You know that we are bringing you delicious cakes and cookies from the best bakeries. But we are not shy about also putting our hands in the batter. So we headed to newly opened Haven’s Kitchen for some bakery classes. Haven’s is a cooking school and event space in Chelsea and offers more classes such as French cooking, sauces, vegan baking, wok work, etc…
As part of this class, we focused on different types of crust to differentiate the uses of pate brisee or puff pastry. Then onto fillings with vanilla custard, coffee chocolate filling and lemon curd. We’re not planning on opening a bakery, but the technical and hands-on knowledge definitely gives us an edge over the competition!
The interest of single origin lies in the ability to associate and trace the distinctive flavor profile of a chocolate to the area where its cocoa beans were harvested. The cocoa flavor can change dramatically from one area to the other because of varying natural parameters like weather, soil and water. These specific parameters are what defines terroir which gives cocoa beans their distinctive, subtle, complex flavor profiles.
Although Savorique do carry chocolate of multiple origins too, I tend to prefer single-origin chocolates which I can trace back to its origins and whose taste I can associate to one terroir. If you’ve never tasted the difference between multi-origin chocolate and the single origin type, we invite you to visit our fine chocolates section or simply search for “single origin” right from the Savorique.com’s home page.
Savorique’s goal is to bring you new ideas, but also promote good foods and eating habits. The real killer in the US, Europe and worldwide are food-related, preventable diseases due to poor nutrition. Education starts with children, and we owe it to them to teach them the basics of food, and equip them with basic recipes that will, in the end, save their lives. Jamie Oliver went on TED to make a compelling case on why our children are less prepared than we were to stay healthy, and won a prestigious TED prize for his views and actions. See also this link.
UPDATE: Kudos to Jamie Oliver who airs a national show to make home, healthy cooking fun for all. Watch Food Revolution on ABC.
Over the past few weeks, our visitors have shown their preferences for Valentine’s day gifts. As expected, chocolate confections, truffles and bars were the favorite by a wide margin. But we also witnessed interest for cakes and cookies, as well as honey.
Based on these findings, we’ll make sure to continue to scour and find the healthiest and most giftable items in these categories!
This Christmas, which I spent back in France with our growing family, was filled with authentic gourmet food and an abundance of gifts, and was thought provoking…
But first, we, Stephan & Fred, at Savorique hope you all had a joyful Christmas with family and friends. Family gathering, great gourmet food and gift giving are strongly anchored into the Christmas spirit. So we trust you celebrated with your Dearests. We are also very thankfull for those who chose Savorique.com to shop for quality gourmet gifts.
Can we say the same about the toys we bought for our young folks, children, nieces, nefews this Christmas? I took the time to look at where the toys I bought online were made and the result is astounding: Princess outfit for my niece made in China, Bontempi kid’s guitar made in China, rocking horse for my nefew made in China, race car track made in China, fire truck made in China, and -ha!- wooden string puppet made in France. I’m in shock, are you? I admit it is the first time I buy everything online where hardly any information on manufacturing country was available. Had I known everything was from China, I would have bought a few quality wooden toys instead, even if my choice involved a smaller amount of rather pricey toys.
What do these toys have in common?
By purchasing US made products, we encourage local businesses and employment in Colorado, in Brooklyn, in Long Island… Whereas by purchasing large quantities of items made in China or India, we cannot expect local businesses and employment market to be healthy and we rather encourage child labor abroad, low quality standards (remember the toxic paint on Toy’ R’ Us toys made in China last year), unfair labor and trade practices (underpaid workers, under valued currency,…) and primitive human rights…
Such globalization has not improved our living standards in Western countries (America and Europe). On average, imported product quality is low (take toys, clothings, cheap electronics…) , unemployment is at its highest, for many it feels like purchasing power has reached the ceiling years ago, taxes follow an upward trend to allow overly sollicited government to subsidies and help our struggling local businesses (small businesses unable to compete with foreign competition, farmers,…). Globalization has not increased corporate markets shares, the shares won abroad were lost in domestic markets to the benefit of cheaper foreign toys, clothings, even cars (GM may be in China but is in a downward trend in its own domestic market). I favor quality over quantity so I don’t settle either on globalization-induced low pricing.
Buy things local (US made) if you want a sustainable local economy and long lasting quality products, and if you don’t want your sister, or your kid, your friend or your neighbor to tell you tomorrow they lost their job because their employer now wants to manufacture from China. It’s about time we made some thoughtful New Year’s resolutions. Thank you for buying local when shopping on Savorique.com.
Winter in San Francisco makes for very changing weather. If you’re lucky you’ll find some blue sky, but today it’s mostly alternating showers. It makes it a great day for a stroll down Haight St, where one can dodge the rain and go from store to store. For an invigorating pick-me-up, stop by the Coco-luxe Chocolate boutique. They serve rich Aztec hot chocolates to be consumed at the bar or on the go, and you can get a few boxes of excellent truffles and bars. Check them out at the store or on Savorique.com
We spent this past Friday walking down the aisles of the New York Chocolate Show, now in its 12th year. Our goal was to scope out new trends from our existing chocolatiers, and see who else was entering the fray of chocolate mastery. Of course, chocolate sampling in not work at all, so we had a great time meeting new brands and catching up with our existing vendors.
We met with Chef William Dean, whose WD line we just started offering on Savorique.com. Also present was long time Savorique supporter Oliver Kita and his right-hand chef. I tried their lavender bonbon and their blood orange ganache, both to die for. We also hung out with Vanessa Barg and Lauren Gockley of Gnosis Chocolate, extending the range of their ultra-healthy and surprisingly delicious raw chocolate. Watch our e-store for new Gnosis chocolates coming-up soon! Clay Gordon, writer extraordinaire and author of Discover Chocolate was on hand to autograph his book, see photo below.
This year’s show had some wonderful displays and activities, including shows for kids, recipe how-to’s, and a chocolate bar where visitors could hang out in comfy armchairs. Overall a great success for the chocolate show this year!
Large Attendance at the 12th edition NYC Chocolate Show
Stephan, Vanessa Barg, Clay Gordon and Lauren Gockley at the Chocolate Show
Owners Brielle and Anthony have a passion for food and retail. But what has not been done a hundred times in New York? One area that wasn’t over-used by foodies is Cannolis with out of the box flavors. Stuffed Artisan Cannolis was born.
Last night was their opening party in the East Village, where they unveiled new flavors for all to try. Fancy a Peanut Butter Cannoli? What about Apple Pie, or French Toast? Pass by their new store at 176 Stanton St.
