Before I forget to tell you about my chocolate experience another year will pass and I will be on my way back to Monterey Bay Aquarium for the annual Sustainable Foods Institute/Cooking for Solutions event.

I wish you were there with me this past May. Not only were the ocean/seafood conservation panel discussions stimulating, (in the sense that ocean conservation is not just interesting to advocates, geeks and scientists-fodder for another post), and the food and wine over the top, but SFI/CFS offered salons, too.

What is a salon? Think of a salon as a sidebar in a story.

Salon sessions started the day after the conference ended. I missed out on the whole Salon Series package which included beer pairing, ice cream making and more. Each salon was an hour or so. Some were interactive, others were watch, listen and eat. Either way a win-win.

I attended three salons: chocolate, seafood and biscuit-making.

I know if you were there with me you would have gone to the same. Of course there was a bacon salon and I was tempted, but after listening to the scientists tell how we need to eat 25 percent less meat, I opted out. Plus you weren’t there to sway me. Because we all know that bacon makes everything taste better.

TCHO chocolate Chef Alise

Chef Alise Inzerillo at the 2014 Monterey Bay Aquarium Cooking for Solutions Salon Series. (iPhone snapshot Maureen C. Berry)

At 11:50 a.m. I took my place in line. At noon, the doors opened and the distinctively rich scent of dark chocolate hung in the air. My nose lead me into the large banquet room. Chef Alise Inzerillo, a cute, spunky twenty-something hosted the TCHO (pronounced choh, silent t, long o) chocolate salon. A Monterey Bay Aquarium host handed me a recipe sheet and I took a seat three rows back. Within minutes there wasn’t an empty seat. Imagine that! On the menu for this watch-and-eat event: TCHO chocolate button cookies, Chocolate Sauce and Truffles. Um, hello.

While we watched Chef Alise whip up her TCHO confections, hosts passed a card describing the TCHO flavor wheel and chocolate samples labeled fruity, nutty, floral and bright. TCHO chocolates are created with the same principles as wine or oysters-combining genetics and terroir.

As much as you love chocolate and desserts, I know you would have enjoyed learning new techniques and terms, like “whip to a ribbon” that state when something (eggs and sugar in this case) naturally create a ribbon-like quality. Or “tempered” which I understood to be when you add chocolate shavings to melted chocolate. Swoon. Although you probably know those terms, but I was hungry to learn.

I thought to ask if I should use a candy thermometer when making chocolate at home. I heard groans, as in “amateur.” I know you would have had my back if you were there. You know my thing is seafood, not chocolate-making. Of course, Chef said “yes.” Whatever. We all start somewhere, right?

What I missed without you there, I gained in appreciation for chocolate, pastry chefs and pounds.

 

Next week I’ll fill you in on the seafood salon with Chefs Jeff Rogers and Sean Knight (from the kitchen of Cindy Pawlcyn). You’re really gonna love that one. The following week I’ll dish the biscuit-making salon with Chef Virginia Willis.

Hey, have you signed up for my weekly posts to be delivered to your inbox? I’ll never spam you, and I sure as heck won’t sell your email address. If you don’t want to take that baby step (even though I know you love me), check back often for more snippets about the 2014 Monterey Bay Aquarium Cooking for Solutions event, its salon series and my easy-to-prepare sustainable seafood recipes.

TCHO ̶ New American Chocolate is a California-based chocolate company with a focus on innovation, flavor and quality. (This was not a sponsored or promotional post. I was not paid with money or chocolate by either MBA or TCHO to write about this experience.)

Until then,
M