Chocolate Box

So, in a cupboard in my house on a shelf just within my reach I have a little painted tin. And in that little painted tin is chocolate. When this picture was taken my tin contained a lot of vacation chocolates. KK brought me back chocolate from Chicago and I had received a couple candy bars to remember last summer's trip to Norway and Iceland.
Lately I have been trying all kinds of chocolate. I am trying to develop an understanding of what the flavor properties are of the different cocoa percentages, or single origin chocolates, what flavors or seasonings augment the chocolate, and why I don't like the local Taza chocolate.

In a recent trip to the Boston Public Library I took out Alice Medrich's book, Bittersweet: Recipes and Tales from a Life in Chocolate. I had no idea how far we have come since the 70's when she started making truffles across from Chez Panisse. If you are interested in learning the basics of chocolate I really recommend looking at this book. She gives personal stories that show how she discovered the ins and outs of chocolate and helped the country discover real chocolate too. Medrich then gives recipes that show what the proceeding story talked about. She opened me up to the possibility that sometimes water may be the best accompaniment to chocolate.
In Brooklyn right now there is an interesting rivalry happening between the Mast Brothers and Fine & Raw chocolates. They both have rich, interesting and idyllically simple chocolate bars to share that are still very noticeably different from each other. The fact that there are these viable little artisanal business is exciting. The revolution around chocolate is still happening! I can't wait to see where we will be in 1, 2, 5, 10 years!