The 13th Annual Chocolate Show

The buzzword at the 13th Annual Chocolate Show seems to be "raw," and I'm not sure how I feel about that - to me, raw chocolates tend to taste rather like paint. (And if I want to eat something healthy, I'll visit a juice bar.) Still, there's a lot to enjoy at this year's somewhat scaled-back show. (Remember when the event was so huge that it took over the adjacent building?)

But first, if you happen to be a fan of the raw chocolate movement, you'll want to visit: Gnosis ("The World's Most Nutritious Chocolate"), which is offering samples of pomegranate-acai and fleur de sel raw, vegan, dairyless chocolate; Nibmor, which serves a maple and palm sugar dairyless cocoa mix in four flavors, the Ecuadorian raw organic 84% chocolate of Antidote, and the fair-trade selection of Divine Organics.

For me, I'll stick to the apricot ganache samples offered by Valrhona, the chocolate-covered peanut butter and jelly macarons ($3) of Francois Payard, three varieties of chocolate fondue at Les Fondues Au Chocolat (they provide complimentary grapes for dipping, whereas Lily O'Brien's pay-per-dip chocolate fountain gives you marshmallows, graham crackers and pretzels but no fruit), and the 80% cacao bonbon samples offered by Jacques Torres.

Those with a salt tooth will want to try Neuchatel's chocolate-covered potato chips, chocolate-covered bacon strips from Co Co. Sala, and chocolate popcorn by 2 Chicks with Chocolate at The Wine Collection. Peanut butter lovers have both the longtime vendor Peanut Butter & Company and Jer's Gourmet Chocolates.

And what's chocolate without its complementary flavor, vanilla? There's a Bourbon Vanilla from Madagascar stand which is selling vanilla beans and powders.

If you need someone to explain all the attributes of single-origin chocolates, it's best to go see author Alexandra Leaf over at Pralus Chocolatier. She will point out the notes of coffee and fudge in a Brazilian sample and you'll taste chocolate in an enlightened new way. Bonnat Chocolatier also features a good selection of South American single-origin bars.

Many of this year's exhibitors are based in France (Comptoir de Cacao has some wonderful praline samples) , but there's a small Italian corner featuring Guido Gobino and T'a Sentimento Cioccolato, which was headed up by a relative of Italy's most famous panettone manufacturer. At Gobino you can sample the giandujotti, which are $28 at Eataly for a lamentably small package.

Kids can get in on the action with Tina Cocolina books and a Kids Zone where they can use stencils to make sweet-tasting drawings,design chef's hats and dip spoons in chocolate. The three most ornate chocolatiers are Tampa-based William Dean, with tropical-colored confections, customizable chocolate decorations from Poesies Chocolatees (check out the snowflakes and Christmas ornaments. and vintage-influenced Rogue, which uses a special heat infusion process to imprint multi-colored designs onto their chocolates.

Cafe Bustelo is serving free cappuccino, espresso and mocha on the south side of the room. No need to pay for your coffee at the cafe on the opposite side - you're already out $28 just for the tickets to the show! Still, it's hard to leave without purchasing something - I left with a jar of chocolate milk jam from Normandy, a tube of creme de noisette from Pralus (it makes Nutella irrelevant), and two saucer-sized macarons from Payard. It was nice to be presented with a free cup of Callebaut's callets upon exiting - they went pretty quickly.

The Chocolate Show: The Metropolitan Pavilion, 125 West 18th St.

The 15th Annual Japanese Food & Restaurant Show

This year's Japanese Food & Restaurant Show was an exciting event, with sake tastings, premium food samplings and people-watching galore (I caught sight of folks from Haru, Morimoto, Sushi Den, Takahachi and Soba Totto). Japanese cookbook celeb Hiroko Shimbo was on hand to sign cookbooks (you can find her recipe for tuna tartare here). I enjoyed tasting many innovations: Yamamoto-yama tea in apple and mint flavors; "Super Frozen Tuna" sashimi, boiled cut wild octopus from Azuma Foods, coffee gyuhi crepes, and white peach Sakura Muromachi dessert sake.

But the highlight of the show for me was the "History Of Sushi" lecture given by Eiji Ichimura, who was introduced as "the sushi chef's sushi chef." He passed out marinated tuna in bamboo leaves and salmon roe as he gave us a crash course in sushi.

We learned that sushi came into being when a mild vinegar, akazu, became popular; people used to eat a dish of fermented fish and rice. In the 1800s, a gentleman named Yohei Hanaya apparently created the nigiri-zushi that is so widely enjoyed today. Sushi used to be consumed in much larger portions (three pieces were enough for a meal!) and the prized toro, or tuna belly, was once routinely thrown away. Speaking of tuna, it was not generally consumed as sushi until the 1940s. Salmon roe and sea urchin are also relatively recent additions to the sushi menu. Old-time sushi lovers commonly ate clams, shrimp, whitefish, and silver-skinned fish such as mackerel.

Are you hungry? Well, so was I! After the show I headed over to my beloved Hasaki, where the special, coincidentally, was an Edo-Mae sushi plate. Mmm.

The 54th Summer Fancy Food Show

This year, I wasn't able to spend a lot of time at the Fancy Food Show; I got to the Javits Center shortly before the end. Fortunately, the vendors became very generous with their samples towards the close of the show - a woman was handing out bags of D.O.P. mozzarella di bufala campana! But I made sure not to load myself down with too many goodies, because there were people strategically placed at the exits to check through everyone's bags. (I did see a woman filling up her pockets with chocolates.)

Here are my highlights and bits of precious information:

• A Poilane representative, who was showcasing some wonderful sourdough with D'Artagnan duck pate, informed me that the famous French bakery has plans to begin distribution through Whole Foods. How great would this be!

• San Diego-based Chewy's, which makes gourmet pastries and cookies, has a really yummy crushed rugelach product. The company is marketing cinnamon-walnut and double-chocolate "Insatiable Crumble" as an ice cream topping or a cheesecake bottom. (More info at 800-241-3456.)


• Creative cheddars were a treat for the tastebuds. Grafton Village Cheese was offering up sage cheddar, garlic cheddar and maple-smoked cheddar. (I have a block of the maple-smoked and I'm not sharing it!) Cabot, also from Vermont, had chili-lime cheddar.
  


• There was a Belgian waffle stand, courtesy of Carbon's Golden Malted Waffles!
  


• There was also a lot of alcohol. In the Peru section, a man from CATB Liquor was handing out grape whiskey sours made with Pisco Queirolo. I also had a lime mojito but can't remember where.

• A man from Naturally Nora handed out three flavors of cupcakes. They were dairy-free, soy-free, kosher, and free of artificial flavors, colors, preservatives and hydrogenated oils! (Truly a cupcake for Bloomberg's trans-fat-free New York!) The confetti icing was naturally colored with ingredients like elderberry.
  


• Fresh mozzarella was everywhere, not just at Fattoria Gaia. Lioni Latticini made an appearance; Antonio Mozzarella Factory handed out plastic cups full of bocconcini with basil; and The Cheese Works Ltd. had a mindblowing array of cheese including generous samples of burrata.
  


• Cypress Grove Chevre served up some wonderful chive goat cheese.

• My last stop was Venchi, the Italian chocolatier I became aware of when I visited Eataly this year. I wish the vendor had been freer with the samples; he gave me just one little triple-layered gianduja praline! Fortunately, many chocolate delights are available via the Website.
  

I'm going to end this post with a question for anyone who might know - at the end of the show, what happens to that whole pig at the Euro-USA stand?

The 53rd Summer Fancy Food Show

It's very difficult not to drown in the sea of cheese, olive oil, packaged pasta and chocolate that is the Fancy Food Show. After a couple of hours of walking around the Javits Center, the products tend to blur together. Nevertheless, I did come away strongly impressed by a few items today:

• La Rustichella Black Truffle Pate was a knockout. The company also makes white truffle pate, Pecorino with ribbons of black truffle, arugula cream with white truffle, truffled olive oil, and even truffle vinegar.


• Black truffles also found their way into Divine Pasta's truffled Pizza Romana. Also of note was Divine's new Cube line of "artisan foods" such as four-cheese macaroni and kabocha soup.


• Chalmers Ganache. This wonderfully versatile, gooey dark chocolate ganache is completely devoid of high fructose corn syrup, and can be used in everything from chocolatinis to cake to fondue. In flavors like luxe dark, ultra mint and "Mucho Mayan."


• Trois Petit Cochons, which bills itself as the first domestic producer of artisanal charcuterie in the U.S., had a great selection of pates, terrines, and sausages.


• Baldor's "Tondo" Balsamic Vinegar, aged for 12 years, is great on strawberries.


• La Paila, from Argentina, makes a to-die-for dulce de leche. At the Fancy Food Show, they were spooning it onto hot waffles. Mmm...


• New York's own Sarabeth Levine, (who baked my wedding cake), is branching out into Parisian-style hot chocolate! Each tin contains 16 oz. of pure Dutch cocoa.


• Cruscana makes great seafood spreads, and Chilean Geomar produces surprisingly tasty tinned sea conch.


• Bel Gioioso, the Wisconsin purveyor of ciliegini and other Italian-style cheeses, now offers wonderfully spreadable stracchino. (I first sampled this rich treat at Quartino and was instantly hooked.)


• I'd never seen these flowery French macarons before: Mag'M bakes them up in lilac, rose, poppy and jasmine flavors!


• Chalet des Fromages, based out of Boulder (303-494-8000), is an importer of fine French cheese. I couldn't get enough of their garlic fondue "Cancoillotte." Also, I loved the Rocamadour... a simply delicious, pungent goat cheese.


• This year, there was an intriguing selection of African products. Home Food Ghana offered grated, fried cassava root, palm oil, and sweet pepper jelly. There were breadfruit chips, and baobab juice from Mon Petit Benin, wild red hibiscus flower juice from Malian Mam's Cocktail Juices, and of course swoon-worthy chocolate from Divine Chocolate, a pioneering fair trade chocolate company owned in part by Ghanaian farmers.


• I washed all of this down with Ito En's latest offering, an extremely refreshing cold mint green tea.

(I guess I won't be eating dinner tonight.)

The 9th Annual Chocolate Show: Insider Tips!

• If you want tons of free truffles, do head to Pierre Gourmet at the very back of the Metropolitan Pavilion. People were coming away with handfuls. (Surprisingly, a few vendors this year offered no free samples at all - maybe someone should speak to John & Kira and Cocoa Locoa!)



• For a free sample of banana dipped in chocolate from a chocolate fountain, go to Chocolat Weiss in the Altman building. Divalicious, in the Metropolitan Pavilion Building, will charge you at least $3 for your sample, and the melted chocolate isn't as warm.



• However, if you want to sip free hot chocolate instead of paying $1 at Chocolat Weiss, go to Schokinag, which is serving up samples of hot chocolate in all kinds of flavors: Triple Chocolate, Dulce De Leche, and Chocolate Mint!

You can also taste a raw cocoa bean from the Ivory Coast, be spritzed with chocolate cologne, buy a prescription bottle of cocoa nibs from Michel Cluizel, and taste an award-winning chocolate-chip cookie by Baking By Design. And on Saturday, don't miss the demonstrations of Alex Urena's chocolate foie gras terrine and Gina DePalma's chocolate polenta crostata!

The 9th Annual Chocolate Show: This Weekend

This weekend, while some people restrict their calories or pretend to eat at virtual restaurants, I'll be happily indulging at the 9th Annual Chocolate Show. You should too!

The 10-Minute Tofu Maker

Have you been hopelessly spoiled by the fresh tofu at En Japanese Brasserie? If so, you may want to invest in the Banrai Nabe, an amazing gadget that produces tofu in a record-breaking 10 minutes. (Supposedly, it also makes amazing chocolate fondue.) This was just one of many exciting exhibits at today's 13th Annual Japanese Food & Restaurant Show.

While happily munching on tuna sashimi dipped in year-aged Yamasa soy sauce and a shiso-plum paste hand roll, I noticed an interesting new trend: the tendency to treat sake like wine, pairing it with certain foods. At the "sake & food matching table," an aromatic Honjozu went with the black miso-braised pork, a rich Junmai sake accompanied grilled chicken, and a light Ginjo was recommended for delicate sesame tofu.

Another popular exhibit was artisanal food corner. Premium Wagyu beef, sweet potato vinegar, smoked sea salt and a deliciously mellow barley miso were on display. Maruyama Nori Ten Company blended traditional Japanese teas with herbs, coming up with combinations like jasmine genmaicha. Maruyama also offered special, non-clumping green tea powder, which can be used in baked goods. (If you'd like the green-tea scone recipe, just E-mail me.)

The 52nd Summer Fancy Food Show, New York

Where can you walk into a room filled with gourmet foods from all corners of the earth, and enjoy the attention of vendors who entreat you to try whatever you want? Why, the annual Fancy Food Show. If this event is at all indicative of the life of a food buyer, that life is an enviable one indeed.

I walked into the Javits Center with a food industry friend, and we were immediately plied with grilled Christis halloumi cheese from Cyprus. As we walked around, we saw that there was a preponderance of cheese, olives and chocolate. In the cheese category, we greatly enjoyed the luscious ValleBianca mozzarella di bufala and spicy Gorgonzola. Some other finds were the Cuevas marrons glaces from Spain, artisanal garlic pesto gorgonzola wood-fired pizzas from Pizza Roma, Dufflet maple-walnut cookies, fresh spinach-ricotta ravioli from Lazzaroni and Dolcetto tiramisu piroulines.

To quench our thirst, there was Metromint peppermint water and the delightful new fruit juices from Honest Tea. The limeade was amazing, with just a hint of sugar. (We weren't quite as fond of the Ginger Soother - it needed more zip.)

In the midst of all this, there was a woman passing out flyers advertising "Lose Weight In A Week!" How did she get in there?!?

The Chocolate Show 2005

New Yorkers' passion for chocolate has apparently grown to such an extent that it can no longer be contained by just one building. The Chocolate Show 2005, traditionally held on the first floor of the Metropolitan Pavilion, has now swallowed up the adjacent Altman Building. So there's even more chocolate to explore!

Upon entering the show today, I was greeted by the Schokinag truck. Smiling women were serving both triple chocolate and mint cocoa. (Schokinag's Website is "drinkyourchocolate.com". Somehow I doubt that any parents have to admonish their children to do this.)

I'm always totally overwhelmed by the sheer expanse of chocolate in the large Metropolitan Pavilion, so I began my journey in the Altman Building. (I was still totally overwhelmed.) I admired the chocolate rendition of the Mona Lisa. Payard and J. Emanuel provided truffle samples nearby. The latter exhibitor, which featured Shiraz and Zinfandel truffles, was strategically placed next to the 21-and-over Chocolate Lounge. I walked over to one of my favorite chocolatiers, Michel Cluizel, and was delighted to learn that they're opening a new chocolate boutique today at ABC Carpet & Home! (Once I recover from this intense chocolate high, I will have to run over there.) I came away with a bag of 65% cacao Mangaro Noir and 50% Mangaro Lait squares.

Past the chocolate streetlight and "Broadway" sign was the Chocolat Weiss stand. Chocolat Weiss has existed since the early 1880s, but has developed an American presence in the last 4 years. They pride themselves on being the "authentic chocolate-maker of French gastronomy." (This sounded good to me, so I purchased a bag of their 85% cacao squares.) Then it was time for fudge brownie samples at San Francisco's Recchiuti.

Although the Altman basement was billed as housing a "chocolate spa," the spa was really just an aggregation of those ubiquitous $5 masseurs, albeit with the addition of an airborne chocolate aroma. I resolved to conquer the immense Metropolitan Building.

At the entrance were Gustaux from France and Belgian Belcolade, as well as another Schokinag location. I was immediately drawn to the Divalicious chocolate fountain, where I happily enjoyed milk-chocolate-dipped bananas. Divalicious will be opening a cafe in Nolita at the end of the month.

Moving along, I sampled the award-winning Maracaibo of Felchlin, the miraculous little chocolate-coated walnut brownies of Vere, and some Java milk from Chocolove (rather too sweet, I thought). I experienced chocolate in its deepest, richest form at the exhibit of Sweet Riot, a 6-week-old Chelsea store. (Sweet Riot offers pure cocoa nibs in different strengths. Whoa!)

I noticed two trends in chocolate this year: the altruistic and the crunchy. In the first category were New Tree, which sold "FORGIVENESS" bars (which is what I will later have to ask of my stomach), and the Chocolate Bar, which was attempting to save CBGB's.

Crunch seemed to be a factor in several chocolate items, from the chocolate-covered cornflakes at Knipschildt and Jacques Torres to the exquisite chocolate-coated feuilletine of Love In Disguise.

After snagging a Fairytale Brownie, a coupon from Peanut Butter & Co. and a green-tea truffle from Tokyo-based Mary's Chocolatier, I knew I had to stagger home. But on my way out, I couldn't resist passing by the hot cocoa stand again. A woman was asking what kind of cocoa was being served. Upon hearing that it was triple chocolate, she said, "Well, we have to get in as many antioxidants as we can." A worthy goal, I'm sure.

The Chocolate Show 2005: 125 West 18th St. Open through Sunday.

30,000 Square Feet Of Chocolate

Is this a dream? No, it's sweet reality... today through Sunday, the NYC Chocolate Show will take place at the Metropolitan Pavilion (125 W. 18th Street at 6th Ave.). See you there!

The Chocolate Show

As you approach West 18th St., you may notice the change in demeanor of those around you. Gone are the agitated expressions typical of New Yorkers; instead, you will see the blissed-out grins of chocolate lovers as they dreamily reach into paper bags full of truffles. The euphoria will reach a critical mass as you step onto the red carpet outside the Metropolitan Pavilion, home of the 5th Annual Chocolate Show, New York 2002.

I can barely begin to describe the plethora of delights that await you. There is chocolate to drink (MarieBelle Aztec Hot Chocolate with cinnamon, ancho chile, nutmeg and chipotle), Vermeer Dutch Chocolate Cream Liqueur made with vodka, cream and Dutch chocolate, Cocio chocolate milk from Denmark, and Valrhona hot chocolate. There is chocolate to wear, to admire as fine art, and to bathe in. There are even cocoa butter massages and chocolate psychic readings by Magda the Parisian Psychic. But most importantly, there is chocolate to eat.

I arrived in fine spirits, having just visited Ceci-Cela Pâtisserie (55 Spring St., 212-274-9179). After admiring the sculptures of the Côte d'Ivoire (the world's largest supplier of cocoa beans), I sampled the Caoba (41%) milk chocolate of Chocolates El Rey.

I then admired the cinnamon ginger and almond praline chocolate bars at Bouvier Chocolatier. Philippe Bouvier patiently explained his technique for making ganache as I made my selection. Next, the multi-colored pastel marshmallows of Chez Boissier caught my eye. These handmade marshmallows are almost too beautiful to eat (but I think I'll find a way).

Four years ago, Fritz Knipschildt founded the innovative Knipschildt Chocolatier. Fritz began making chocolates at the age of twelve, trained at a Danish culinary academy for several years, and now concocts such truffles as tangerine red chili (I bought three), lavender caramel, and apple rosemary. I could not leave without a box of fifteen truffles. His exhibit is highly recommended!

At the Institute of Culinary Education, I sampled the buttery "Supernatural Brownies" and made sure to get a copy of the recipe. And my favorite chocolatier, Michel Cluizel, offered samples of three new chocolates that will soon be available, each of them more delicious than the last.

There are many more highlights at this wonderful event; discover your own on Saturday and Sunday!

The Chocolate Show: 125 West 18th St. Saturday 10-8, Sunday 10-6. $15.