If Chocolate is Your ReligionYou’ll Worship Todos Santos in Santa FeBy Madelyn Miller
Simoneaux is a self-taught chocolatier, and he learned to work with his signature gold and silver leaf while working as a framer. But in his new art form, he is creator and designer, businessman and educator, guru and master.
And the packages are as treasured as the contents. Some of the funky display items are for sale, other favorites just add to the atmosphere.
Another interesting offering is “after dinner saints”. He suggested you could also use them after any sin. Saint boxes cost $28 for a box of four, $56 for a box of eight and $84 for twelve saints. I wonder what sins you commit would need a dozen saints for redemption? If you want to learn more about chocolate or do a chocolate tasting, Simoneaux offers Le Nuancier des Purroes Origins du Monde from Michel Cluizel. The 70 chocolate discs sell for $35 and are made from chocolate beans from different regions including Trinidad, Venezuela, Columbia, Ecuador, Tanzania, Brazil, Jamaica, Ghana, Madagascar and the Ivory Coast. These discs are 72% chocolate and besides being educational are great for a party. This is high taste at not a very high price.
But his true passion is chocolate. And if you are not already a believer, you will be if you visit this tiny shop.
At this point, there is no catalogue or website, so just call and let him tell you about his offerings. Or pray that someone who loves you will discover this shop and buy a heavenly treat for you. Todos Santos Chocolates and Confections MORE FANTASIES FOR CHOCOHOLICSChocolatier Magazine BAKE AND FREEZE CHOCOLATE DESSERTS ALL ABOUT CHOCOLATE CHOCOLATE CRAZY Mr. Food Simply Chocolate The Chocolate Lover’s Guide CHOCOLATE from the CAKE MIX DOCTOR 365 Great Chocolate Desserts THE TOTALLY CHOCOLATE COOKBOOK CHOCOLATE THE LITTLE BOOK OF CHOCOLATE CINNAMON MORNINGS AND CHOCOLATE DREAMS GOOD DEEDS WITH CHOCOLATE CHOCOLATE TRAVEL OPPORTUNITIES"The Chocolate Society Café and Shop at 36 Elizabeth Street, SW1 Londonmecca for the chocoholic. Celebrating chocolate as a gourmet delicacy, there are handmade truffles, biscuits and all sorts of other chocolate-based goodies. The shop is open from Monday to Saturday - for more information call 020 7259 9222." GREAT CHOCOLATE MOUSSE FESTIVAL Sutton Place Hotel weekend chocolate buffet Hershey, Pennsylvania Norwegian Caribbean Lines Chocolate tea buffet Chocolate Festival MADELYN’S FAVORITE CHOCOLATE TREATSDoubletree Hotel chocolate chip cookies Fairytale Chocolate Brownies 800-fairytale www.brownies.com MADELYN’S FAVORITE CHOCOLATE DESSERTSFrozen Hot Chocolate at Serendipity in New York Lollipop Tree at DavidBurke and Donatella in New York (okay, it is not ALL chocolate but it is so wonderful I am making an exception) CHOCOLATE HOTEL TOTAL BODY CHOCOLATE EXPERIENCESThe Golden Door Spa in Carefree, Arizona offers the Chocolate Champagne Body Wrap. This Valentine's Day-inspired treatment teases the senses with tantalizing aromas while rejuvenating the skin. The treatment begins with a double exfoliation using chocolate, Ayurvedic herbs and natural fruit acids. An anti-oxidant mask of vitamins, green tea, chocolate and fruit of choice is then applied to the body and spritzed with champagne or healing vanilla water. The guest is wrapped like a delectable morsel while the active elements begin to renew and restore the body. Following a light shower, the body is caressed with an intensive hydrating cream. This unforgettable sensory adventure concludes with the guest's choice of custom-made chocolate in the same taste as the body treatment. At New Orleans Belladona Day Spa you can almost OD on chocolate. But then I believe you can never have too much chocolate. be a chocoholic: the choco-palooza body deluxe mini choco-palooza manicure au chocolat pedicure au chocolat CHOCOLATE DRINKSThe Chocolate Jacuzzi Martini WHERE TO STAY in Santa FeBishop’s Lodge Resort and Spa La Posada de Santa Fe Resort and Spa Inn of the Anasaz Inn at Loretto 505-988-5531 Inn on the Alameda Eldorado Hotel WHERE TO EATFuego 505-982-5474 (and hey have a wonderful chocolate dessert) Inn of the Anasazi, 505-988-3236 Geronimo’s 505-988-5531 The Restaurant at the Inn at Loretto 505-988-5531 The Compound Restaurant, 505-982-4353 The Old House, El Dorado Hotel, 505-988-4455 Fuego Restaurant, La Posada Resort, 505-954-9670 SantaCafe, 231 Washington Ave. 800-252-8570 or 505-984-1788. Café Pasquals, 505-983-9340 (if you are traveling alone or in a hurry, ask to sit at the community table) Corn Dance Café at Hotel Santa Fe........Santa Fe's only authentic Native American restaurant. 505.982.1200 or toll free 800.825.9876 FOR MORE INFORMATIONSANTA FE: 800-9849984 BEST WAY TO GET THERESOUTHWEST AIRLINES: 800-435-9792 |
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I have just discovered the most heavenly chocolate place in the world. And if you are a big believer in the aphrodisiac and medicinal and healing properties of chocolate (it certainly makes you feel good) you will make regular pilgrimages to this delicious chocolate Mecca. You can even order your own chocolate altar.
The Aztecs believed that cacao beans, the raw material of chocolate, gave them wisdom and knowledge. The beans were so highly prized that the Aztecs used them as money. More readily verifiable, Hernando Cortes carried the first cacao beans to Europe from the New World. He might have fantasized a shop like Santa Fe's Todos Santos, but it would have been a wild, improbable dream.
From this tiny shop owned by Hayward Simoneaux comes some of the finest chocolate in the United States. Chocolatier, the gourmet chocolate industry's magazine, named Simoneaux one of the 10 best artisan chocolatiers in the country in 2001. Todos Santos fits right into Santa Fe's Sena Plaza, which, like a secret garden, is thick with shrubs, trees, and overgrown beds of irises and poppies. Todos Santos-"all saints" in Spanish-is so dense with sweets the air in the shop makes you swoon.
Simoneaux has put his own stamp on the New World treasure of chocolate. The owner combines his lifelong love of sweets with New Mexican culture to make chocolate milagros. Usually made of metal, Catholic milagros ("miracles") are spiritual emblems, representations of everyday objects, body parts, and symbols such as the flaming heart that believers offer to saints either for protection or in thanks. Simoneaux adds one other ingredient to his chocolate milagros the conquistadores would have appreciated: a thin veneer of gold, 23 or 24 carat, no more, no less. Gilded milagros are Simoneaux's signature pieces. He also uses silver, for instance to coat a chocolate concha belt buckle.
Using Valhrona chocolates and molds he designs and makes himself, Simoneaux is a man obsessed with presenting chocolate in its most tempting ways. His best friend is a paper artist who provides whimsical packages and paper mache containers for his creations.
Somehow, you feel that Simoneaux is so passionate about chocolate that money is a mere afterthought. He is truly an artist, but also wants customers to know and understand chocolate. I tasted some Slitti Chocolate that was 99% cocoa -- the most intensely orgasmic chocolate experience I had ever had. He just got in some 100% cocoa but I wasn’t ready to go there on a morning visit. Is it legal to have that much pure chocolate? And how may people want to go all the way? He told me that the public’s chocolate taste and awareness is rising, and now 85% is the standard.
His best selling individual truffles are the dark chocolate. I was intrigued by the “milk chocolate gift”, a small “package” decorated truffle with a gold effect from gold dust. These delectable morsels and all his other irresistible truffles are $1.99. I witnessed a woman feed one to her lover passionately. He responded more intensely that if she had offered him little blue pills. I wished I had photographed his response, but it seemed too intimate and personal to capture. But it is an image that will always remain in my mind.
One of his more interesting and unique products is a chocolate kama sutra set. Since I visited right after Valentine’s day, he was sold out. Not surprisingly, they cost $69. He can ship them anywhere with a weeks notice. I am sorry I could not photograph them to give my readers a titillating preview.
