Chocolate, Chocolate, Chocolate, AACK!

If you've known for me any amount of time, you know I love food. It's the best, what can I say? I've been busy working on content for a friend's start up food company and I've been researching chocolate! I've been learning about America's bean-to-bar craft chocolate movement and it's fascinating. If you are into good food, terroir, and ethical trade practices it's the chocolate for you. Basically, it's people who source the chocolate straight from the bean and process it themselves! It's crazy interesting. I'm learning what some terms really mean with chocolate and coffee mean. Like single origin beans (means sourced from the same area), shade grown (cacao beans grow in the rainforest and excel under shade conditions-the landscape is less what we think of agricultural), and fair trade (chocolate grows in what is known as the 'tropical belt' home to some of the poorest nations in the world-paying the growers fairly is worth it) are all terms I'm more familiar with now.

I'm sure I'll be writing more but it's a fascinating subject. I'm going to leave you with a recipe that is fancy-ish and something I've made for bridal showers or other occasions. It's a flourless chocolate cake. I heard about this when I was a freshman in high school and obsessed with all things French. If you can find a good recipe, it's a simple rich one. Top it with powdered sugar and you've got an elegant treat for parties.