Great Moments in Chocolate History: With 20 Classic Recipes From Around the World by Howard-Yana Shaprio, Ph.D

This look at the history of chocolate was published in 2015 by National Geographic. So don't expect a more commercial look like when the first Reese's Peanut Butter Cup debuted. This is more of a scholarly text but told in layman's terms. Although I still have trouble understanding what chocolate liquor is. I've tried for years to wrap my head around that luxurious food stuff. Some candy bars are mentioned. But it's mostly if the manufacturer made a major breakthrough in the process or the manufacturing of chocolate. 

Speaking of candy companies, the Mars corporation gets a lot of love. That's because the writer of this book is Dr. Howard-Yana Shapiro, the chief agricultural officer of Mars, Incorporated. Somehow that just feels like Nat. Geo is lowering its standards with a corporate sponsor. The author lauds praise upon praise of the steps towards sustainable farming of cacao and fair trade practices that the Mars corporation is doing to ensure that the next generation of chocoholics have chocolate. I would have been okay with this if Dr. Shapiro had included how the Mars family first managed to get a life-time contract for purchasing Hershey chocolate and then stabbed Milton Hershey in the back, reneging on the contract and then leaving the Pennsylvania company in the dust.

About a third of this book is a cookbook. And with the chocolate expert's tips on the proper uses and techniques for cooking with chocolate, these are some of the best recipes that I have ever come across as a culinary instructor. There's several that I think my students will enjoy like how to make macarons. Thanks to the recipe in this book, I finally feel like I have a much better scientific understanding of the process of making this highly requested desert. Personally, I want to make the Chicken Mole dish with the recommended pairing of steamed rice. 

If you want a book that explores chocolate through historical accounts, scientific discoveries and the taste buds of fans worldwide, this is a good book to start with. I bought my copy of a Friend's of the Library bookcase sale display for only $5. While I do feel that there was a bias towards the makers of M&Ms and Snickers, I did learn some new facts and new cooking techniques. Plus I don't feel quite so scared that the world's supply of chocolate is going to dry up in the next few weeks. Though if we don't get on the ball in supporting more farmers and pest and disease resistant strains of cocoa trees, it might be a confection that only the richest citizens of planet Earth will be able to afford.

I don't know about you. But I need my chocolate fix. So, Dr Shapiro, if you needed to give your employer a little bit of free advertising to get the message of sustainable farming practices for cacao, that I guess I will begrudgingly support your efforts.

Worth Consuming!

Rating:7 out of 10 stars. 

Dracula's Brunch Club (Family Comic Friday)

I started off my Halloween reads of 2025 with a fantastic book. Dracula's Brunch Club blends humor, horror and culinary arts in a story that takes everything you know about vampires and flips it around 180 degrees.

Count Dracula has won international fame. Not because he's the king of the vampires but because he's a world renowned donut maker! His sugary delights have forged a peace between humans and the undead. He even hosts a weekly brunch club where even werewolves can't help themselves for a taste of Dracula's famous crullers.

Dracula's claim to fame are his blood orange jelly donuts. It gives all of the vampires that partake a needed boost of late night energy. However, everything the Count has built threatens to come crashing down when his supply of blood orange jelly is stolen. Unable to make his signature dish, it provides an opening for a rival vampire to become the head of the brunch club, which is now full of mysterious new members. And he's even banished all of the human members from the club!

With jams, jellies and fruits on short supply, now Dracula and his trusty French Baker Chef Jeleu (Jelly in French) must create a new gelatin filled donut. Without it, the town's children's hospital fundraiser will be ruined, the Count will lose the coveted Spirit Award for excellence in baking and worse! No longer be a member of the very brunch club Dracula created! 

Writer Brian Gonsar and artist Keenan Gaybba make their graphic novel debut in this 2025 work from Oni Press. It has a spooky vibe with liberal amounts of silliness and humor. The entire foundation of vampire folklore is in this book; from their inability to reflect in mirrors to their love of A,B and O positive and negative blood. A few townsfolk get turned into creatures of the night. But it's all done off scene. There's a little bit of fisticuffs between Dracula and his rival. But it's nothing that's too scary or violent. 

Recommended for readers aged 8-12 on Amazon, I can support that suggestion. This book fits right in that kind of sweet spot for kids of that age who like scary things as well as really silly reads.

I love the cover. It's an image of a box of donuts. The fang marks on the jelly donut is hilarious. The plastic window in the shape of a coffin is genius. And the Dunkin' looking font was so clever. It perfectly hints at everything you should expect from this book: horror and humor.

I really thought I made a great choice with this book to start off my October of Halloween reads. This book isn't set during Halloween. But unlike a Christmas read, does a read for All Hallows Eve have to be set on October 31st? I don't think so. As long as there's that supernatural vibe, whether terrifying or not, a Halloween read can be set during any time of year. 

Worth Consuming!

Rating: 9 out of 10 stars.

As Cooked on TikTok by Emily Stevenson and TikTok

TikTok.

If you ask me, it's the single most important piece of media to influence and inspire amateur chefs and foodies in the last 5 years. In the 80s, it was PBS cooking shows. The 90s and 2000s, it was Food Network. The 2010s was the decade of abrasive chefs like Anthony Bourdain and Gordon Ramsay. Today, if a student comes to me wanting to explore a new recipe, the idea usually came in the form of a video from TikTok.

Due to the apps questionable tracking methods of users data, I don't use TikTok. Plus my school blocks it. So if a student wants me to see something on the social media site, they usually have to show the video from their phones. So when I discovered this officially licensed cookbook over the summer, I jumped at the chance to buy it for my culinary classes. 

The recipes are all from TikTok users. Add to it some cooking tips from professional chefs such as Blue Ginger's Ming Tsai. Throw in some useful cooking hacks from the TikTok tech team and include QR codes in order to access each recipe and you're as close to becoming a TikTok chef without being an official user of the site.

My students were very excited when I showed them this book. Some laughed, thinking it was absurd to buy a cookbook when I can get all the recipes for free on TikTok. But just about everyone I shred this book with was enthusiastic to use this new resource.

I decided to incorporate this cookbook into my lesson plans under the unit for recipe development as well as the unit for pricing and budgeting. Incorporating social media technology into a culinary business was also explored. We tested out several recipes ranging from a cake recipe that only called for ice cream and flour to a lasagna noodles recipe that called packs of ramen noodles. 

My students were very surprised at how the ice cream cake turned out. But I explained to them that ice cream with it's milk, fat, sugar and eggs has everything else you need to make a cake with in addition to the other ingredient of flour. So if you are in a pinch or can't afford all the ingredients that a cake recipe calls for, you can make a semi-decent cake alternative similar to a pound cake loaf consistency.

The reaction to the ramen lasagna was mixed. Some folks liked it. Others abhorred it. All wanted to know why someone would use ramen noodles to make a lasagna. I explained that a lot of users on TikTok are Millennials and Gen Zers on a budget. You can buy 4 packs of ramen for almost as much as 1 pound of lasagna noodles - or cheaper. Frugal cooking calls for creative substitutions and as a chef who's known for utilizing items about to go bad or expire in creative and affordable ways, it's one thing that I really admire about the TikTok community. 

We also explored food trends and how recipe ideas go viral by making one of the foods that put TikTok on the culinary map: cloud bread. Essentially egg whites, baking soda, some sort of dairy and of course food coloring, these tie-dyed little cakes are like eating a eggy little cloud. We also learned that with something as simple as cloud bread, it's really easy to mess it up. The easiest recipes usually are.

There's a bunch of recipes that I personally hope to explore. Full of quirky and creative ideas that can also be rather affordable, I think I found a great modern resource for my culinary students; that's also a book! Sure, my students could use the app on their phone. But one problem I noticed with TikTok is that nothing is written down. Unless you follow the video precisely and can remember all the steps, my students often get lost and tend to forget something important. So while the app is free, having everything collected in a book that can easily be photocopied and shared with multiple cooking teams is a handy tool to help bring a relatable culinary resource safely into my classroom without breaking the confidentiality of anyone's online presence.

Plus a portion of the sale of this cookbook benefits No Kid Hungry; a very worthwhile cause that I support and personally battle every single day within my school's struggling community.

Worth Consuming.

Rating: 9 out of 10 stars.

Anna Banana and the Chocolate Explosion! (Family Comic Friday)

Tow-headed moppet Anna Banana has a squad of stuffed animal friends. One sunny day, her pals get really hungry and ask her to teach them how to bake a chocolate cake. But you can expect that with a title like The Chocolate Explosion, there's going to be more mess than baked goods created in the Banana kitchen.

   This was a cute little all ages graphic novel. I was a little concerned that this might be a story book as opposed to a book of sequential art (and not qualify for Family Comic Friday) since it's published more like a very long picture book. But this is a tale told as a comic book, only without panels.

  Written by Moroccan children's writer Dominique Roques (with very imaginative art by Brussels illustrator Alexis Dormal), this was an English translation. So if you are interested in getting this book for your child, make sure you get the English translation if you do not read French. It also explains why some of the narrative seems a little stilted at times as phrases in French probably don't pop as well when translated into English.

 Anna Banana was a delight to read. Very creative and really funny. I loved the stuffed animals, especially Fuzzball, who looks like a tiny but very friendly version of Oscar the Grouch. Come and join the fun with Anna Banana. Just be sure to clean up afterwards.

  Worth Consuming.

   RATING: 9 out of 10 stars.