Favorite Things: more chocolate

I was curious to learn more about chocolate and Google led me to some articles by Melissa Clark in The New York Times that must have been part of series: "How to Taste Chocolate," "Everything You Don't Know about Chocolate," "Melissa Clark's Favorite Bean to Bar Chocolates." From Barometer Chocolate, I had already tried a Chapon sampler (not included in Ms. Clark's mostly USA list) so I am looking forward to trying 9 new chocolates of the 13 recommended (I've already tried Fruition, Guittard, Letterpress and Vahlrona.)

Favorite Things: Barometer Chocolate

I first learned about Barometer Chocolate through an email from United Way of Northern NJ because they were hosting a virtual chocolate tasting fundraiser. At first, I was a little disappointed by the small quantity of chocolate and I had to remind myself this was for a fundraiser. By the end of the evening, I was so glad I signed up for this tasting experience because Nadine Kerstan, Barometer's founder and a chocolate sommelier, shared so much about chocolate that I never knew before, such as the difference between fine flavor vs. commodity cacao beans, and then I learned how to fully appreciate the chocolate - "snap" the chocolate in half and listen to the sound, smell the chocolate, taste the chocolate and look for "notes" like fruit and nuts. This chocolate is not like grocery store chocolate, and it only has two or three ingredients, i.e. Fruition 77% Dominican Los Bejucos - cocoa beans and cane sugar, and Letterpress Tranquilidad 70% - cacao beans, unrefined cane sugar and cocoa butter. Delicious and highly recommended.

Favorite Things: Patricia and Paul

I discovered Patricia and Paul: Artisans of Fine Oils and Balsamics last year (a few weeks before the pandemic shut down the world) while I was passing the time in downtown Westfield. I probably passed by the store three times before I actually got up the nerve to walk in. What exactly are fine oils and balsamics and why were there steel jugs lining the store walls? Luckily, there were several people already browsing in the store (less attention to me), so I decided to step inside. In retrospect, I need not have felt nervous as Erin, the salesperson and owners' daughter, was so welcoming and friendly. She explained that I should use the small cups to sample any olive oil I wanted. What? You drink olive oil? Now I was curious. So I walked around the store, and Erin again encouraged me to try a sample. I tried several olive oils, and settled upon the garlic and tuscan herb infused olive oils to purchase. I also tried several balsamic vinegars, settling on traditional balsamic and a peach flavored white balsamic vinegar. Since then, I've bought the garlic and tuscan herb olive oils many times over, however, we are still working on the original large bottles of vinegar! 

The olive oils at Patricia and Paul are truly delicious, and I learned a ton from Erin. Previously, we purchased the 2-pack of olive oil at Costco, thinking we were doing something good for our health. Did you know it is only 15% virgin olive oil? So that is why there is such a price difference among olive oils!

Favorite Things: Paper Mate InkJoy Ballpoint Pen

Following up on last week's favorite things post, my favorite inexpensive pen is the Paper Mate InkJoy ballpoint pen. It writes incredibly smoothly and costs less than 50 cents a pen, which makes it easy to be generous about letting people walk away with them (which they will because the pen writes great!) There is also a retractable version as well as lots of ink colors too. And good luck, bad luck, in searching for these links, I see there is a GEL version that I may need to investigate!

Quotable Quotes: Cinderella (2015)

"Have Courage and Be Kind," Ella's dying mother to Ella in Disney's live action Cinderella (2015). A beautiful and sad scene, and one of my favorite quotes.