Unlikely Words » chocolate

Taza Chocolate – Union Square, Somerville

aaron cohen — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 19:29:42 +0000

Taza Chocolate is having an Open House & Factory Tour this Saturday, May 2nd at their factory in Union Square, Somerville. If you don't know about Taza, how the chocolate tastes (delicious), or how they operate (excellent corporate citizens), the open house is a perfect opportunity to find out. You'll see their factory, tucked into an industrial building, sample chocolate, meet the makers, and see where the beans are roasted and winnowed.

There are many details that set Taza apart from almost all other chocolate makers in the US, and I'd try to explain them, but they'd just get jumbled up. Youll be much better served by reading this excellent Cake and Commerce post. If you're too excited to read, watch Sooz's videos on How The Roaster Works, How The Cocoa Winnowing Machine Works, and Grinding the Cocoa Nibs.

Last week, I had the opportunity to go through the factory tour with the special bonus of seeing the beans ground into chocolate and watching some bars get molded out of the tempering machine. I refuse to cook with a thermometer, tempering is something I always hope happens to the shell of my truffles by accident (it never does). Because of this, I got more excited to see the tempering machine than I was expecting. Like before with the post from Cake and Commerce, I'm going to shirk off the responsibility of writing up the visit, but lucky for you, Bostonist has covered it perfectly. Also, peep this wonderful picture of some of Boston's best food bloggers (I know, you're wondering what I was doing there, me too) in hair nets.

Taza's 'bean to bar' process for making chocolate makes a bar that's about as far away from a Hershey Kiss as you can get. The texture of the chocolate is pleasantly grainy and the flavor is almost fruity. I like how they direct trade with (and actually overpay) bean co-ops to get the best of the best cocoa beans, and I like how the chocolate is delivered locally by Metro Pedal Power. I'm in the bag for them and you should check out their Open House. Also, if you see Alex (at left), be sure to ask him if he'd prefer to be known as a chocolatier or chocolate maker.

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Free Barcelona, Spain Travel Guide

aaron cohen — Sat, 07 Feb 2009 20:51:24 +0000

It took seven and a half months, but I've finally finished the review of our trip to Barcelona and Sitges, Spain in June, 2008. I started it as a review to make remembering our trip easier. As I was writing it up, I decided to make it more of a travel guide to hopefully convince you to go to Barcelona. It was an amazing trip.

There's a lot of information in here. The guide is broken up into 10 chapters linked below with the highlights of the day for easy reference:
Day 1: Boston to Barcelona: Plaça de Catalunya
Day 2: More Walking: Santa Maria del Mar, Picasso Museum, Ciutadella, Euskal Etxea
Day 3: Gaudi and Eating: Casa Milà
Day 4: More Gaudi: Parc Guell, Sagrada Família
Day 5: Sitges and Birthdays: Barcelona Cathedral, Parrots Hotel, The Beach House
Day 6: Sitges and Beach
Day 7: Sitges and Montserrat: Montserrat
Day 8: Sitges
Day 9: Too Hot to Shop: Aparthotel Calabria, La Boqueria, Tapaç 24
Day 10: Montjuic: Montjuic

Barcelona is very beautiful. Parts are dirty and smelly, but those parts are serviced 24/7 by sanitation workers. I was struck by how most of the buildings look like they were from the 50s or 60s and wondered what makes the replacement cycle so much faster in cities like Boston. The city is eminently walkable, and the transportation system adds to the ease in getting around. If you like looking out over cities from heights, you're in luck. There are at least 6 different tourist destinations that offer great views of the city.

Bottom line?
Where to stay: Hotel Regencia Colon - Perfectly situated and affordably priced.
Must visit landmaks: Santa Maria del Mar, La Boqueria, Sagrada Familia, Casa Milà, Montserrat, Sitges
Must eat: Tapaç 24, Euskal Etxea, Chocolateria Valor
Must shop: Kukuxumusu, Xocoa

For my mom, here's a slideshow of our trip and a collection of videos from different points.

Also, please play around with this map I made of all the places we went to or should have gone to. I spent days before we went researching restaurants, hotels, landmarks and popping them onto this map to make it easy to figure out what to do in each neighborhood once we got there. The price of this travel guide is worth it just for this free map.

Click here to blow out the map and get the full effect

In closing, I hope you'll go Barcelona because it's awesome and you going will validate our decision to go. If you do go, I hope you find this Travel Guide helpful because would validate the time I put into it. Because after all, what's a blog based Travel Guide if not an adventure in navel gazing?

(Thanks for visiting Unlikely Words. If you liked what you read Subscribe to RSS, check out our About Page, read some of our favorite posts or Follow us on Twitter)

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Chocolate Stout Bacon Cake

aaron cohen — Sun, 01 Feb 2009 16:28:28 +0000

Not only does this cake have chocolate and bacon, but it has beer and, well, cake. (Thanks, Jonathan!) ###Possibly related posts:Chocolate Covered Bacon: Bacolate Forever! One Step Closer to Chocolate Covered Bacon Perfection: Bacolate Truffles Bacon Cheeseburger With Grilled Cheese and Bacon Sandwiches as Buns ### Possibly related posts:

Salt and Chocolate and Caramel

aaron cohen — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 20:37:02 +0000

This NY Times article about salt and caramel made me hungry. But I wanted them to go further because salty chocolate is really where it's at, and not not just bacolate, or bacon chocolate, (which we've talked about here, here, here, and here), either.

When we were in Barcelona (review to come, I SWEAR), we were served a dessert of 4 scoops of chocolate ganache drizzled with olive oil and topped with a pinch of sea salt. If I do nothing in the next 50 years, I will be a success if I can get this dish in front of the American diner. Anyone know anywhere here that serves this?

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Do You Know Where Your Turkey Comes From? – The Food Link Round Up

aaron cohen — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 14:57:18 +0000

Sarah Palin caused an uproar a couple days ago by conducting an interview in front of a farmer slaughtering turkeys. I didn't follow much of it, but my main reaction to it was more on the side of "Really? That was the best place for an interview" aas opposed to "those poor turkeys". Though it lead me to this article by Patrick Martins, director of Slow Food USA. (Speaking of Slow Food...)

When you sit down to your Thanksgiving meal on Thursday, waiting for the main attraction to be brought in on a platter, take a moment to think about where it came from and how it found its way to your table.

So where's my turkey coming from? I wasn't sure my mom would know, but she did. Plainville Farms. I looked through the website and didn't find much of anything except they have a ton of USDA labels about how they treat their animals. So I feel a little better that at least I know. So where's your turkey from?

I had meant to post Michael Pollan's latest (now 5 weeks old) NY Times effort -
An Open Letter to the Next Farmer in Chief - and this is as good a post to do it in. We're in full food round up mode now, folks. It was neat how Pollan responded to readers' comments in a different section, that's a good move on the NY Times' part.

And here's an interview with Pollan from The American Conservative where he talks about the idea of food security being something the Right and the Left can work together on. Interesting parts:

You see it in other traditions, too: the Mayans also had grain reserves. Now the amount of grain we have worldwide is a six- or eight-day supply. If there were a major shock to the system, people would go hungry quickly. It was one of the reforms of the Nixon administration to get rid of the grain reserve under enormous pressure from agribusiness and big grain traders who wanted more control over the market and wanted to be able to speculate on grain prices.

and

“Arugula,” we should remember, is a marketing term invented by somebody who thought that this very common green, known by farmers all over the Midwest for many years as “rocket,” needed to be tuned up and given new appeal. It’s a complete marketing creation, and it’s completely ruined a very healthy green—at least from a political point of view.

Here's the NY Times late to the chocolate covered bacon (bacolate) party we covered last year here and here.

Shopsin's from April 2002:

What does happen occasionally is that Kenny gets an idea for a dish and writes on the specials board— yes, there is a specials board—something like Indomalekian Sunrise Stew. (Kenny and his oldest son, Charlie, invented the country of Indomalekia along with its culinary traditions.) A couple of weeks later, someone finally orders Indomalekian Sunrise Stew and Kenny can’t remember what he had in mind when he thought it up. Fortunately, the customer doesn’t know, either, so Kenny just invents it again on the spot.

Here's a 2004 article from Eric Schlosser, author of Fast Food Nation, on Bush's USDA. There's too much in here to quote, so just read the whole thing.

And of course I would be remiss for not posting the interview that started the post off. An, no, THE epic definition of political blindness, unless of course the GOP base rallies around stuff like this.

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Homemade Ben & Jerry’s Phish Food Ice Cream Recipe

aaron cohen — Sun, 03 Aug 2008 03:15:20 +0000

I've been making ice cream the last couple weeks trying out different flavors. I made Blueberry Chocolate Chip (Total Failure), Cayenne Cinnamon Chocolate Chocolate Chip (kinda success), Raspberry Chocolate Chip (kinda success), and Mint Chocolate Chip (success). Today I tried Ben & Jerry's Phish Food and it's great. If you like lots of junk in your ice cream (leading to more junk in your trunk), give it a shot.

I didn't use a recipe, but I'll try to recreate below what I did:
Start by putting 2 cups of cream and 1 cup of whole milk in a saucepan on low. Stir regularly to heat evenly without growing a skin on the cream and to avoid that heated milk taste. At the same time, whisk 2 eggs and 2/3 cups sugar for a while. Then do it for a couple minutes longer.
When the cream/milk is hot enough (you'll know) pour it on, eh, let's say 6 ounces of semi-sweet dark chocolate. If you want to make a different kind of chocolate ice cream, use different types of chips. Mix the cream/milk with the chocolate and stir it well so all the chocolate is melted and folded in. Pour chocolate mix into egg and sugar mix and stir well. Chill this mixture in the fridge for about 25-30 minutes, or until cool. I run the ice cream maker in the fridge to keep it extra cool, if you live in Alaska, you might consider running it outside. Put the mixture in the ice cream maker and turn it on for about 25 minutes or so. When there's about 3 to 5 minutes left throw in chocolate chips to taste. You might want to use chopped up chocolate chunks instead. Prepare caramel and marshmallow sauce. (I used Fluff this time, and it's great, but it gets hard in the freezer, so I'm going to check out marshmallow sauce the next time.) I folded this into the ice cream as I put it into the Tupperware, basically 2 big scoops of ice cream, one small scoop marshmallow, one drizzle caramel. Repeat until out of ice cream. Put some wax paper on top of the ice cream and sit on your hands for 2-3 hours after putting it in the freezer.
Eat a lot.

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Free Barcelona Travel Guide – Day 8: Sitges

aaron cohen — Sat, 21 Jun 2008 04:16:36 +0000

Thanks for clicking on the Free Barcelona Travel Guide. There are 10 chapters total, listed at the end of this post. Check out the introduction for more information.

It was on this day that the realities of staying at a gay hotel began to set in, but only in that the realities of staying at a gay hotel are that there aren't any women down at breakfast besides J. Earlier in the week, it was impossible to notice because we were the only ones at breakfast. Today was very hot, so why not spend the morning lounging on the beach reading trashy novels? In any case, that's what we did until lunch. We had a smoothie at Parrots Terrace and then light sandwiches at Mostaza right next door before, uh, going back to the beach to read trashy novels for the afternoon.

Douglas at Parrots who had steered us so rightly to The Beach House on our first night in Sitges suggested Mezzanine. We weren't AS thrilled with Mezzanine, but only because of the incredibly high bar set by The Beach House. The atmosphere was lovely, the service charming, and the tempura de gambas had eyes. The food was presented amazingly, but unfortunately, there was something missing from the taste. The chocolate cake for dessert, however, was out of this world.

There are 10 chapters in the Free Barcelona Travel Guide. I hope you find them useful.
Introduction
Day 1: Barcelona to Boston: Plaça de Catalunya
Day 2: More Walking: Santa Maria del Mar, Picasso Museum, Ciutadella, Euskal Etxea
Day 3: Gaudi and Eating: Casa Milà
Day 4: More Gaudi: Parc Guell, Sagrada Família
Day 5: Sitges and Birthdays: Barcelona Cathedral, Parrots Hotel, The Beach House
Day 6: Sitges and Beach
Day 7: Sitges and Montserrat: Montserrat
Day 8: Sitges
Day 9: Too Hot to Shop: Aparthotel Calabria, La Boqueria, Tapaç 24
Day 10: Montjuic: Montjuic

Map of where we went or wished we had.

Click here to blow out the map and get the full effect

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Free Barcelona Travel Guide – Day 9: Too Hot to Shop

aaron cohen — Sat, 21 Jun 2008 03:41:41 +0000

Thanks for clicking on the Free Barcelona Travel Guide. There are 10 chapters total, listed at the end of this post. Check out the introduction for more information.

We had caught a headline saying something like "African Heat Headed to Spain", earlier in the week, and if it hadn't arrived by yesterday, it was certainly here today. After breakfast, we decided to take one more trip around town and down by the beach. On the boardwalk, we were surprised to find techno music playing and a set up for a spin class. Only in Sitges.

We caught our train back to Barcelona after sadly bidding Sitges adieu. Our hotel, Aparthotel Calabria, was in a different area of Barcelona than we had stayed earlier in the week. While it was fine, I'd suggest staying closer in to the Barri Gothic. This hotel is next door to two grocery stores, incidentally, and features giant rooms with kitchens. The room would definitely be great for a family, especially one that wanted to cook a few meals in. Our hotel looked out onto a courtyard of old buildings that had a very Eastern European feel. We dropped our bags off, cooled down for a bit, and headed out for some more walking around.

Needing lunch, we decided it was a good time to finally go to La Boqueria. La Boqueria, one of the must see attractions in Barcelona, is a large covered market with about 125 different food stands. Fish of all kinds, meats of all kinds, produce of all kinds, snacks, candies, herbs, spices, etc, etc, etc. Really a sight to see. We wanted to try either Pinotxo or El Quim but couldn't get a seat, let alone a menu at either place and didn't feel like dealing. J got a plate of different vegetarian foods at a health stand along the back wall. I had been hoping against hope to find the food I had enjoyed so much in Berlin, the Döner kebab, and I had heard rumors that Barcelona had them, too. Well, I found one, and it wasn't any good. I guess we'll have to go back to Berlin sometime to get them.

It was too hot to do anything. We had hoped to do some shopping, but couldn't get it going. We had checked out the Chocolate Museum earlier in the week but hadn't gone in, deciding to save it for today. It wasn't too expensive, but it was geared exclusively to children and we should have skipped it. There were some cool chocolate sculptures, but nothing mind altering. Depressed and now needing a chocolate fix, we had to go over to Valor for some more cold chocolate drinks, which were delicious, again.

Unable to do anything else because of the heat, we kind of collapsed in the shade on the stairs of a museum in a forgotten plaza and listened to a woman play Flamenco guitar while we zoned out. Soon, we moved our siesta into the courtyard of the Ministry of Culture. There was fountain there in which we watched a woman put her feet. I don't know what the fountain was for, but I'm certain it's not for touristic feet dipping.

We had wanted to check out Comerç 24 but couldn't get a reservation later than 1:15 in the afternoon so we decided to check out Tapaç 24, the no-reservation, Tapas joint by the same chef, Carlos Abellán. If you had only one day in Barcelona, I'd suggest coming here for lunch and dinner, it was that good. We ate a menu of tapas suggested by the waiter, I'm not sure we would have ordered differently. We ate foie burgers (a specialty), grilled cheese with truffle oil, pan y tomate, patatas bravas, and probably a few other dishes that I'm forgetting in all their glory. Best of all was dessert, something I'm going to bring to America if I have to open a restaurant myself. 4 scoops of chocolate ganache drizzled in olive oil and flavored with a generous portion of sea salt. It doesn't make sense until you try it, trust me. Go here often in Barcelona.

There are 10 chapters in the Free Barcelona Travel Guide. I hope you find them useful.
Introduction
Day 1: Barcelona to Boston: Plaça de Catalunya
Day 2: More Walking: Santa Maria del Mar, Picasso Museum, Ciutadella, Euskal Etxea
Day 3: Gaudi and Eating: Casa Milà
Day 4: More Gaudi: Parc Guell, Sagrada Família
Day 5: Sitges and Birthdays: Barcelona Cathedral, Parrots Hotel, The Beach House
Day 6: Sitges and Beach
Day 7: Sitges and Montserrat: Montserrat
Day 8: Sitges
Day 9: Too Hot to Shop: Aparthotel Calabria, La Boqueria, Tapaç 24
Day 10: Montjuic: Montjuic

Map of where we went or wished we had.

Click here to blow out the map and get the full effect

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Free Barcelona Travel Guide – Day 5: Sitges and Birthdays

aaron cohen — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 02:51:20 +0000

Thanks for clicking on the Free Barcelona Travel Guide. There are 10 chapters total, listed at the end of this post. Check out the introduction for more information.

It was J's birthday today, which I clearly forgot until the middle of the morning. All week, I had been trying to think of a way to celebrate a birthday while on vacation and then I just forgot. Then again, we're on vacation, the whole time is a celebration!

We thought we'd do a little shopping in the morning before catching a commuter rail-like train to Sitges. Taking advantage of our close proximity to Barcelona Cathedral, we popped in quickly in the morning and confirmed that it's not nearly as cool as Santa Maria del Mar. There is this crazy garden in the back of the Cathedral, though, with palm trees and geese. We then headed over to Calle Petritxol to check out Xocoa. On our way, we heard a giant commotion roiling though the alleys. We got to the mouth of Plaça de Sant Jaume, only to be blocked by a giant garbage truck trying to get by 2 riot police vans. (Almost no one drives in the close alleys of The Born and Barri Gothic except for the street sweepers and garbage men and women, who seem to be cleaning nonstop). It took the garbage truck about 5 minutes to get by, which seemed like forever because I REALLY wanted to see what was going on in the square. It was impossible to tell what the people were protesting, but eventually, a group of men were let into the building and everyone cheered.

Xocoa is a chocolate boutique that sells lots of great snacks and gifts and snacks to gift. We picked up a chili chocolate bar and a few truffles that were yummy. There are a few other chocolate stores on this street, making it worth a visit.

We checked out a few more stores and then mistakenly went to 4Gats. I say mistakenly because I had talked about this as a restaurant to avoid and J had only heard me talking about it, not what I said. She thought I wanted to go there and I thought she wanted to go there. There's a reason people need to communicate and that reason is to avoid restaurants like 4Gats. The restaurant is historic and the building interesting, but if you're going to go, I've heard the coffee and dessert route is the way to go. We got the fixed price lunch menu and a chance to sit up on the balcony looking down on the main dining room. The service was friendly, but the food was awful. I got a creamy pasta starter that was the best of everything we got. J's fish came with veggies that looked and tasted like they had been boiled for 2 days. We felt snookered, afterward, to realize that the desserts we had ordered were not part of the fixed menu as we had believed. Go here, take a picture, and then go someplace else for lunch.

We went back to our hotel and picked up our bags to go to Sitges. The train ride was about 35 minutes, and while it had been drizzly and cloudy in Barcelona, it was sunny in Sitges. We got off the train not knowing how to get to our hotel. Finding the information booth closed, we walked around Sitges, stumbled upon the Mediterranean Sea, and then lucked into finding our hotel, Parrots. After booking the hotel, I read up on Sitges and found it described as, "The internationally renowned sun-drenched gay mecca of Europe" and, "Gayer than the capital of Gayland". I saw "Is Sitges too gay?" and, "Too gay for families?" on a couple of message boards, and whatever that means, the answer is no. Yes, there are a plethora of gay men in Sitges. Unless you're a secretly gay Republican that pretends not to be gay by being virulently homophobic, you will have a lovely time in Sitges. That said, Parrots is a gay hotel with a sauna that just opened and J was the only woman down at breakfast, garnering a few inquisitive, but friendly looks.

We asked Douglas at the front desk where to go for dinner, and he sent us to, what he called, "The third best restaurant in Sitges", The Beach House. It was amazing and the portions were very generous. J got the watermelon salad and baked tortelini and I got the Cesar and Tuscan chicken. Everything was fabulous and, well, fabulous.

There are 10 chapters in the Free Barcelona Travel Guide. I hope you find them useful.
Introduction
Day 1: Barcelona to Boston: Plaça de Catalunya
Day 2: More Walking: Santa Maria del Mar, Picasso Museum, Ciutadella, Euskal Etxea
Day 3: Gaudi and Eating: Casa Milà
Day 4: More Gaudi: Parc Guell, Sagrada Família
Day 5: Sitges and Birthdays: Barcelona Cathedral, Parrots Hotel, The Beach House
Day 6: Sitges and Beach
Day 7: Sitges and Montserrat: Montserrat
Day 8: Sitges
Day 9: Too Hot to Shop: Aparthotel Calabria, La Boqueria, Tapaç 24
Day 10: Montjuic: Montjuic

Map of where we went or wished we had.

Click here to blow out the map and get the full effect

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Free Barcelona Travel Guide – Day 3: Gaudi and Eating

aaron cohen — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 02:13:35 +0000

Thanks for clicking on the Free Barcelona Travel Guide. There are 10 chapters total, listed at the end of this post. Check out the introduction for more information.

Barcelona is filthy with interesting architecture. Random apartment buildings are decked out with flamboyant patterns and colors, and of course, there is Antoni Gaudí. Gaudi's buildings are fascinatingly unique, featuring a distinct use of colors and shapes. You could go to Barcelona and not visit any of Gaudi's landmarks, but, then, you'd be kind of worthless.

Passeig de Gracia is a street north of Plaza Catalunya featuring 2 of Gaudi's buildings. Passeig de Gracia is a wide, charmingly European boulevard with high-end retail on either side. After a short walk you'll come to Casa Batlló on your left (but be sure to notice the buildings leading up to it, as well, interesting in their own right). We weren't sure how much Gaudi we needed in one day, so after seeing it was 16 Euros to enter, we took some pictures from the street and skipped it. Further down on the right is Casa Milà taking up about half a block. Seemingly more interesting, and half as expensive than Batlló, we decided to give it a shot. We had to wait in line for about 20 minutes before walking in to the oval shaped courtyard. There are 3 areas to check out at Casa Mila, the apartment furnished as it would have been when the building opened, the attic with its weight bearing brick arches, and most interesting of all, the roof. The roof features several oddly shaped chimneys on multiple levels and a 360 degree view of the city. I could have spent 2 hours on the roof just taking in all of the views.

Instead we journeyed on to La Sagrada Familia. We should have figured out a better way to get there than walking because, by that time in the day, we were drained and it's about 15 blocks or so, more when you get a bit lost. We got to Sagrada Familia and saw a sign announcing a 60 minute wait for the lift. That did it for us and instead of going in, we looked up at it from a couple different angles and then walked all the way back to our hotel. Again, not that far, but far enough at that point of the day.

And then the eating started. We had plans to meet Crystal and Dan later that evening at, "Her favorite wine bar in Barcelona" - which happened to be right in, "my favorite placa in Barcelona" - at Placa Santa Maria del Mar. We skipped the wine bar and instead went to Heladerias Tomo II for some gellato before dinner, I had brilliant chocolate in a mini tulip cone. The plan was to go to Tapas 24, but it was closed Sundays so we went to the Irish Pub next door for a drink and to figure out what to do next. We decided to head to Port Vell to Luz de Gas for waterfront tapas on a boat. To get there, we took the Metro, getting our first look at Barcelona's mass transit. And like just every mass transit system I've ever been on, it was faster, cleaner, and more convenient than the T.

Now Luz de Gas may play some of the most "lame-ass, jive, pseudo bluesy, out-of-tune, noodling, wimped out, f*cked up playing" you'll ever hear, but it's an incredibly lovely spot and the food is delicious. We had the octopus, patatas bravas, pan y tomate, chorizo, and some great cava. And now I never have to eat octopus again. Which is nice.

After stuffing our faces with tapas, we decided to head back into The Born for dinner at Origen 99'9%. Dinner after so much tapas? Yes. Origen serves traditional Catalonian dishes with an eclectic flair. Unfortunately, and likely due to the truckers' strike, many of our first choices were unavailable. We'll have to try rabbit with chocolate another time. The cheese plate was great, as was the stuffed onion, as was the Crema Catalan. The fish we could have done without. Awesome atmosphere, too. After dinner we went back to Tomo II for more gellato, but they were closed. Sad.

There are 10 chapters in the Free Barcelona Travel Guide. I hope you find them useful.
Introduction
Day 1: Barcelona to Boston: Plaça de Catalunya
Day 2: More Walking: Santa Maria del Mar, Picasso Museum, Ciutadella, Euskal Etxea
Day 3: Gaudi and Eating: Casa Milà
Day 4: More Gaudi: Parc Guell, Sagrada Família
Day 5: Sitges and Birthdays: Barcelona Cathedral, Parrots Hotel, The Beach House
Day 6: Sitges and Beach
Day 7: Sitges and Montserrat: Montserrat
Day 8: Sitges
Day 9: Too Hot to Shop: Aparthotel Calabria, La Boqueria, Tapaç 24
Day 10: Montjuic: Montjuic

Map of where we went or wished we had.

Click here to blow out the map and get the full effect

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Free Barcelona Travel Guide – Day 2: More Walking

aaron cohen — Sun, 15 Jun 2008 02:46:40 +0000

Thanks for clicking on the Free Barcelona Travel Guide. There are 10 chapters total, listed at the end of this post. Check out the introduction for more information.

This day started fortuitously enough as I burned out our sound machine/alarm clock. You wouldn't think this was a big deal, but none of the hotels we stayed at had clocks in the room. 2 of them had bidets, though, which is an important lesson on priorities. After wandering around for a minute looking for a place to eat breakfast, we ended up at Taller de Tapas in The Born around Santa Maria del Mar which ended up being my favorite area of Barcelona. I ordered what seems to be Barcelona's civic meal, un bocadillo de jamon y queso and JR had a croissant.

Next stop, the Picasso Museum. After waiting in line for about 20 minutes, we were let in and started walking through the different rooms representing different eras of Picasso's painting. It was fascinating to see so much work by a single artist, but the museum was somewhat of a failure on an informational level. The descriptions on the walls of the first couple rooms were helpful and pointed out the important paintings in each room. As we moved forward, however, the descriptions became confused, describing paintings not being exhibited, or worse yet, paintings in rooms we had just seen. It was neat to see Picasso's work in other mediums such as printing and ceramics, and the illustrative representation of his playful relationship with his friend and secretary, Sabartes (doodle portraits on pinup posters and a portrait of Sabartes in a ruff!). The real treat of this museum, though was the special exhibit, Forgetting Velazquez. Las Meninas. "Las Meninas has been one of the most widely analyzed works in Western Painting" and the exhibit was a series of artists showing their interpretation of the painting in their own style culminating in Picasso's own multi-month 40-odd study of Las Meninas. The special exhibit made the museum worth it for me, though JR disagrees and suggests the whole thing.

After the museum, we did some more walking and wandering and ended up on the edge of Parc de la Ciutadella at an Argentinian place called El Foro. El Foro was notable for the presentation of its Gazpacho (a bowl of tomato soup and a long plate with chopped onions and 3 different types of peppers) and the salsa which, from what I could tell, was olive oil, oregano, pepper, and bay leaf mixed into deliciousness. Parc Ciutadella is a large park on the outskirts of the old city of Barcelona. There is green space mixed in with trees, ponds and giant sculptures. The zoo is on the grounds of the park, but we didn't visit. One exit of the Parc feeds out to the Arc de Triomf at the end of a long promenade. This is, apparently where the children go to light firecrackers with their grandmothers and the novice rollerbladers timidly hone their craft. One fellow was practicing jumping and turning around in mid air, almost falling every single time, I couldn't look away.

After almost going into the chocolate museum (an almost I wish we had repeated a week later), we walked back to the Cathedral area going into about 5 different chocolate stores. This is my kind of city. Before going into our hotel, we went to Chocolateria Valor and got chocolate drinks. I had a Chocolate Francesa, which was about the best thing I've ever had. Drinking chocolate is big time in Barcelona, but what do you do in the summer? Cold chocolate!!! Wow it was great. Want more. Now.

Our friends Abbie and David picked us up for dinner and we headed to Euskal Etxea for dinner. Euskal Etxea serves Pintxo, which seems like Basque Tapas to me. The main difference being most of the Tapas are laid out on the bar, served on a slice of baguette with a toothpick. The toothpicks are important because at the end, they're counted up and you pay per toothpick. This was great too! I missed the steak looking Pintxo, but I'm pretty sure I had quail eggs with mayo on some sort of ham. I ate more than I should have and it was still one of the cheaper dinners we had in Barcelona. Good times.

There are 10 chapters in the Free Barcelona Travel Guide. I hope you find them useful.
Introduction
Day 1: Barcelona to Boston: Plaça de Catalunya
Day 2: More Walking: Santa Maria del Mar, Picasso Museum, Ciutadella, Euskal Etxea
Day 3: Gaudi and Eating: Casa Milà
Day 4: More Gaudi: Parc Guell, Sagrada Família
Day 5: Sitges and Birthdays: Barcelona Cathedral, Parrots Hotel, The Beach House
Day 6: Sitges and Beach
Day 7: Sitges and Montserrat: Montserrat
Day 8: Sitges
Day 9: Too Hot to Shop: Aparthotel Calabria, La Boqueria, Tapaç 24
Day 10: Montjuic: Montjuic

Map of where we went or wished we had.

Click here to blow out the map and get the full effect

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Why I love Easter.

aaron cohen — Sun, 23 Mar 2008 15:58:29 +0000

Peeps and chocolate bunnies.

(WARNING: If you can't stand the thought of a chocolate bunny being melted in several different ways, don't watch the chocolate bunny video. Also, if you can't fathom the thought of Peeps as marshmallow overlords, don't click the peep link.)

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Updated to add: Peeps for Passover.

One Step Closer to Chocolate Covered Bacon Perfection: Bacolate Truffles

aaron cohen — Mon, 26 Nov 2007 17:04:49 +0000

We had our 10 year high school reunion on Friday and had some people over to catch up before going to catch up with the rest of the class.
I figured this was a good opportunity to make some more chocolate covered bacon. My first attempt at combining bacon and chocolate to make bacolate was a success of sorts, if only because the results were edible and appreciated. The result wasn't going to be worth making again, though, so I had to try a different tact. Bacolate Truffles!
I read about 6,000 truffle recipes on Thursday night and then about 2,500 more articles about chocolate tempering before 2 trusted culinary advisers (thanks, Matt and Ben) let me know that I didn't REALLY need to temper the chocolate. This will be a debate for another day, however, after all other aspects of this process are perfected.

Bacolate Truffles:
For the ganache, I used a composite recipe.
3/4 cups of heavy whipping cream
2 tablespoons butter
1 1/2 cups of chocolate
5 strips of bacon

Microwave the bacon until crisp (about 5-8 minutes depending on how much bacon) and break up into little pieces. Microwaving the bacon results in a uniform crispness, which is what I was going for. You might like your bacon less crispy, but I'm not sure how that would taste mixed with chocolate.

Heat cream and butter on medium, stirring continuously until melted. Put chocolate (chips or cut up into small pieces) in a bowl. When cream begins to boil, pour over chocolate and let sit for 5 minutes. Stir until smooth and pour into a brownie pan that has been prepared with plastic wrap on the bottom and sides. Put plastic wrap over the top of the mixture as well to prevent a film from forming. Let cool for 10 minutes and put into the refrigerator to chill out until it's firm (probably about 60-90 minutes).

I dipped these truffles in chocolate after forming them into little balls, which is where the tempering was going to come in, but by melting the chocolate slowly and carefully in a double boiler, it wasn't necessary. After the ganache was firm, I rolled them into balls, adding some small pieces of bacon to the middle, and dipped them in chocolate and put them onto a cookie sheet to chill out some more before serving. The forming and dipping process was a nightmare, and will need to be improved upon for next time. I'll keep you updated as the process evolves. Like all truffles, these could be coated with cocoa powder, confectionery sugar, roasted nuts, more bacon, etc.

Mint Truffles:
Same recipe as above (minus the bacon). When boiling the cream and butter, add a few mint leaves and strain before pouring over the chocolate. This ganache will need a lot longer to chill in the fridge though, as it was impossible to form into a ball before melting in my hands.

Oreo Truffles:
1 pound package of Oreo Cookies (I cheekily used Double Stuffs, look out)
1 8 oz package of cream cheese
Chocolate for dipping

Mash Oreo Cookies in a bowl. Use a mixer to combine Oreos and cream cheese until well mixed. Form into little balls and put onto a cookie sheet to chill out in the refrigerator. After balls are firm, dip in chocolate. Personally, I always hate the idea of cream cheese as a dessert ingredient, but these really came out great. Delicious.

Vietnamese Spring Rolls:
Carrots
Cucumbers
Red Pepper
Lettuce
Cilantro
Mint
Rice Vermicelli
Spring Roll Skin

Not a dessert, but Matt's always putting up fancy food posts, and I made these, too, so I wanted to tell you about'em. The ingredients are a little ambiguous because you can really put whatever you want in these things. I learned how to make them from my vegan sister-in-law, though, so there isn't any shrimp, or say, bacon, in these rolls.

Cut veggies into this pieces about the width of a McDonald french fry and about as long as your index finger. Cook vermicelli, strain, and rinse with cold water. Fill a large bowl with hot water. Dip spring roll skin into hot water for about 3 seconds and put on a plate or cutting board. Fill with ingredients and wrap. Some people dry the skin off before wrapping, but that creates an extra step and makes it much easier to mess up the skin. I've made these 4 times now and just got the ingredient proportions down correctly so that my rolls don't like giant vegan mistakes. It's going to take some practice, but the best piece of advice I can offer would be to fill the roll and then take a quarter of the filling out.
Roll and serve with Hoisin sauce.

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Chocolate Covered Bacon: Bacolate Forever!

aaron cohen — Mon, 05 Nov 2007 03:53:38 +0000

A couple weeks ago, Matt reviewed Vosges Haute Chocolat Mo's Bacon Bar. I had seen these bars a couple days earlier, and Matt's generally favorable review pushed me over the edge. I had to try it. I felt differently about the bar starting with the cost and ending with the amount of bacon. A $7 candy bar should taste like a Josh Beckett playoff performance in your mouth. It should taste like angels' harp music. It should taste like falling in love with kittens. The bar was good, but there were no kittens playing harps in my mouth, that's for sure. Also, a bacon candy bar should have bacon in it, not diva ass baco bits. I was disappointed, but also strangely invigorated. The idea of bacon and chocolate is a great one, it just wasn't executed correctly. I'm not the type of person who generally thinks I can do everything better than everyone (well, I guess I am), but I definitely knew I could make a better chocolate covered bacon treat.

After a few weeks of pondering, I came up with a plan. Today, I cooked a pound of bacon a little longer than normal so it would be especially crispy. I then crumbled it into a brownie pan and put it in the fridge. Then I melted about a pound and a half of semi-sweet chocolate chips. I then poured the melted chocolate over the crumbled bacon and spread it evenly with a spatula. I threw the brownie pan into the fridge for about an hour until the chocolate had completely hardened.

It was then ready to serve and it was delicious. I've discovered Jesus' candy. Chocolate covered bacon. Bacolate. Believe.

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Vosges Haute Chocolat Exotic Candy Bars

matt — Wed, 17 Oct 2007 20:26:45 +0000

Chocolate's delicious. Bacon's delicious. What could possibly go wrong?

My latest Whole Foods impulse buy was two "exotic candy bars" by Vosges. Both are fairly delicious, although they are definitely for nibbling, not full-on eating. Or maybe it's just that I wasn't all that hungry when I tasted them.

The "Red Fire Bar" isn't really all that unusual: chocolate and chile is a pretty classic combination. The package advertises "Mexican ancho y chipotle chiles, Ceylon cinnamon," and 55% cacao chocolate. Come to think of it, I'm pretty impressed if it's real cinnamon, rather than cassia. Huh.

It tastes good. Spicy chocolate is a good deal, but I think I might have enjoyed it more without the cinnamon. Cinnamon-spicy and chile-spicy are two different flavors, and I thought the "Big Red"-ness overwhelmed the capsicum heat. Still, danged tasty.

The main event, of course, was the "Mo's Bacon Bar." Who wouldn't enjoy applewood smoked bacon, Alder wood smoked salt, and deep milk chocolate? Well, let's find out! I'll admit I bit into this one gingerly.

It's definitely a multi-sensory experience. The aroma is distinctly bacon-y (and I mean that in a good way). The texture is a little odd: the bacon crumbly bits take some getting used to, and some of the pieces have a pronounced chewiness (more fat than lean?). The flavor, however, is delicious. Apart from the smooth chocolate flavors, the salt notes break through clearly, and salty chocolate is an established winner. There's just a background bacon flavor rounding out the whole experience. Definitely less gross than it sounds. I'd eat another square.

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Save The Chocolate

matt — Wed, 25 Apr 2007 02:25:59 +0000

Please go here and then here and tell the FDA that vegetable oil + whey protein + flavorings ≠ chocolate.

You can take a catastrophically mismanaged war, tie a ribbon around it and call it a victory for democracy, but it’s still a disaster and a defeat. And a box of partially hydrogenated, artificially flavored candy can never be a box of chocolates.

Word.

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Xocolatl

matt — Tue, 10 Apr 2007 01:33:13 +0000

One of the most delicious chocolate bars I have ever tasted is Dagoba's Xocolatl. 74% cacao with chiles and nibs.

Chiles and nibs! Freakin' delicious.

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My Funny Valentine

matt — Fri, 16 Feb 2007 18:23:48 +0000

We don't really "do" Valentine's Day. Last year I guess we went out to dinner, but that was sort of an aberration. R—'s birthday is only five days later, and it's close enough to Chrismukkah that we don't feel the need to exchange gifts. Usually we get each other a card (or to be precise, usually she gets me a card and I forget and apologize) and that's about it.

Mind you, just because we don't exchange gifts doesn't mean we don't get chocolates. We've started a tradition in the past several years of buying a box of chocolates just after Valentine's Day, when they're on sale, which means cheap deliciousness. The problem, of course, with sharing a box of chocolates is that there's always competition for the best ones. R— and I have hit on the perfect solution.

We each get a highlighter and we take turns marking the chocolates that we want. There's a fair amount of strategy involved: do you go for your favorites first? Or do you trust that she'll never pick the cherry cordials so you can leave them until later, and hit the more contentious vermont fudge or chocolate whips first? This year looked to be the standard draw until R— made a rookie mistake: not paying careful enough attention, she accidentally highlighted the peanuts instead of the caramel. Peanuts! She knew right away she was screwed -- you always take the nuts last! -- and sure enough, I swooped in and grabbed an almond nougat. I might trade her, though, if she really wants one. It is Valentine's Day.

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Happy Anniversary!

matt — Thu, 07 Sep 2006 02:38:51 +0000

It's hard to believe we've been married for two years, not because it means we've been together a long time, but because I can't believe 2004 was two whole years ago. Damn.

Still, every anniversary is a milestone. Marrying Rachel two years ago was (if I may wax earnest for a maximum of one paragraph) the best thing I've ever done, and marking it is fit and proper. Two years is, of course, just a drop in the bucket compared both to how long we've actually been a couple (nine years!) and how long we plan to be married.

Last year we decided that we'd establish a tradition of not giving each other gifts for each anniversary. We get each other enough presents throughout the year. Instead we thought we'd go in together on a treat: a trip, something new for the house, something like that. For our first anniversary (paper!) we got a hotel in Boston and tickets to two Red Sox games. This year was cotton.

Cotton sucks as a gift theme. I was not buying my wife a Happy Anniversary t-shirt in preshrunk cotton. We decided to ditch our tradition (of one year) and just go out for a very nice dinner. And then, we thought, wouldn't it be more frugal and (perhaps) more fun to make a very nice dinner? Yes, yes it would.

The plan was a meal in three courses: a salad as an antipasti, a primi, and a main course. I conceived of all three independently, so I'm not sure how well they held together as a cohesive unit, but I think it was pretty successful.

First, the salad!

"Deconstructed" salad of tomato gelée, red onion, and cucumber with lemon vinaigrette

The salad was "deconstructed" in the sense that I didn't mix all the bits together. I guess you could also call it "untossed" or, possibly, "lazy." We eat cucumber and tomato salads all summer long; I got the idea for the tomato gelée from our favorite restaurant, Gracie's. At the end of last summer, I took all of the tomatoes we had lying around, chopped them and suspended them in a coffee filter in a strainer over a bowl and let it sit overnight. The resulting tomato water ended up in a container in the back of the freezer until now. I heated it to a simmer, stirred in a packet of gelatine, et voila! Tomato jello. Deliciously tomato-y, and texturally surprising.

Once I'd thought of the gelée, the idea of doing everything in cubes just seemed to make sense.

The vinaigrette was equal parts lemon juice and rice wine vinegar, and then olive oil and dried tarragon. A chiffonade of basil and a pinch of lemon zest finished it off. Light, unconventional, and yummy. Next!

Homemade basil pesto and goat cheese ravioli in roasted pepper and tomato sauce

Making pasta just looks fun, doesn't it? And since Rachel has pretty much an unlimited capacity to eat pasta, it seemed like it would be foolish not to serve some.

Making the pasta dough took, I confess, two tries, and even on the second batch it was a bit too sticky to the extent that I couldn't roll it as thin as I'd have liked. The resulting ravioli was a bit chewy, but still delicious.

The filling was just pesto (basil, pine nuts, parmigiano, garlic, lemon juice, and olive oil) mixed with goat cheese. The whole ravioli assembly process was fraught with peril, but I was glad to have done it, and I plan to try again at the next opportunity. They apparently freeze really well.

The sauce was a straight food processor job: roasted red peppers, roasted tomatoes, garlic, olive oil, red pepper flakes, salt, pepper. I just simmered it to warm it before spooning it onto plates and piling on the ravioli. Shaved parmigiano seemed the thing to do, and I, uh, had some basil and lemon zest left over.

Pan-seared duck breast with red wine and fig reduction, gingered carrots, and kale

Well, obviously the duck is the main event here. The carrots are basically Alton Brown's recipe for carrots poached in ginger beer, but I was making that before I ever saw the carrots episode of Good Eats, so nyeah.

Duck has long been my nemesis. I love it in restaurants but it always ends up over- or under-done when I make it. I once, to my enduring shame, served dramatically overcooked (as in gray) duck breasts to Rachel's ex-boss, a man of exceeding taste. This time, I'm pleased to say, it worked.

Flavor-wise, nothing too fancy, just a couple hours marinating in red wine, salt, and pepper. The cooking was a revelation for me. I patted the skin very dry, slashed it, laid it skin side down in a non-stick skillet, and cooked it over very low heat until most of the fat rendered out. (The fat was poured out to cook the kale in.) Then it was just a matter of peeking every minute or so to see if the skin looked brown enough, one flip to give it a minute or two on the other side, and done. I gave it a minute under the broiler just before serving to crisp the skin. Perfection.

The sauce was really simple, too. Chopped dried black mission figs in a cup of red wine, simmered for a good long while. Not long enough, since the sauce was a bit runnier than I planned, but it was damned tasty.

Oh, dessert! Rachel made the flourless chocolate cake from the Williams-Sonoma dessert cookbook. It was chocolate-covered chocolate, and it was delicious.

Anyway. The meal was delicious, the wine was spectacular, and Rachel is the best person in the whole world, and I'm the one married to her, so—again—nyeah.

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Marshmallows

matt — Tue, 28 Mar 2006 19:43:59 +0000

Why? Simply for the challenge.

You can buy marshmallows at the store. You can even buy pretty good marshmallows at the store. But there are some things a man has to do, and sometimes a man has to make homemade marshmallows. Michael Chu provided the recipe, and I have nothing much to add to it except the following notes.

First, this will give your standing mixer a workout. It took me way less than 8 minutes to fluff the marshmallows, and I stopped once could hear the mixer straining. It's possible that our marshmallows didn't fluff as much as possible, or that I somehow screwed something else up.

The marshmallow fluff, before it sets in the pan, is crazy delicious.

The thing you should know about the marshmallow fluff is that it is the stickiest substance in the known universe. Getting it out of the bowl and into the pan was a Herculean labor. By the end, our faces and hands were generously coated in a the sticky yet delicious goo. Rachel, actually, was wearing a pretty nice sweater and I could see the marshmallow's insidious tentacles starting to creep towards it, so I sounded the alarm: "Quick, take off your sweater!" I expected nothing more than that she'd go change into a different shirt, but she was focused, laser-like, on subduing the marshmallow beast, so she simply whipped that thing off and dove right back into the bowl. That, my dear friends, is dedication. Now, if I were to share with you the uncensored picture that resulted, I have a feeling she'd drown me in a vat of marshmallow fluff, so I'll simply link over to the tastefully obscured picture at her place.

We let the marshmallows chill out overnight in their pan, and then dropped the onto a cutting board that was liberally dusted with powdered sugar. I cut them into, more or less, squares with a pizza cutter, and then we dredged each piece in more powdered sugar. The kitchen looked like [insert name of celebrity rumored to be a coke head] had been through there.

How did they taste? Like marshmallows. They really tasted no different than marshmallows you might buy at the store, so I don't know if that means that I succeeded beyond my wildest dreams, or that I wasted a weekend and a lot of sugar. Upon repeated tastings, however, I determined that the taste was a little sweeter and less artificial than, say, your generic Fluffy Puff marshmallows, and the texture was vastly superior. Can I refer to the texture of a marshmallow as silky? Who's going to stop me?

Never ones to leave well enough alone, and scoffing at the idea that less is more, we dipped half of them in chocolate. Some got a full dousing, others got an artistic striping, and some got an additional squirt of white chocolate. Admit it, you wish you had this plate of marshmallows right now.

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