ChocoVivo Venice

During my four month hiatus from real life work, I was able to explore a few local shops.  I came across an article about Choco Vivo, a chocolate shop in Venice. Anyone who knows me KNOWS I love chocolate. So I went exploring online first to their website. If you haven't read Patricia's stories on her blog you should go 

here

. She is a true entrepreneur and someone who took a great leap of faith to do something she loves.

So I drove a mere 10 minutes to Venice and went looking for this tiny shop nestled on Abbot Kinney. I so wanted to meet Patricia, she sounded like me in her March blog posts, but she wasn't there that day. 

I sampled a few of the chocolates. I've never really tasted true pure chocolate. It's all DARK chocolate no milk or soy lecithins added, so it's pure goodness. 

Her stone-ground beans to bar method is mouth melting ecstasy.  I tried the almonds to sea salt and the mayan tradition (spicy and delish).  She also has chocolate butters and does a nice sampling on the First Friday's down on Abbot Kinney every month.  

A must visit place when your on the westside. Abbot Kinney is the perfect place for this entrepreneur.

Beside's the great little store, she's also at these Farmer's Markets:

Tuesdays:

 Culver City,  2 pm – 7 pm, 

Sundays:

  Mar Vista, 9 am – 2pm 

Try some samples.

 Loved the great packaging for my purchase. 

Choco Vivo

504 Abbot Kinney Blvd

chocovivo.com

Sea Salt Carmels

So my friend Jessica who LOVES all the sweets possible always gives me great suggestions on Trader Joe sweets. This past winter season she introduced me to yet another goodie.

Dark Chocolate covered carmels with sea salt on top. Need I say more. This only is in stock during the Holiday season. Mark it down for next Nov/Dec and stock up.

Stress Relieving Chocolate

Some people go for a jog, or to a bar, have a drink or gorge on food. I eat chocolate, not just any chocolate it should be rich, dark and delicious. On this lovely Sunday April day in the midst of cleaning up my kitchen and getting decisively dizzy, cleaning does that to me, I finally realize it's not the normal displeasure at cleaning but in fact it's a 6.9 Earthquake. First time in my city that I felt it roll and roll and roll on forever it did, swaying the chandelier (yes the little wrought iron one in my apartment counts) and blinds. After my heart slows down I need a drink and better than that I need chocolate.

My long-time friend and former roommate Karena and her husband were here visiting and she brought me the best treat. She said to me, "when you just know that you have to get a specific gift for someone nothing else will do." So on her way to the airport in NY they have the taxi stop and wait in Brooklyn while she grabs some treats for me at the Jacques Torres store. I tried to go there when I visited last time but didn't make it. So today after the stressful earthquake I opened the celophane package that wrapped dried cranberries and pumpkin seeds in a crunchy candy coated with the loveliest dark chocolate. Jacques Torres is a genius chocolatier and an amazing cook. I've watched his show a few times, admittedly I can't always understand him, but I'm fascinated by his chocolate creations. Thank you Karena and please come again with Danny and more chocolates.

So what do you do to relieve stress?

Bittersweet Chocolate Carob Ganache Tart

While we're on the subject of chocolate, after trying the decadent chocolate at Todo Santos I saw a recipe in Bon Appetit, February 2009 issue for a chocolate carob tart. I love it when they have a picture of the food, so I can compare if I even came close to what the recipe called for in the looks department.

I haven't eaten carob in years, I remember my mom taking me to Mrs. Gooches (a health food store) when I was a kid and making me eat carob, wheat germ, and flax seed oil. Not pleasant food memories. However, this recipe called out to "try me." The recipe is long, so I'll point you here to take a look at it.

I'll tell you how mine turned out. The hardest part was the crust. It was fun putting my hands in the butter and flour but I was unsure that the mixture wasn't fine enough. After chilling it I tried to roll it out, this was a mess and both times I attempted this I ended up with a wonky circle and just gave up and ended putting it in my removable bottom tart pan and attempted to mold it to the pan. I must have done a good job, because everyone who ate this remarked on how pretty and tasty the crust was.

Then came the baking of the crust, I don't have pie weights, I don't have beans (you'd think I would, as I keep trying to get my Grandmother's bean recipe for years) but I don't. So I just put the tin foil on it and baked it. The crust did get air pockets and puff up but when I took it out of the oven I quickly deflated it (poking w/ fork and just pushing down on the tin foil with an oven mit).

Melting the chocolate and carob and cream was easy and once the pie crust cooled down you just pour it in the crust and put uncovered in the refrigerator to chill.

Now for the best part. I've never made brittle and had no idea where to find malted milk powder. We have a store here on the Westside called Rainbow Acres, super organic and vegan. I manage to buy both the carob chips and malted milk powder there. Here's the recipe for the brittle. Seriously this was scary and fun at the same time. You must have your parchment paper ready with cooking spray on it as you have to work pretty fast once all the ingredients are ready to be poured onto the sheet.

Making the amber colored sugar wasn't as bad as I thought, I'm always worried I'll severely burn myself and ruin my sauce pan (neither happened). Once the sugar turned a pretty amber color I put in a table spoon of butter...oooh it started to bubble up slightly. Then you have to QUICKLY pour in the malted milk powder (3 tbsp). Now there was a volcano eruption, I stirred super quick and got really nervous, once everything was all mixed in I immediately poured the mixture on the prepared parchment sheet and spread it out as evenly as possible. The brittle cools fast. Once it's completely cooled you just peel it off the parchment paper, break the candy apart, and scatter it over the chilled chocolate tart.I took the whole tart to work. However, before I did that I took a sliver to taste and make sure I wouldn't poison anyone. I was so excited I took a bite before taking the picture. It was perfect, not to rich, but chocolaty and the crust was a flaky consistency. I had one piece left for SB who again was upset that I always make these things and take them to work. Since I still had all the ingredients I made it again just for him...oh and me. Yes now, once again, I fortified in my mind why I take these things to work. We ate the entire tart ourselves in one week. Not good for the diet, but I oh so delicious.

Box of Chocolate

"Life is like a box of chocolate, you never know what your gonna get" that's about the only line I remember from that movie. But I'd have to agree unless of course you slice the chocolate in half or ask the owner what's in every one, which I did when we visited Todos Santos.

This place was nestled away in a little courtyard off the main street from the Plaza in Sante Fe. Todos Santos (All Saints) has this kind of day of the dead theme.

Many of the gift boxes are Saints, Mary being one of the bigger ones. I'm not into this, but chocolate I am all over.

Every one of these was so beautifully made and the flavors were exotic and surprising.

I wanted to buy some gifts for my co-workers so I bought a few boxes of chocolate and had them wrapped in nice little boxes. They were so pretty we didn't want to eat them....but we did.

The store is tiny and dark but lots of vibrant colored decorations.

I love that each type of chocolate is in a pretty colored candy holder tuttu.

With all the beautiful chocolates in the display cases, it was hard to choose which one I wanted to eat right away. I finally choose the dark chocolate with candied orange peel and pistachios. It was worth every bite. It's a hard to place to find but worth the search. The courtyard was lovely in winter as Sante Fe had snow on the ground and evergreen garlands over all the wood beams throughout the plaza area. I'm sure this courtyard will be hopping in the summer as there was a restaurant with an outdoor patio. Make sure you seek out this chocolate treasure.

Todos Santos
Sena Plaza Courtyard
125 East Palce #31
Sante Fe, NM 87501