Did You Miss Me Internet?

Vacation was great.  I wish I had pictures to share, but I left my camera behind.  This week will be a short one.  I'm headed back up to North Carolina for a wedding - and I'm bringing chocolates!  

Some pictures of our set-up at the Villa Christina Wedding Planners Event

The Bike Rack!

Five-Spice Ganache?! 

Wrapped Some Bars

Found out what happens when you leave potatoes on top of the fridge and forget about them.

ALSO:  The podcast is up!  You can listen online by searching for Out There Atlanta on Itunes, or click this link - http://outthereatlanta.com/

I may or may not have a slight lisp.  You can only find out by listening! ... I just get excited when I'm being interviewed.

Enjoy!

TBS and Wedding Jazz

I know - I promised pictures from the TBS filming.

Unfortunately, they don't exist.

 I was sent home early due to exhaustion.  Around 9:00am I got all dizzy and lightheaded and nauseous and shaky and lost color and overall scary - the "ands" were included for suspense.  AND, it was best for me to just go home and rest.  The crew at SCR applauded me though.  Apparently, once you reach this point you have actually entered the industry - officially.

So, I went home and fell asleep on all of my neatly folded clean clothes - which are no longer neatly folded.  Beth called me at 8:30 and I thought it was morning.  I think I actually said good morning.  Exhaustion.

After so much rest, heading back to work felt great.  Today we prepped for our trip to Villa Christina for a wedding planners party.  A lot of pink, green, and gaudy - all expected.

I was also named "Kendra" - Christopher Robin's big sister and was able to show off my "you must pay the rent" skit a few times.

All in all, a great night.

Headed to the mountains/beach early tomorrow for a short vacation!

FATHERS DAY

Happy Belated Fathers Day!  - I'm only a few minutes late (and I called earlier today).

Just wanted to take a minute to thank my dad for encouraging me to take this expedition into chocolate.
And also for helping me to fix my toilet via phone yesterday.

You should be jealous.

Bakery Sunday: Round Two

My Second Bakery Sunday was a success!  I did a lot of slicing and a little sleeping.  I got home at 2:30pm and slept for 4 glorious hours.  

TBS is coming tomorrow!  Hoping to get some great shots and write up a synopsis of the day.

 Beet and Goat Cheese.

 Irish Cheddar, Apple, and Onion Croissants.

COMING SOON!  A stop motion film by an up-and-coming film maker!

Pretend

I've been pretending to sleep for the past two days.  Thought this song might be appropriate.  Last night I "pretended" to sleep while my next door neighbor drunkenly sang the same song loudly from 3am to 5am.  Tonight I got to pretend again.  Candler Park, my neighborhood park, celebrated midsummer with a music festival.  The music stopped at 11- but my alarm clock goes off in 30 minutes.  Why pretend at this point?

The past few days have been long and exciting.  We're all rushing around getting ready for TBS on Monday and an event for wedding planners on Tuesday - and, of course, bakery sunday.

Learned how to make the Brooklyn ganache - whipped malted milk/white chocolate heaven ganache - and learned about the importance of a good kitchen-aid mixer.

Taria was gifted her mixer 22 years ago - and has been using the same one ever since!  It's a crayola green 5qt. mixer that her grandmother gave her.  It carries meaning and purpose...and I really want one!

Hint hint Mom and Dad.  What an investment!  I'll use it forever!

Made more lollis today and enrobed my little heart out.  I've been forcing myself to re-temper chocolate.  I have a tendency to let it get too thick and then compromise the end product.  If I make myself re-temper at the first few signs, I save good chocolate from being ruined by my avoidance of starting the process over.

More later.  Time to get up.

Look forward to pictures of bakery sunday prep.

WooHoo.

I'm really terrible without sleep.

OH MY GANACHE!

That's right.  I made ganache today.  I actually made two different kinds of ganache!  The first was a dark grapefruit ganache - really fun to make.  The second was a white wasabi - not so fun.  It started to separate during the emulsification process.  Taria saved it for me.  The wasabi went on top of a blood orange patê au fruit.  

I've been wanting to try a ganache for awhile now, so today was a bit of a milestone for me.

 ingredients.

 completed

 but then I cut my finger

 so I made lollis

 they turned out beautifully.

Rose and fennel.

Yum.

Lollis and Bars

Slightly burnt my first temper of white, but saved it.  Used it to make pistachio, candied rose petal, saffron bars (my favorite).  Then I had a perfect temper on a 72% Ghana - the chocolate was beautiful.  Used that to make blueberry pink peppercorn bars.

I also made two sets of lollis: orange mint and tart lemon.

Family Weekend

The video describes the weekend.  Just add this to the Atlanta Zoo, Coca-Cola World, Fernbank, and Stone Mountain.  Too much fun.

Bakery Sunday

Crazy Day.

2am:  Woke-up, late.

2:30am:  at Irwin Street Market trying to find a way inside - woke up a bagel maker.

2:40am:  tried to help make pastries - wasn't that helpful - sliced and peeled beets, apples, and pears.

6:00am:  at SCR.

7:45am:  went on a bike ride tour of the city with a very good tour guide - learned the history of multiple playgrounds and had a ride-through of Piedmont Park.

8:30am:  back at SCR.

8:31am:  Rattletrap arrives.

9:00am:  Shop opens.

9:01am:  Hordes of customers arrive.

9:02am:  Fell asleep in the kitchen.

9:30am:  Woken-up by pranksters.

9:31am:  Latte.

12:00pm:  Home.

Brought home a strawberry rhubarb pie and goodies.

Family arrives at 2pm!

Advice

The last few days have been wonderful.  So wonderful, that I haven't bothered to post.  Sorry blogging world, you just aren't as great as reality.

We've been working really hard on keeping up with events.  Tons of enrobing.  My tempering skills are coming together.  My failure rate has decreased - thank god.  It's nice to do something right without having to ruin it first.

This post is going to be a little different from my previous posts - it's an internal discourse more than the day-to-day happenings you've seen.

I am consistently surprised at the kindness of strangers.  At school and home, I don't experience this reaching out - I'm surrounded by people I already know.  But here I've been adopted.  I've found a huge amount of comfort in the relationships I've developed in the last three weeks and feel like I'm part of a big family.  Everyone at SCR, friends of friends, my roommate - I can't explain how thankful and grateful I am.

This evening I went to two events.  One was a kick-off party for a project in the business school at Emory (https://newsroom.goizueta.emory.edu/gnr/2011/04/20/student-carries-wine-project-forward/)
and was hosted at a professors home.

Besides being a great event (with a great cause) and great entertainment - traditional Ethiopian dancing and Dance Truck (http://clatl.com/culturesurfing/archives/2011/05/25/dance-truck-goes-way-gay - the image tells all ) - I was able to have some amazing conversations.

I met Keith of High Road Craft Ice Cream and Sorbet.  He's got a background in both culinary school and business school.  Told him who I was, what I'm doing, and what I think I want and asked him for advice.

Advice!  So much advice!

No matter how much I love the idea of chocolate or making chocolate now - I'm going to hate it when I make the 400,000th piece.  And when I hate it, I'll realize that it isn't the chocolate that I'm in it for.  I'm in it for the people.  I'm there for the communication and relationship and development with others.

And when I hate it, I'm going to need to love it.  And the only way I'll be able to love it will be to take it back to the beginning.  To understand it from the farm it came from in Venezuela or Madagascar and the economics and anthropology that take it all the way to where I'm standing with a completed confection.  That's what I have to understand and know in order to love it on that 400,000th piece.

AND, he invited me to visit him at High Road.  I'm going to check out their facilities and talk about what happens when chocolate is applied to ice cream.  Chocolate has it's nuances when it comes to tempering and ganaches, but what about in other products?

Ended the night at White Space for another event.  It was nice to see everyone in a different environment.

Exhaustion.  Ecstatic exhaustion.

Family Dinner

Yesterday was a blur.  I honestly don't remember what I did.  I know that I over-seeded a batch of chocolate and had to use the immersion blender - it still didn't temper.

I also remember helping to make white chocolate bars with candied roses, pistachios, and saffron.  Addicting and beautiful.

Today I helped with milk chocolate bars covered in tobacco and hazelnut, ACTUALLY GOT THE DARK TO TEMPER AND WORKED WITH IT FOR A GOOD TWO HOURS!, lost the temper, tried to re-temper, failed, enjoyed dinner at the shop, and polished molds until 9.

Today was a very good day.  I was so busy enrobing that I didn't have lunch until 4.

Beluga

Lazy morning.  Farmburger for breakfast.  Aquarium.  Hot dog stand lunch.  Swimming.  La Fonda Latina dinner.  Dr. Bombay's Underwater Tea Party dessert.  

The pictures tell it all.

Farmburger.

Aquarium.

La Fonda Latina.

Began reading a new book on chocolate.  Borrowed it from the wonderful Sawyer family.  It covers the history of chocolate.  I'll do a write-up once I'm farther in.  

SCR today!

What'll ya have?

Got up early this morning to go to the Atlanta Botanical Garden attached to Piedmont Park.  Didn't want to be walking around in the heat.  Saw plants and what-not.

Found a Theobroma cacao.  There weren't any cacao pods - if there were, I would have stolen them.  

Hooray for chocolate and plants!  Our two favorite things!  The cacao tree is native to Mesoamerica and is currently grown in :

Ivory Coast, Ghana, Indonesia, Nigeria, Brazil, Cameroon, Ecuador, Colombia, Mexico, Papua New Guinea, Malaysia, Dominican Republic, Peru, Venezuela, Sierra Leone, Togo, India, Philippines, Republic of the Congo, and the Solomon Islands

...and Atlanta?

Had lunch with Lilly and Alex - Holla!

Stayed out of the sun for the afternoon.

Watched "Everything Must Go" in Midtown - I didn't like it.  Ted did.

And had dinner at the Varsity!

Artlantis

Spent a good portion of the day at the Artlantis Festival on the corner of Ponce and Highland.  Our caramels started to melt and we didn't sell out as originally expected.  I learned a few important things: 1.  people don't like candy in the morning - obvious, I know  2.  don't get a booth beside music  3.  don't get a booth in the food section - everyone passes over the food section.

Only grabbed one picture - and it isn't even of candy.  Famous Cuban communist propaganda posters that say something along the lines of, "better not to be, than not to be revolutionary."

I also enrobed a good amount of chocolate - I didn't do the tempering though.

AND, I left the festival early and spent the afternoon at the pool with my roommate.

AND, a special visitor arrived - TED

I was excited.  Scary excited.  Ate at the Majestic (Food that Pleases) on Ponce.  We both have an affinity for diners.

Botanical gardens tomorrow, might do a write-up just for kicks.

Cheers!

Lollis

I didn't temper today - what a relief.  I did wrap and label some lollipops, make lollipops, find a miniature cotton candy machine at toys-r-us, make grapefruit cotton candy, and wrapped more lollipops and fudge.

Late night tonight, early morning tomorrow - thusly short blog.

Only got one picture.

Chocolate Message from the West Coast

Just received an email from some good family friends, David and Christine Johnson.  They are currently traveling in San Francisco and are about to embark on a chocolate tour.  Here's a picture they sent me!

Posting again tomorrow.  Wish me luck with tempering!

Tempering...

Yesterday was pretty terrible.  It isn't that I don't enjoy tempering by hand - I'm actually glad that the machine is broken so that I can really learn how to do it - it's when I spend an entire day trying to temper and it doesn't.

I was working with dark and milk chocolate.  Most of the day was spent standing in front of the microwave putting the chocolate in on defrost for one minute increments and then stirring and checking the temperature.  You can get cancer if you stand too close to the microwave?  Right?

Chopped milk chocolate, waiting to be melted.

I melted the chocolate and brought each up to it's respective high temperature.  For dark it is 114˚f and for milk it 111˚f.  Then I let the temperature drop and seed the chocolate.  Seeding the chocolate involves either throwing in more unmelted chocolate or shaving in cocoa butter.  This allows the chocolate to have a stable crystal base - the whole point of tempering is to make sure the crystallization process is at the correct point.  My chemist friends are probably laughing at my description, cough, Molly Matty.

Once the chocolate has been seeded you wait for it to drop in temperature even more.  For the dark I got down to 86˚f and for the milk it was 84˚f.  Then you raise the temperature back up to: dark - 88˚f and milk 86˚f.

Then it is in temper, supposedly.  But, every time I enrobed my first chocolate looked just as fresh as my last and didn't set it all.  They just sat there covered in shiny melted chocolate.

I tempered the dark three times and the milk once - and that was my entire day.

It's frustrating and stressful.  I know it isn't my fault that it didn't come to temper, but I can't help but feel that I am holding everyone else up.  How do you make chocolate bars without tempered chocolate?  Or how does any new product come out if all of the ganache sits there ready to be enrobed?

And, I get to try again today.  Deep breath.

Although yesterday seemed all together ruined, my cousin Lilly Lampe and her friend Elizabeth Stice came by the shop to record their podcast Out There Atlanta.  Who doesn't like to be interviewed after their first week of work?

From left to right:  Elizabeth Stice, Lilly Lampe, and Taria Camerino (my boss and chocolate superhuman).

Out There Atlanta is a new podcast that covers a wide range of topics - SCR, Steady Hand Pour House, Oakwood Cemetery, etc. - that all fit under the umbrella of all things Atlanta.

You can listen to their podcast on iTunes and check out their page at www.outthereatlanta.tumblr.com.

I'm interviewed, along with everyone else at SCR and it is worth a listen.  Particularly if you miss hearing my voice.

Lilly also snagged a picture of me in my daily uniform behind the counter - this one's for you Mom and Dad.

Yes.  There is a little chocolate on my face.  This was pre-tempering disaster.  Notice the smile.

Tempering Tempering Tempering

The tempering machine is still kaputt - which make me the new tempering machine.  The process involves me constantly stirring, microwaving, and checking the temperature of big glass bowls of chocolate.  I was working on two bowls simultaneously.



I realize that this picture is terrible.  I just got a new camera and haven't learned how to take a good picture with it yet.

My goal for today, besides actually tempering the chocolate, was to keep the bowls and spatulas clean.  And not just clean after I was finished using them, but clean for the entire time.  It sounds easy, but takes a lot of practice.  I've gotten better at it - my spatula skills are coming along nicely - but I could do much better.


Once the white reached temper, I got to enrobe!

Yes.  This picture is terrible as well.  The top, dark squares are banana caramels.  The middle are banana caramels enrobed in white chocolate.  And the bottom are a meyer lemon ganache enrobed in white with a candied parsley leaf on top.  What is terrible is that all of the banana caramels that I enrobed weren't in temper and will likely have to be thrown/given away.  They looked like they were setting correctly, but were soft to the touch.



Got to help with these guys - mini mendiants.  I helped to make bigger one's as well.  The one's in the picture are covered in almonds, sea salt, and dried pomegranate seeds.  The big boy versions of these have coconut, mango, pistachios, currants, cranberries, pecans, and almonds on them.


I'm still working on my tasting skills.  I tried a piece of white chocolate and used a flavor wheel to see what it reminded me of.  I came up with orange, but that was a blind guess.  Here's an example of a flavor wheel:

Tempering Tired.