cafe on the edge of Hell's Kitchen; Little Pie Company, Amy's Bread, Fat Witch, Sarabeth's, Billy's Bakery and La Bergamote in Chelsea; Jacques Torres' Chocolate Haven on the outskirts of Soho; and finally Baked in Red Hook, Brooklyn. If I bumped into any other bake/pastry shops, I would go there too.
After a 40 minute detour to Payard (Frenchy, lots of butter and cream) and Crumbs (Americany, way too many cupcakes and hydrogenated vegetable fat) I met up with Liz at Cupcake Cafe. She was photographing her exquisite cappuccino, just about the only thing there that both of us liked. Here's my out-of-focus take on our first indulgence of the day (that's brown sugar on the side):
Liz and I then began our Odyssean trek around the city. We walked, we attempted to hail cabs (impossible, given that the fancy food show was going on down the street), we waited for a bus. At the bus stop, a New Yorker laden with grocery bags asked if we wanted to share a cab -- if she could find one. When a cab finally arrived, she was good to her word, and we drove together to our shared destination at 21st Street and 9th Ave. It was opressively hot and humid, and Liz and I did our best to escape into the air conditioned comfort of the nearest patisserie. Liz bought a sandwich (it was lunchtime) and I bought some water. The pastries weren't interesting enough to purchase. We headed across the street to Billy's, but once again, I didn't see anything eyecatching. You see, the object of my shopping wasn't to, say, compare cupcakes or croissant or muffins, but to find interesting cakes, quick breads, and pasty. Believe it or not, it isn't that easy to find trailblazers in New York City. Sure you can find a good cupcake, but at this point that's not trailblazing (although it was at one point). I was looking for new ideas, home-style aesthetics, and delicious results -- which, admittedly, I cannot actually evaluate these days given the usually high wheat gluten content of these products. And those were hard to come by. Most shops (except doggedly French Payard) seemed to offer the same things: muffins, pound cake in different flavors, a danish or two, brownies, a couple cookies, maybe a cinnamon stick, and a cupcake. Some had Irish Soda bread. None were show stopping.
Liz and I hit pay dirt at Chelsea Market, where it seemed that every other shop either was a bakery or offered baked goods. I loaded up on brownies, a few interesting tarts, and some colorful pound cake. We had some gelato at L'Arte del Gelato (formerly Jimmy's Gelato) that more than made up for the heat. I loved combining peanut butter gelato with chocolate gelato - like Reese's in liquid form, but so much better. Liz ate something equally exciting, but I forgot to pay attention.
We walked to a few more destinations and then tried to catch a bus. We ended up taking a bus two short Greenwich Village blocks, at which point we had to get out and walk to the Soho location of Jacque Torres' chocolate wonderland, Chocolate Haven. I wasn't much in the mood for chocolate, but had to buy some anyway. We picked out something called "Sour Ball" because it was a new flavor and vaguely described, Pineapple, and something else. Neither of us fell in love. The flavor was fine, but we didn't really like it. Here's Liz after showing me how to not use the flash: 
Liz usually doesn't look this cross but they were taking forever to wait on us.
This was our last stop for the day. I did manage to make it to Red Hook's rather chic bakery, "Baked", which is an outpost of Chelsea's Chocolate Bar. I also stopped in for some cream puffs with friends at the place that isn't Beard Papa. My informant told me they were tasty.
Here's an obsessive catalog of some of the products I purchased (I spent around $200, I think):
There's more, but I wouldn't want to bore you.
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