Seafoam
Boehm's Chocolates
Isn't science wonderful? The same volcanic combination of vinegar and baking soda that I rely on to de-gunk my drains gives seafoam candy its distinctive honeycomb texture. Molasses adds a rich depth to the flavor and a dark chocolate coating seals in the foamy freshness so each bite is crisp and crunchy.
Boehm's Chocolates
255 NE Gilman Blvd, Issaquah, WA 98027
425 / 392-6652
Drinking Chocolate
R. Charlton's Coffeehouse
Since just a whiff of Swiss Miss can send me back to snowy afternoons in the 1970s, I wasn't all that surprised to find that among the many more-or-less historical flavors available in Colonial Williamsburg's pubs, restaurants, and kiosks, there is a time machine disguised as hot chocolate.
The building that houses R. Charlton's became a coffeehouse soon after it was constructed in 1750, and was under Richard Charlton's management by the mid-1760s. Growing up in London, Charlton would have had ample chance to experience that city's thousands of coffee shops and to appreciate that the eponymous beverage was actually less important than the exchange of ideas and opinions it fueled. Located conveniently close to the colonial Capitol, Charlton's Coffeehouse also provided newspapers and a particular kind of privacy to its men-only clientele. It was a place where they could gather to freely discuss the news of the day, and, on occasion, to act; some of the events of the October 1765 Stamp Act resistance took place at Charlton's.
In 2008-9, the Victorian house that had been built on Charlton's foundation was removed to a new site and the coffeehouse was reconstructed using historic records. Attention to period details shows in everything from the reception room's eye-popping wallpaper, to the entertaining gossip shared by the prattling "Mrs. Charlton" (below left), to the choice of complimentary beverages offered to each visitor: tea, coffee, or chocolate.
Every single person in my tour group chose the chocolate, served in small china cups with cream on the side. Like the building itself, this chocolate is an 18th century revival funded by the Mars confectionery company's historic division. The process of making it is laborious but so low-tech that it is sometimes demonstrated on site: cacao beans are roasted, cleaned, crushed, ground, and diluted with hot water. To cut the beverage's natural bitterness, Charlton's adds an historically accurate blend of sugar, cinnamon, vanilla, nutmeg, anise, cayenne, and orange zest--far-flung flavorings that taste nearly as exotic now as they would have to the building's original patrons.
Colt's Bolts
Nashville Airport, $1.99
On the one hand, a Colt's Bolt is a dressed-up Reese's Peanut Butter Cup; on the other, it's a country song wrapped in foil.
On the label of each confection is a 1980's glamor shot of blonde in a red power suit, company owner Mackenzie Colt. A teenage wife and mother with talent and ambition, Colt was a regular at open mic nights at the Ramada Inn lounge near her St. Louis home, where she was discovered by Buck Owens. After touring as Owens' protege, she moved to Nashville for a six-season stint as a scantily-clad "Hee Haw Honey."
When she aged out of her Hee Haw role, Colt had a Plan C waiting in the wings: a lifelong passion for baking and confectionery. In 1984 she began to combine chocolate, peanut butter, and roasted almonds into candy cups she called Colt's Bolts. At first she mixed all of the ingredients in her own Cuisinart and wrapped the finished cups in the foil left over from chocolate bars she melted down for her coating. All that had to change after Colt's Bolts won the Fancy Food Show's Outstanding Confection Award and a Japanese distributor ordered 60,000 pieces.
Russian Mini Chocolate Bars
Mom's European Food & Deli, $6.99/lb
Soap Lake is a tiny town in central Washington built around a lake long famed for the healing properties of its foamy waters and slimy mud. Modern environmental factors have put a dent in those powers--and in the number of tourists visiting the town's spas and resorts. From the car I saw two going-out-of-business sales, several vacant storefronts, and the empty lot where town boosters had once planned to erect the world's largest lava lamp.
There was no one else in sight when I parked by the public swimming area just a block from downtown, rolled up my pants, and waded into the shallow, slightly effervescent water. There was no one in sight as I stood ankle-deep in mud, creamy and insubstantial as Cool Whip, and wondered what it would be like to live here.
I was starting to get a little spooked when a stroll down main street finally filled in a few of the blanks. As I passed a strikingly well-stocked yarn store, there was a flurry of activity; car after car pulled up and a dozen chatty women got out carrying snacks and projects for the weekly "stitch and bitch."
At the other end of the street, I found Mom's European Deli, a strikingly well-stocked emporium of foods from Russia and the Baltic region--deli staples like meat, cheese, and specialty breads, but also row upon row of sweet snacks. The dozens of individually wrapped hard candies, caramels, and nutty little dark chocolate bars (like Clumsy Bear, Nut Cluster, Kara Kym, above) are sold pick-and-mix style by the pound, as is sesame and sunflower halva, cut to order from huge marbled blocks. There are also sweet drinks, boxed cookies, and bags of confections like zephir, a pastel hybrid of marshmallow and divinity. The cold case is stocked with fresh cakes from Russian bakeries on the east coast, carried back by long-haul truck drivers returning from a New York run.
The beach may no longer be bustling, but an unexpected bounty of beautiful yarn and Russian treats prove that there's still life, creativity, community, and celebration behind Soap Lake's hard-luck facade.
Mom's European Food & Deli
331 Main Ave E
Soap Lake WA
509/246-1121
Southampton Tea Truffle
Bespoke Chocolates, $2.25
Extra Place doesn't exactly welcome visitors, particularly in the gathering dusk of a late winter evening. It's a stunted alleyway just off the Bowery, too small to appear on most maps, wallpapered with graffiti, and, on the occasion of my visit, bedecked with police tape. That it's not the kind of place where you'd expect to find an artisanal chocolate shop makes stepping out of the alley and into Bespoke Chocolates that much more delightful.
Open less than a year, Bespoke has made its name with impeccably crafted small-batch chocolates featuring creative flavor profiles. At the helm is London-trained chocolatier Rachel Zoe Insler, whose previous career was in "academic cognitive neuroscience research".
While I don't want to belabor that transition or cast Insler as a cocoa-streaked mad scientist, it's hard not to look at the shop and see echoes of a laboratory or an old-fashioned apothecary as apron-clad chocolatiers bustle around in plain sight behind the gleaming marble counter of an open kitchen. As they patiently answer questions about their creations, it also becomes apparent that their process is suspiciously scientific.
I asked about the genesis of my chosen truffle, the Southampton Tea (top photo), and heard a tale of drawn-out research and methodical experimentation; infusing the silky-smooth ganache with a maximum wallop of apricot-scented Ceylon tea was not as straightforward as you might think. While the shell of fruity Caribbean chocolate comes from readymade couverture, it was given perhaps the most perfect temper I've ever experienced; snapping my front teeth through the shell seemed to set off tiny shockwaves, and a millisecond later the glossy chocolate cracked into two halves held loosely together by oozing ganache.
Bespoke is also famous for an award-winning confection filled with liquid, sea-salted caramel and rolled in crumbled pretzels (below right, front), and a hand-beaten spread of chocolate, hazelnuts, and Marcona almonds (in process, below left).
Bespoke Chocolates
6 Extra Place
New York NY, 10003
212/260-7103
