Announcing Food Interviews: Another Chocolate Interview and Giveaway!

Photo by Amano Artisan Chocolate

After two sucessful interviews on Cupcake Project, one with Vere Chocolate owner Kathy Moskal, and one with Supreme Spice owner Anjali Damerla, I am now hooked on interviews!

I have started a new blog, Food Interviews, where I will be doing all of my future interviews.

If you enjoyed the interview about Vere Chocolate, you will probably enjoy the interview I'm featuring this week with Art Pollard, founder/owner of Amano Chocolate (you may remember that I reviewed Amano chocolate and I LOVED it!).

Just like the Vere interview, there will be 5 chocolate giveaways, so be sure to check it out and leave a comment each day this week.

Although Food Interviews won't always be about something cupcake related, I hope you'll enjoy it as much as you enjoy Cupcake Project.

Oh - and don't worry - I'll still be making cupcakes here!

A Quick Vere Giveaway Followup

I also wanted to let you know that I have heard back from two of the Vere chocolate winners.

Ivy posted a review of the chocolate on her blog, Little Ivy Cakes.

Tish sent me an email:

The chocolate arrived at my house all beautifully packaged and in perfect condition, so I would have no hesitation in purchasing on-line.

The quality of this chocolate was arguably the finest eating chocolate that I have
ever consumed. I know that qualitative statements like that will always start a
riot, but I prefer bittersweet dark over milk chocolate.

I had no difficulty picking up the fruity notes in the chocolate itself, and the additions such as banana and raspberry were not overpowering. Just a hint of banana. A whisper of raspberry-lemon. The sensual burn of chili. All wrapped in the caress of intoxicating chocolate.

Wow.

I really loved this chocolate. Just one small square of it is plenty to satisfy my craving. And believe me, I have a real need for chocolate every day.

Thank you so much!

I'm so glad that they both enjoyed the bounty!

Vere Week Interview and Giveaway Part IV - About Kathy

This post is part of a 5 part series on Vere chocolate. To get the most out of this series, start on Part I.

Part IV: About Kathy

How much chocolate do you eat? Do you eat chocolate all the time?

Yes! The thing is, I was never a sweets person. I love flavor. I love things like salt and vinegar and all that but I really don’t like sweet. I say to my husband, “It’s a good thing we make chocolate, because otherwise I wouldn’t be able to eat any.”

I did eat chocolate before this. I would eat La Maison Du Chocolat - their darkest chocolate. But, now that we make chocolate, I have quite a bit of chocolate every day. I found that I really need it every day now.

Do you only eat your own chocolate?

Exactly - since we made it to my tastes. You tweak it and it suits you, so it’s nice to be on the receiving end. When you make something and you become really familiar with it and make it a lot of times, you can taste subtle differences that other people don’t in terms of appreciating or not appreciating something. It’s like you look for different things.

What do you look for when taste a piece of chocolate?

I look for not tasting sweet first. I think if you taste the sweet first you are already probably missing out on some of the other subtler flavor profiles. Chocolate is like wine - if you added sugar to any wine, even a wine that was naturally sweet, you would taste less of that wine than you would ordinarily.

I also try to taste whether it’s fruity or does it have more of a tobaccoy, earthy, or a different flavor to it. Then, the texture. I hate dry chocolate. I really hate dry chocolate, so if a chocolate is dry, right there it goes against me. It has to have a nice consistency when it melts - not be grainy, have a kind of luscious quality to it, and make your mouth water as you’re letting it melt.

When you are not making chocolate, what are your hobbies?

Starting a new business is like having a baby, you pretty much don’t have time for anything else. But, my loves are visual things. I love looking at art and looking at fashion. I love shopping with my eyes and I love movies and eating.

I really have through this come to appreciate food in such a new way. I think when you are in the food business it’s in a way very humbling. You start to really understand how much goes into something that’s really artisinal. You really start to appreciate the farmers and what they do - how hard their lot is and everything that it takes to bring something to you in a natural form.

Then, the food business itself. So many of the buyers in the food stores work so hard. When I go to call buyers, some of them will say you can reach them tomorrow at 6 am and this is on the weekends. They also might have a late shift. If you want to call, you need to call at 11 at night. It’s a hard business.

How does being a visual person come into play when you are designing the packaging?

A lot. I appreciate what Erika does. She does these incredible caramels. Each of them is hand decorated. There is somebody there putting little lavender pieces on top or cacao nibs or whatever. They are like these little works of art.

If you look at the rest of our line [the packaging] is very classic and so much of my background comes into play. I love that part! I love to get to play with the packaging and those ideas.

Even the bags you are giving away are so cute!

I know. Whenever I get too stressed out, I think, I’m going to make some bags. It’s just so therapeutic. I feel like so much of our food is packaged. Unpacked food is so luscious and beautiful. You want the package to at least kind of represent what you hope your product is or is going to taste like or stands for. It would be like if you had to hide your beautiful cupcakes in a box and you couldn’t see them. You’d want the box to evoke the deliciousness of the cupcakes and the whimsy or whatever you are putting into that particular one.

If you were Bride 2.0, what would your cupcake choice be?

My cupcake choice would probably be like the cayenne and cacao nibs bar - a spicy chocolate cupcake with a chocolate frosting. That’s probably what I would love.

A ganache?

Yes! And the frosting wouldn’t be spicy, but the cupcake itself would have the chipotle chili. It would be spicy.

It's been so much fun talking to you. Thanks so much for your time and your chocolate. On behalf of all of my readers, we appreciate it so vere much!

Continue to the Vere inspired cupcake

Vere Week Interview and Giveaway Part III - Choosing Flavors

This post is part of a 5 part series on Vere chocolate. To get the most out of this series, start on Part I.

Part III: Choosing Flavors

How do you come up with your flavors? Where do you get your inspiration?

I have a really great chocolatier, Erika Erskine. She’s really amazing. She’s young, maybe 23, but she studied at La Cordon Bleu in London so she’s classically trained. But, because she’s young, she’s really open and interested in health. She’s up on all the latest stuff and she happens to have a really good talent for flavor combinations. She knows how to layer flavors so you get one flavor, then the other. She’s really responsible for the flavor profiles.

I’ll come up with an idea like Crunchy Stuff. My idea was to make this crunchy stuff like a snack food but with chocolate that has healthy ingredients and that’s delicious. I’ll give her a concept and she’ll work it out. She’ll solve a problem.

I’ll come up with some of the ideas for some of the bars. I think the anise espresso was mine, but she’s really the flavor genius. I am more a concept person and do the groundwork, but really in terms of the product itself, she’s really vere, vere talented.

Are you working on anything new?

Just these 70% bars. [Note: In Part I, Kathy talks about how they now only have 75% bars.]

I think I sent you some of the little 10 gram chocolate boxes. [Note: She did. I wrote about the 10 gram vere chocolates here.] I might rework some of the packaging on that. They are really cute and great but it is so hard for the people to make them and package them. [I would like to] find a way that I can deliver them where they won’t get broken, etc. or do less packaging on them because I love that little format. I always like to put a couple in my pocket. When I want something, I just break one of those open.

In the banana bar, I was disappointed that I couldn’t taste the banana.

It may be one of those things where the banana quickly takes on the chocolate flavor. There is a little crunchiness in the banana bar. It’s not like nuts. It’s kinda like the crunchiness of halava, but it might be one of those things where the chocolate just kind of overwhelms the banana flavor. We might have to put more bananas in the next batch!

What’s your favorite flavor?

My favorite bar of the bars we make is the cayenne and cacao nibs. What I love with that one is that I’ll put it in my mouth and I’ll let it start to melt. I get the lusciousness of the chocolate itself and it's smooth and creamy. Then, I start to get some heat. As its melts more, the little cacao nibs get exposed and so I feel that texture – another thing I love is texture that has to do with ingredients. Then, I’ll bite on the nibs which are kinda fruity. That bar has all the qualities I love.

Continue to Part IV

Vere Week Interview and Giveaway Part II - Running a Chocolate Company

This post is part of a 5 part series on Vere chocolate. To get the most out of this series, start on Part I.

Part II: Running a Chocolate Company

How large a company is Vere?

It’s not very big. I have a factory in Manhattan where we make our artisinal products. The factory is a nice size – it’s 5000 square feet. We only have about 6 people working in the factory and we’ve only really started selling our products about 2 years ago. It took about 2 years to do the research - to find the beans and build the factory. We’re still small. My focus now is getting into retail stores around the country.

How’s that going?

Good. The people who get what we do are places where you have an educated consumer - where people really read the package and care about what they are putting in their body. We just started to get into the various Whole Foods in Manhattan. We are in a smattering of stores around the country. We do very well in gourmet stores and we do really well in health food stores where people look for organic particularly.

I’m trying to target that customer who really understands the difference between chocolate and candy. I’m really focusing on the chocolate person. I just started to approach and get into some higher end coffee shops and also wine stores. Since dark chocolate isn’t very sweet, it pairs really nicely with wine.

How does running Vere compare to your experience with HUE?

It’s so different - I can’t tell you. Fashion is really fast. About 8 week after we had our first product, we had orders from Bergdorf Goodman, Macy’s, and Neiman Marcus. With food, it’s so slow. People have already set their shelves so they’ll say, “Call me in 6 months” or “Call me next year.” It’s really, really different.

I think it’s more that [in food] the consumer drives the store rather than the store driving the consumer - which is what happens in fashion. In fashion, they don’t want anything that they think is going to sit in the stores for more than 3 months. In food, they’ll say if you can’t give me at least six months shelf life, I don’t want to take you in. It’s like totally opposite. In fashion, they want something new all the time. In food, once they get you in with something, they’ll pretty much keep that. There are pluses and minuses to both.

Do your bars have a particular shelf life to them?

The stores really want a year shelf life. With some of ours, we can get more than 6 months. Our artisinal products can only get 6 months because we use a lot of nuts and stuff in them. The stores would love a year, but it’s like I tell the stores, “I’d rather have you order less and order more often because we make the stuff fresh.” You don’t really want your stuff sitting on the shelf for more than 6 months. Who wants to buy anything that’s been sitting there that long?

Many people think chocolate can just sit around. They don’t think about their bars going bad.

It can, but once you start adding things - like if you start adding nuts (certain nuts are hardier than others) - after a while the nuts have oils in them so they can go rancid. If you use fruit, if it’s a dried fruit it’s OK. If you use freeze dried fruit, you want it to be crisp - you don’t want it to go soggy. We try to use other kinds of ingredients in our chocolate, not just essential oils. We do use nuts and seeds and different spices and stuff, so we really would prefer that they would be fresher.

It sounds like you’ve had a lot to learn with the food.

Yes! Of course! One other thing, in fashion you just have to say what the ingredients are: 100% cotton, made in the U.S., etc. In food, it’s such a different thing - all the nutritional testing, all the allergen information, plus your packaging is a big part of it. Whereas in fashion, your image is a big part, but you might have to just make a label.

Continue to Part III

Vere Week Interview and Giveaway Part I - The Vere Beginning

Vere week is here - your chance to win free chocolate!

The following winners have already been drawn: Ivy, mrschloesmom, Verena, and Gina!

But, it's not too late to enter. Read the interview, then comment on the post for the correct day of the week to enter. Even if you already entered, you can enter again for another chance! A winner will be drawn each day!

• Monday - Interview with Vere founder, Kathy Moskal, Part I: The Vere Beginning
• Tuesday - Interview, Part II: Running a Chocolate Company
• Wednesday - Interview, Part III: Choosing Flavors
• Thursday - Interview, Part IV: About Kathy
• Friday - A cupcake inspired by a Vere chocolate bar flavor combination

The interview begins after the break.

I interviewed Kathy Moskal by phone and split the transcription of that interview into the four sections you will read this week. I made a few changes to the order of the conversation just to make for a better flow, but other than that and the removal of "ummms," "well, you knows," and laughter we both had, it should be just as if you were listening in on our conversation.

Part I: The Vere Beginning

How did you become interested in chocolate and starting a chocolate company?

My entire life was in the fashion business. I had co-founded a legwear company called HUE and my partner and I sold that. I had retired basically for ten years and then a family friend was dying from the aftereffects of diabetes. She was a great gourmand. She loved to eat. She was a great baker. As a matter of fact, she was the one who taught me how to make truffles many years ago - she was real chocoholic.

At that point, she couldn't walk anymore and I thought since her only pleasure left was eating, I’m going to get her the best chocolate in the world that she could eat. I searched the Internet, I looked in Europe, and I looked all over the States. Everything I found was really awful – it was filled with chemicals even a well person shouldn't eat. All of the chocolates that weren't filled with chemicals had way too much sugar.

This was in the fall of 2003. Now, there is a lot of dark chocolate on the market. But, at that point there really wasn't. I just thought, "OK, I’m going to hire a pastry chef," because I really am not a cook and I’ll start with just 100% dark chocolate (plain chocolate) and I’ll have the pastry chef just make some things that are healthy and minimally sweetened for my friend, Carol.

I just started doing research about chocolate. I became really fascinated with chocolate as a food. It is this incredible foodstuff with all these vital chemicals and all these great healthy things - that if you don’t degrade the chocolate – are available to you.

I just got hooked and I thought, well I’m going to go from the beans. So, I did a lot of research and found that the Arriba bean (sometimes called the Nacional bean), which is what I use in all my chocolate, is really high in antioxidants. It only grows in Ecuador and it has a really mild, fruity flavor so it doesn't require a lot of sweetening. It tastes very earthy and real. Like wine, it reflects the terroir (the place that it was grown).

One of the reasons I picked it, besides that I really liked the flavor of it, was that the first step in making chocolate is fermenting the bean and that’s also the first place that the antioxidants get degraded. Since this one [the Arriba bean] has a short fermentation cycle, it doesn't need a long fermenting to develop the flavor and it also doesn't degrade the antioxidants as much - so it starts out with more antioxidants.

How did you find out about that bean?

Just really by doing a lot of research, but I had tasted the Arriba bean in a chocolate that someone was doing. It was a plantation chocolate (Vintage chocolates). This French guy, Pierrick Chouard, made a line of chocolates using the Arriba bean. That was the first time I tasted it and I liked the kind of flavor and the mildness of it.

What makes Vere different from other chocolate companies?

We’re different from a lot of chocolate makers in a lot of ways. First, we do make our own base chocolate and we make a real high grade of it where the [particle size in] microns is really small. We add more cocoa butter so it’s called couverture which is like the most premium chocolate. Most chocolatiers don’t make their own couverture, they buy their chocolate. If they are buying good chocolate, they buy from Valrhona or Michel Cluizel or they'll buy chocolate from Guittard or various other producers. Then they will melt it and make their chocolate. Even companies like NewTree make chocolates in California, but they use a Belgian chocolate. (Update: I received an email from NewTree with a correction: "NEWTREE manufactures all of its chocolates in Belgium and imports and distributes them in the U.S. They are truly Belgian chocolates in every sense of the word.") They don't make their own couverture. Probably in most chocolates that you've tasted, the people don’t make their own couverture. People are starting to do that more though. Theo chocolates makes their own couverture.

Also, we are probably the only company in the world that makes all of the products from 75% cacao content. We are going to make some bars of 70%, but that will be it because to get the benefits of chocolate you really need it to be 70% or higher.

What about companies that are doing chocolate from bean to bar?

Well, we don’t process the beans ourselves. People are doing a lot of good stuff in a lot of ways, we chose to process the beans in Ecuador because you leave more money in the local economy so instead of taking their precious resource out at the lowest possible price, which is the beans, we make the couverture there. This is just part of our philosophy. That’s another way that we are kind of unique and different.

Do you have a relationship with the people in Ecuador?

Not a business relationship, a hand-shake friendly relationship. It’s interesting because there are three men who have spent their lives in the chocolate industry so they know a lot, but their dream when they retired was to have their own chocolate factory. They are small like we are and so they try things for me and have done things for me that a larger company would never make the effort of doing. We’re kind of moving along together here.

Continue to Part II

Supreme Spice Interview and Giveaway

I've been fascinated with Supreme Spice extracts ever since I used the tea masala extract in my bhapa sandesh Indian cupcakes.

Anjali Damerla, the owner of Supreme Spice, agreed to an interview. In this post, I share that interview with you! Anjali also went one step further and offered to give some free spice extracts to one of my readers!

If you comment on this post by the end of the day on Wednesday, you are eligible to win this prize package:



Your prize includes ginger extract, cinnamon extract, and kesar milk extract (a blend of nutmeg, cardamom, saffron and curcumin - a spice found in turmeric). One winner will be selected at random from everyone that comments by the deadline.

What Happens if You Don't Give Me a Photo

The one thing that Anjali wouldn't provide was a photo. I'm forced to assume that she would fit in nicely with the other Spice Girls.

Scary, Baby, Ginger, Posh and Sporty - welcome Supreme Spice!

(Note: The *vere* surprising person I am interviewing next is now vere glad that she decided to give me a picture.)

Photo credit: Thespicegirls.com.

The interview begins after the break. Enjoy, and good luck to everyone.

When did you first become interested in extracts?

When my daughter was around 3 years old, she used to catch a cold very frequently and I knew that getting some garlic or ginger in her system would help boost her immunity and reduce her frequent colds. But how does one make a child understand this? Garlic supplements are not for kids and I wanted the ability to control the amount I gave her. I used to think it would be amazing if I could just add garlic liquid to her meals.

That’s when I found something called Spice Oleoresins (extracts) that are in liquid form and have all medicinal properties of the parent spice. I did more research and found that the food industry already was using these extracts in making sauces, salsas, etc. But these were not available in retail stores. And that’s when I thought of starting my own business in Spice extracts, found a manufacturer in India who was already making extracts (also called Oleoresins) for bigger food companies and was able to get these extracts in smaller bottles for retail.

How long has Supreme Spice been around?

I started Supreme Spice around two and half years back.

What has been the most exciting thing for you about owning the company?

Starting and maintaining your own company is not easy. It comes with its own challenges but has far more advantages. But the most exciting thing about owning my own company is the feeling of achievement that I get without sacrificing any family time. I am still able to volunteer at my kids' schools, join a book club and pursue my other hobbies. I can be with kids if they fall sick and do not have to worry about getting leave from office, etc.

What is the advantage of using extracts vs. ground spices? For example, why would someone use cinnamon extract instead of ground cinnamon?

The main advantage of using extracts is that they never lose flavor or fragrance. Ground spices become stale and flavorless within 6 months. Extracts have longer shelf life and contain all the medicinal properties of the parent spice. They blend very well without leaving any spice pockets and let you customize the amount of spice according to individual taste. For example, say, you like ginger tea but your spouse prefers cardamom tea and your friend would like to have masala tea. What you do is make just 1 pot of tea. Add ginger extract to your cup, cardamom extract to your spouse’s and tea masala extract to your friend’s cup. Customize.

Are you working on any new spice extracts?

I am in the process of adding Lemon Grass extract to my product line.

How are extracts made?

The volatile oil of the spice is extracted using solvents. The solvent is then separated from the extract and a emulsifier is added to keep the extract free flowing. Ingredients that are in the spice extracts are only the volatile oil of the parent spice and the emulsifier (to keep the extract free flowing). It contains no preservatives or alcohol. The quality of spices that are used to make the extracts is very important and the spices come mainly from the local farmers and with whom my manufacturer has been dealing for years.

What is your favorite extract?

I will have to say that Tea Masala extract is my most favorite. I am a big fan of Masala Chai and have it everyday.

What do you do when you are not selling extracts?

I am a mother of 2 wonderful kids and I volunteer at their schools a lot. I also love to read (recently joined a book club) and paint (take a look at some of my paintings here).

If you were Bride 2.0, what cupcakes would you want at your wedding?

Hmm.. As a Bride 2.0, I would love to have a cupcake which had some spices in it and since this cupcake is going to be for a wedding, I would choose the most Royal and Aromatic spice of all – Saffron. So, there you have it, as a Bride 2.0, I would choose a Saffron cupcake.