|
Chocolate Seductions…Special Valentine’s Day Culinary Tours of Charleston’s Sweeter SideBy Vladia Jurcova
These sensual feelings evoked by chocolate are captured by Amanda Dew Manning, president of Carolina FoodPros, 10th generation South Carolinian and local food expert, on special Valentine’s Day culinary walking tours. Amanda takes her guests behind the scenes to discover everything you’ve always wanted to know about chocolate from the experts – Charleston’s most renowned pastry chefs, bakers and Chocolatiers. Carefully selected stops provide for an amazing experience that will surely please chocolate enthusiasts’ taste buds. I managed to squeeze in on Amanda’s holiday chocolate tours in December and I was not disappointed as we got to taste some of the world’s best chocolate and comforted our souls with a sampling of deliciously decadent chocolate desserts at some of Charleston’s finest restaurants, bakeries and specialty shops.
After eating our desert first, we headed for an entrée – actually another desert - to Charleston Grill located at the luxurious Charleston Place Hotel. Mickey Bakst, General Manager of the restaurant, was waiting in the hotel’s magnificent lobby to show us his kingdom, normally hidden to eyes of ordinary guests. Only guests on Amanda’s tour have the privilege of going behind the scenes – after all, we were on a journey to be seduced by chocolate and nothing was off limits to our group.
A much needed walk after visiting two tasting stops took us to trendy upscale Cypress Restaurant. Executive Pastry Chef M. Kelly Wilson of Cypress, native to South Carolina and graduate of Johnson & Wales Culinary Art School, prepared for this occasion delicious Cypress Molten Chocolate Cake. According to Chef Wilson, this is probably the most popular desert on the menu at Charleston restaurants and she warned us that one couldn’t finish it alone. Well, that didn’t happen to anyone on our tour and the undercooked brownies as she called her molten chocolate cakes and vanilla ice-cream that garnished the desert disappeared in no time from my plate.
Rodolphe Lindt was probably the most famous chocolate-maker of the nineteenth century and his technique which allowed him to make premium melting chocolate contributed significantly to the worldwide reputation of Swiss chocolate. After these suggestions, I started to pay attention and I found Lindt chocolate at my grocery store. The company that produces Lindt chocolate in 1998 acquired Ghirardelli Chocolate Company and so Lindt is widely available on the US market.
This chocolate tour is for you if you like idea of eating desert first, if you are a hopeless chocoholic like me and the thought of tasting chocolate all morning makes you smile. Tours will run on February 3, 17 and 24 from 10:00 a.m to 12:30 p.m. and cost $60 per person. For more information visit www.carolinafoodpros.com or call 843-723-3366. Vladia Jurcova Images by Vladia |
|
TM
“Chocolate…
this seductive, sensual and utterly irresistible food commands a magical place
in our culinary palette. Known as the "food of the gods", its mere mention
conjures up images of creamy, velvety happiness,” says Amanda Dew Manning as she
takes her guests through the darker and sweeter side of Charleston, South
Carolina.
Lucas Belgium Chocolate, located on 73 State Street in
downtown Charleston, SC, was our first tasting stop where we indulged in a
layered tasting of chocolate starting with pieces of milk chocolate and ending
with dark chocolate. Amanda Ayers, the owner and chocolatier, explained that the
Mayans and Aztecs believed chocolate was a gift from the gods...After the
heavenly tasting at Lucas Belgium Chocolate, I am a believer myself. Although
milk chocolate is my favorite, there is nothing more satisfying than a bite of
semi-sweet chocolate which contains less sugar and more cocoa and satisfies
chocolate craving taste buds much faster. At this store, we also learned that
chocolate should be tasted slowly and thoughtfully consuming each bite – this
advise can truly make chocolate tasting an event to remember.
Charleston Place Hotel is the biggest and the most elegant
hotel in historic Charleston. It is owned by Orient Express, Inc. which
guarantees the highest quality of services while the uniqueness of this lavish
property is preserved. In the pastry kitchen, we met Vinzenz Aschbacher,
Charleston Grill Executive Pastry Chef and the magician whose masterpieces have
been delighting senses of the hotel’s guests as well as guests of the hotel’s
two restaurants. His spotless kitchen smelled like cookies and freshly baked
bread. This kitchen produces over 1,500 deserts every day, and that doesn’t
include bread and pasties for the hotel’s restaurants.
Chef Aschbacher surprised us with Valrohna chocolate
mousse, orange scented crème anglaise and fresh raspberries served with sweet
and refreshing Rosa Regale Italian sparkling wine that marries nicely with dark
chocolate. He also demonstrated how to make chocolate mousse at home for the
holidays and we learned that chocolate burns at 122 F and thus direct heat
cannot be used to melt chocolate. Chef Aschbacher prepared his mousse from three
different kinds of chocolate for comparison; he even used chocolate that is made
from rare Columbian cocoa beans. We left Charleston Grill with plenty of new
information about chocolate, full bellies and a little sweet gift of Chef
Aschbacher’s finest chocolate truffles to walk through the charming streets of
the historic city to out last stop.
Chef Wilson told us that she only used the finest European
chocolate – the real thing – which she found finicky and decadent. Her favorite
for baking is Cacao Barry, the connoisseur’s brand of choice for cocoa products.
Cacao Barry is the French division of the Callebaut company, manufacturing
chocolate and related products of superb quality, For every day baking needs,
Wilson suggested using Ghirardelli, originally an American company that has been
making premium chocolate for 150 years, and Lindt chocolate, produced by a
company that was established 160 years ago in Switzerland.
Taking
part in the chocolate tour made for an extraordinary and especially sweet,
literally, experience. I relived my chocolate lover’s dream and I finally could
say I had enough chocolate – well, maybe for a day.