Adventures in Advent: Advent 2024, Day 2

Today's featured Advent calendar is currently available in Costco. Only you have to go to the Costco superstores in Europe in order to buy it and that's even if you can afford it.

The chocolatier Lindt released for 2024 an Advent calendar that is 5 feet tall. Selling for £180 ($228.10 American), this controversial Advent had made quite a buzz on social media. It barely fits inside a standard shopping cart. People who video themselves attempting to buy the kit can barely lift it. And if critics are the be believed, there's hardly any candy inside.

The calendar has 24 offerings. So you don't even get a prize on Christmas! Most of the chocolate are bon bons. There's a couple of Lindy reindeer which appear to use the same mold as the Lindt Easter rabbit candy. (That's the rumor, anyway.)  Also included are several signature Lindt chocolate teddy bears and no less than 4 2-inch tall chocolate Father Christmas treats.

Many are calling this Advent calendar a giant scam. The doors hiding the candies are 3 times the size of the chocolates awaiting inside the box. Folks are unhappy with the amount of repeats. Plus one mathematical critic went and compared prices with a store in the UK and found that the goodies found inside had a retail value of just under £90 (that's just over $114 American.) So basically you'll be paying half of the price in just packaging, most of which isn't recyclable!

As inviting as this calendar looked based on shear size alone, I think I'd be better off if I bought 24 random chocolates at the Lindt store at the mall in Greensboro, NC, bagged them up and randomly withdrew a piece each day up until Christmas. I'd go one better and buy an extra piece to enjoy on December 25th. I know it certainly be easier on my wallet doing that way!

A Hard Candy Christmas: Advent 2023, DAY 23

As you have probably figured out, I love peanut butter. I've already highlighted two candies that utilize it as well as a third candy that contains peanuts. Well for today's Advent, I am going to pay homage to the candy that started me on a lifelong obsession with peanut butter candy. It's the Peanut Butter Kringles made by Palmer.

Kringles are these round chocolate balls filled with an uber-smooth peanut butter. Wrapped in gold, red or most commonly green foil, Kringles are supposed to represent the jingle bells found on Santa's sleigh.

The Palmer Candy Company has been around since 1948. If you must have a chocolate bunny for Easter, chances are you bought one made by Palmer. The company is known more for its style than substance. Palmer makes tons of eye-catching treats like krispie filled eyeballs for Halloween, foil wrapped chocolate hearts with G-rated suggestive sayings along with scores of colorful Christmas treats.

I don't mean to slight Palmer. But I consider Palmer's products to be what families struggling to get by have for the holidays and the company's ingredients prove this. Compare Palmer's chocolate with Hershey's chocolate. For both ingredient #1 is sugar. However with Hershey's ingredient #2 is milk whereas Palmer's loads their chocolate up with palm oil. 

Now palm and palm kernel oil is great for getting chocolate to hold it's shape. This is why Reese's trees come out looking like turds and yet a Palmer Easter Rabbit will never melt in the box at room temperature. So if you are looking for candies with great visual appeal, Palmer is who you need to work with.

As for saying that poor people buy Palmers, I take great pride in that statement. Until about age 9, I got Palmer Kringles as well as other amazing treats made by them every Christmas, Easter and Halloween. My dad couldn't hold a steady job. So my mom, who was a nurse, did her best utilizing discount stores like K-Mart and Roses which sold Palmer products.

Once my dad got a regular job, we moved into a house, bought more extravagant things. Over time, Palmer's Kringles were replaced by Reese's. And though I think Reese's peanut butter is one of the most perfect ingredients ever crafted, I still remember Kringles and it's sister products quite fondly. Heck, sometimes I find myself missing that distinctive tang of a Palmer's Kringle. It might not have been the top shelf chocolate but it was the chocolate I cut my teeth on and I thank the workers at Palmer for their products.

A Hard Candy Christmas: Advent 2023, DAY 20

Until I graduated high school and started working at the mall the day after Christmas, my December 26ths were filled with tackling the after Christmas sales with my mom and grandparents. We'd hit every Hallmark store in Wake County. Then we'd take on the Woolworth's at both Crabtree Valley Mall and North Hills Mall. I remember that the North Hills location folded some time before 1990 when my sister was born. But until then, we'd take full advantage of amazing deals pennies on the dollar for a variety of decent quality holiday stuff that nobody was willing to pay full price for. I recall that one year I was able to build a complete nativity scene with wise men, camels, shepherds and even an angel for like $5. I also vividly reflect buying the confection for today's Advent posting: Anthon Berg Liquor Filled Chocolates.

Woolworth's after Christmas sales involved the use of these metal bins in which the overstock was dumped into. There were dozens of bins. The employees would take packages of candy canes, ornament sets, and other bulk items, break them open and drop them into sections priced at 5, 10, 25 and 50 cents. Every year I would dig through those bins, learning early on how to become a bargain hunter. As I dug, I would find these tiny little bottles wrapped in colorful foil. They looked like miniature versions of the colorful glass bottles my dad would keep on the very top shelf of his study.

I asked my mom what they were and she told me that they were chocolates filled with liquid that tasted like alcohol. I asked her is I could buy some as I had accumulated some money from distant relatives as Christmas gifts the day before. My mom said it was okay since it wasn't really alcohol. So over the course of the next hour or so, I dug through bins until I found one of every variety of those chocolates I could find. I usually found about 10 or 12 different ones each year. As each one was priced at 10 cents each, it only set me back about a $1.25 with tax at the most. 

On the ride home, I would always unwrap my favorite one first to devour on the ride to our next destination, which was more often than not, Crabtree Mall. I loved the silver foil versions that bored the image of a colorful man dressed in red and yellow standing in front of what was clearly the London skyline. (Thank you, Disney's Peter Pan!) The bottle brand was called Beefeater and it promised to taste like a strange brew called gin. Only what my mom didn't know was that there really was alcohol in those chocolates. 4-5% proof alcohol!!!

I was annually buying liqour at a age of anywhere from probably 7-12 years of age. I wasn't being carded. No cashier ever seemed to raise an eyebrow. And considering how much of a teetotaling Baptist my mother was, if she knew that these chocolates really contained alcohol, there would be no way in the world she'd let me buy them!

These days, there's nothing to stop me from purchasing these liquor filled delights. Except for not being able to find them anywhere! The one shop that carried them closed several years ago. I tried ordering some through the mail. That was a disaster as they came half broken and with the liqueur all dried up into this hard sugar crust. If anyone has any suggestions, I'm up for a quick drive because I really miss not having these boozy confections.

A Hard Candy Christmas: Advent 2023, DAY 18

In 1993 the Hershey Company changed the chocolate and peanut butter holiday game with the introduction of the Reese's Christmas Tree. My stocking was filled with 3 or 4 of these the year they debuted and since it's Christmas morn inception I was hooked.

Reese's Christmas Trees don't taste differently than a Reese's peanut butter cup. However the ratio of chocolate to peanut butter is clearly in the favor of the peanut butter lover. A Reese's cup has solid ridges of chocolate and the top shell is quite dense. With the Reese's Christmas tree (as well as the Halloween pumpkins), there's an even coating of softer chocolate covering a mass of gritty rich peanut butter. No thick chunks of milk chocolate here folks. And for someone who loves their Reese's frozen, it's much easier on the teeth.

There's been a bit of a controversy with the Reese's Christmas Trees. In years passed, customers have complained about the shape of the tree in years past with reports that it looks more scatological in nature than a lush evergreen. Reese's has admitted to the previous design flaws . But really I've not noticed any sort of change that made these candies look more like a Frasier fir. I really don't care how it looks. As long as there's more peanut butter than chocolate, I will continue to devour Reese's trees for my annual holiday eats!

Oh, and another thing! Don't try to pass off a white chocolate Christmas tree on me. They're just as poor a substitute as that hideous white artificial tree my mom used to have and they should both be condemned as crimes against Christmas!

A Hard Candy Christmas: Advent 2023, DAY 17

 Today's post brings back some fond memories of a small town Christmas. My Grandmama was born in a town in Eastern North Carolina called Middlesex. It was such a small, out of the way place that in the 1980s and 90s, it seemed like the rest of the world had passed it by. 

Middlesex's only grocery store was an IGA that still used the original signage and displays from when it opened in the 1950s. The local pharmacy carried generic comic books from publishers I had never heard of as well as wrestling mags promoting superstars I'd never seen on TV before. The video store carried Betamax videos in a world that had gone VHS. As for the general store, it had a wooden plank floor that could have doubled as dirt with all the dried red clay carried in from the boots of generations of farmers. 

Side view of that old General Store with a modern mural added.

The owners of these small businesses might not have had a lot. Yet their efforts to decorate for the holidays were more impactful to me than any CEO's mansion on Madison Avenue. Anemic gold garland and unraveling red satin balls hung from the ceiling of each small store. Dime store decorations of plastic reindeer with ballerina-like legs lined the service counters. The bank had faux wrapped presents underneath an even less realistic artificial tree lined with a strand of the tiniest colored lights ever crafted. Only 5 of the lights ever blinked. And then there was my favorite store in Middlesex: the general store.

Just like every other shop in Middlesex, the general store was owned by a distant relative of my grandmama's. I think he was a cousin of her's. Only the windows of the general store were decorated for Christmas. Fake snow edged each corner. The latest sleds, a teddy bear or two and a plastic Santa Claus head were the only indications that December 25th was soon approaching. But it was the display case that drew my attention for our annual pre-Christmas visit to Middlesex. After visiting her mother at her childhood home and then her sister who worked at the bank, my Grandmama took me over to the general store for there amazing assortment of penny candy.

Dozens of old fashioned candies filled the glass display case next to the register. I've already talked about the ribbon candy I would foolish buy, thinking it tasted a whole lot better than it looked (in case you missed that post, it didn't.) A couple other things I like to buy will appear in future postings. Of those candies, one of my all-time favs were the Chocolate Covered Peanuts. And these peanuts weren't just covered with a thin layer of confection, these things were double-dipped! Each peanut was lightly dusted with salt. That saline tang was the perfect contrast with that rich milk chocolate. 

Despite being called penny candy, everything behind the candy counter at the Middlesex General Store was 99 cents a pound. Each year, I was allowed to buy a dollar's worth of candy. I usually got a quarter pound the ribbon candy, a quarter pound of other hard candy and 4 bits worth of chocolate covered peanuts. All filled in a single brown paper bag. Being family, the owner of the store always gave me a little bit extra with the chocolate covered peanuts. 

Going from Middlesex back to Raleigh, NC seemed to take forever. Especially back then when a lot of those time-saving highways had yet to be paved. I would make a huge dent in my inventory of chocolate covered peanuts. Oddly enough, I always had enough ribbon candy to choke a horse. I see that question about if you could tell yourself as a kid one thing, I think my advice would be to 'Skip the ribbon candy. Stock up on chocolate covered peanuts!'

A Hard Candy Christmas: Advent 2023, DAY 16

The focus of today's Advent is a candy that I looked forward to because of it's unique flavor profile. Made from a blend of chocolate and carob, these candies bear a distinctive malt flavor which I absolutely love. I'm talking about Sixlets.

Created in 1960 by the highly underrated Leaf company, these candy shell coated treats have many theories as to their name. Some think it's because of the 6 colors that the candy originally came in: red, green, yellow, orange, brown and blue. They must have discontinued blue because A) I don't remember it and B) current photos on the Internet only have the first 5 colors in the assortment. Others believe that it's because they were originally sold in a 6 pack cellophane tube in vending machines; a half dozen for only a penny.

The way I received Sixlets as a kid was inside of a plastic tube in the shape of a candy cane. Many a Christmas morning, I found one of those Sixlets candy canes hanging from our tree. I also would get on filled with M&Ms. But I preferred the Sixlets. I never really knew why until I was researching candies for this Advent. I love a chocolate malted and based on what I learned about the Sixlet blend of chocolate and carob, which is a dark brown bean pod with  molasses overtones, from the Mediterranean, it all makes sense know why I like the Sixlets candy canes versus the M&M variety.

These days, Sixlets candy canes are filled with a Christmas mix of red, green and white. In my youth, the canes were filled with the autumn looking colors. If you were to offer my the holiday mix, I'd eat them. I'd probably even enjoy them. But no matter how you presented it to me, if just wouldn't be the same.

A Hard Candy Christmas: Advent 2023, DAY 13

I am addicted to cherries. But being diabetic, I limit myself to them. Especially the maraschino ones. Yet for today's Advent, I'm going to let myself indulge a little bit as I explore Chocolate Covered Cherries in all there various forms.

According to Wikipedia, those differing types of Triple C's include:

cherry cordials with liquid fillings often including cherry liqueur, as well as chocolate-covered candied cherries and chocolate-covered dried cherries.

Christmas and Valentines seemed to be the only times of year these confections appeared in the homes of my parents and grandparents. Typically, I would get a small pack of chocolate covered cherries. The ones with the tiniest cherry of all time and that creamy pink filling. I HATED THOSE! My adult family members would receive the liqueur filled cordials. Because of the alcohol, I was only allowed 1 to try every year. But they were so good!

I'm going to go a little blue now. But what I am about to reveal is 100% true. My grandmama (on my dad's side) used to do chocolate work every year in anticipation of her annual Christmas Eve party. She'd make chocolate covered cherries by the dozen for those who were coming to the holiday bash. But for her family, including her grand kids, she'd make us Dolly Parton chocolate suckers where each ample bosom was filled with a maraschino cherry! It's definitely a story I should never share with my students. But I apologetically admit that I devoured quite a few of those chocolate cherries on a stick as a child!

A Hard Candy Christmas: Advent 2023, DAY 10

Earlier in this Advent, I mentioned that as a kid, I could always count on Hickory Farms and the Swiss Colony for an annual assortment of holiday treats. I've already devoted some time to Hickory Farms. Now it's time for the Swiss Colony. Now before I start, I want to point out that the Swiss Colony is now called Colony Brands. But for the sake of this blog and my fond holiday memories, I'm still calling them Swiss Colony. 

The Swiss Colony was started in Wisconsin in 1926. The name came about because of the large population of Swiss immigrants in the area and the state's reputation for making cheese. And while I am a huge fan of their port wine cheese spread and the similar chopped nut covered cheese ball, this Advent is about candy. The Swiss are also renowned for their chocolate and man, does the Swiss Colony make some darn fine chocolate. And for me, it just wasn't Christmas if some of my chocolate wasn't in the shape of an adorable mouse.

In 1958, the Swiss Colony hired artist Helen Endres to create a mascot for the company. Her creation was Chris Mouse, a little grey rodent with a white muzzle, a patchy tuff of grey hair and the cutest round little ears you've ever seen. At first Chris Mouse was dressed in European style lederhosen. But soon, he was decked out in a tiny Santa suit and became the cover star of the Swiss Colony holiday catalog which soon became colloquially known as the Chris Mouse Catelog! Along with order books, Chris Mouse has graced tins, ornaments and chocolates!

Every year, during our annual visit to Crabtree Valley Mall, after mom and dad ordered what they needed for their Thanksgiving and Christmas parties, I'd walk away with a small block of chocolate in the shape of Chris Mouse. It was so smooth, rich and creamy. Sadly, before the 1980s were through, Swiss Colony became a Mister Dunderbak's. But don't feel bad for me. As the Swiss Colony switched over to a mail order only business, my folks were still placing an annual order of holiday goodies which included that delicious festive mouse! I'm getting hungry just thinking about them!

Hmmmm... I might need to place an order for myself.

A Hard Candy Christmas: Advent 2023, DAY 8

Today's candy is something my mother would make every year and they were delicious. When it came to cooking, my mom had 2 styles: burnt and more burnt. That's because as a nurse, she was terrified of food borne illnesses. So she overcooked everything. But when it came to baking, she was amazing. Now, technically, Chocolate Covered Pretzels are not baked goods. But it fits in with her excellent skills in making sweets. 

This type of treat might not be such a big deal these days as you can go to just about any pharmacy, gas station and grocer and big up a bag of chocolate covered pretzels. But until the 1990s, there were only 2 ways to get chocolate covered pretzels; you either got them at a gourmet shop or you made them. And every Christmas, my mom made them.

My mom made chocolate covered pretzels in several different varieties. Typically, she used pretzel rods. But she'd make a few out of the the typical bow shape pretzel as well. Milk chocolate wasn't the only covering she'd use. Some pretzels would be enrobed in white chocolate. But only the pretzel rods would get the treatment of both milk and white chocolate! 

Colored sugar sprinkles would only be used on the white and combination chocolate pretzels. However, she did something a little unique by adding a little salt to the sprinkles to increase the salty counter to the sweetness of the chocolates. I loved the sprinkles due to that extra touch of sodium. As for deciding between white and milk, I couldn't make a decision on which was the best. However, if I had a choice, I would go for a pretzel rod all the way! Not gonna lie. One of the reasons for that decision is because with the rod, I'd pretend I was smoking a real long cigar. Who says you can't play with your food???

A Hard Candy Christmas: Advent 2023 DAY 7

As I do every year with my Advent, I devote a day to Hanukkah. Tonight will mark the first night of the Jewish holiday and this year with what is happening in Israel, I hope that despite your political feelings, you'll understand that I celebrate the holiday due to my wife's heritage. Tonight's post isn't to infuriate but to celebrate. And to remember...

The school I went to for grades 1-5 had an annual Christmas pageant. The theme every year was 'Christmases Around the World'. First grade celebrated Mexico. I think third grade was England. One grade did Sweden, because I remember that every year one girl would dress as Saint Lucy and walk around the stage with lit candles in her hair. But the grade everybody wanted to be in for the program was fifth grade as that was the year you'd celebrate Hanukkah.

All of the girls in that class would sing the Dreidel Song while all the boys got to participate in the most holiday of activities- gambling! Let's face it. The dreidel game is a gateway drug to betting on sports and playing cards for money. Each boy would get a handful of chocolate coins covered in gold foil called gelts. Then in groups of 4, while the girls sang, we'd play dreidel for the coins. And we got to keep AND eat what we won!

The rules of the game are simple and not much is needed to play. But if you don't have a dreidel, then you're pretty much out of luck. 

There are 4 sides to the dreidel with a Hebrew symbol on each face. After each participant puts a gelt into the pot, a player spins the top. If it lands with nun facing up, the player gets nothing and the next turn starts. Everyone antes up before each spin. If player #2 spins a gimel, he wins all the candy in the pot. If they spin hei, they win half of the pot. If they spin shin, they have to add another gelt to the pot. You basically play until somebody wins all the gelts or in the case of our holiday show, until the song stops. I don't remember how much I won. But I know that for the rest of the program, I was snacking on chocolate.

Gelts are a requirement in our household during Hanukkah. Not that my wife plays dreidel. Heck, I don't even think we have a dreidel anywhere in our house. It's become a tradition because her grandmother would gift her a bag of the chocolates every year and though Jan didn't understand the meaning behind the confections back then, it's been a way for us to keep her few Hanukkah traditions alive. 

A Hard Candy Christmas: Advent 2023 DAY 2

The candy featured in today's Advent is why I am so hooked on Advent calendars and do them annually. It's the Advent Calendar from Lindt Chocolates. My mom got me one of these every year to help the month-long anticipation of the holiday pass just a little bit smoother. Started in the 1950s, the confectioner started producing these beautiful little boxes with holiday scenes on them. Each day, you find the right number on the box, pull the flap on the scene and there would be a tiny morsel of chocolate. Usually the chocolates were of holiday shapes like stockings, gifts and candy canes. If I recall correctly, I think the chocolate on the 25th was a slightly bigger piece in the shape of Santa.

I remember getting one of these every year until I was about 16. By then, my much younger sister would be the one getting the Advent calendar and the chocolates to eat as I felt like I was too old for such a thing. But little did I know that my love for Advent calendars would live on. It's a fondness for those happy childhood memories that continues in my dedication in producing an advent on this blog every year. While I know that my posts are nowhere near as sweet or addictive as that rich piece of Lindt chocolate, hopefully, they've brought my readers joy over the years. But it's the thought that counts. Right?

Candy Freak: A Journey Through the Chocolate Underbell of America by Steve Almond

A chance tour of a candy factory inspires creative writing professor and self-proclaimed candy freak, Steve Almond to explore the world of candy bars. Instead of focusing on the Big 3- Hershey's, Mars and Nestle, Almond will check out some of the few remaining independent candy manufacturers still in existence. In his confectionery tour across America, the author will discover new flavors, examine the challenges these small businesses face and brainstorm new strategies for survival. 

When Steve Almond writes about his candy tours, he's a great writer. However, the author poetically waxes way too much about other subjects. For example, this book was written during the election of 2004 and while he awaits the next plane that will continue his foodie work-vacay, Almond watches the results of the primaries and I think the whole sch-bang between W. and John Kerry. I completely understand why he mentions this as Almond talks with fellow travelers and air stewards about their love of candy during his trek. Yet, the writer also spends about 5 pages talking about the administration of Bush 43 being the new Nazi party and that's just 5 pages too long for a book that's supposed to be devoted to one's love of candy. 

When it comes to Steve Almond's love of candy, the journalist gets really in depth with his personal history. REALLY in-depth. I don't need to know how the wordsmith used a candy bar to measure the length of his teenage erection. I don't need to know of his carnal exploits with chocolate and his past lovers. But I did enjoy learning about the old school candies he bought as a kid. 

Steve Almond grew up in the late 60s through the 70s. This is like the golden age of candy. Sure, there have been candy bars since just after the Civil War. But the rules of marketing and advertising towards kids changed during Almond's childhood and that made for a quantum leap in the types of unique sugary treats that were created just for kids. Bubblicious bubble gum, Ring Pops, Blow Pops, Jelly Belly jelly beans, Reese's Pieces and Pop Rocks came out during this period of pop culture history. Sour candies were still a decade away but Almond got to grow up during America's introduction to the gummi candies of Germany! And of course, this was the age of Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory and all of the amazing treats that sprung off from that cult classic film!

Unfortunately, the writer doesn't seem to mention anything about the Gene Wilder movie that was so inspirational to my youth. Maybe that's my story to tell. One inspiration however that I gained from Steve Almond, was to go on a search for some of the candy bars that the author discovered while researching this book. I spent an entire weekend in the mountains of North Carolina looking for things like the Peanut Chew and Valomilks in the candy shops/tourist traps of Maggie Valley and Waynesville, NC. I got bupkis. However, I can say that my trip wasn't ruined as my wife's hankering for Cracker Barrel led me to find several of the candies Steve Almond learned about in the 'Old Country Store' section of the Mebane, NC location. 

I'm reading books about the culinary and food industries to increase my knowledge for my continuing education as well as being able to help my culinary students with their questions about all things epicurean. It's to my great lament that while I can cull things about candy I found in this book into some of my lectures, I cannot in good conscious add this book to the bookshelf I have of books for my students to borrow. I think I could get away with his use of the F-word. I mean, that's both Chef Gordon Ramsey and the late Anthony Bourdain's favorite word. If only Steve Almond hadn't talked so much about sex...

Lastly, I need to mention something about the cover that irks me. Having a generalized anxiety disorder and being a professional Chef and culinary instructor, I strive for bold and eye-appealing designs that have a touch of balance. I love that the letters of this book are all taken from different candy bars. A clever little visual puzzle for readers to figure out. What I absolutely hate is that the N in Candy and the F in Freak are taken from the same type of candy bar. Why does a cover with 10 letters only have 9 different fonts? This sort of thing makes my brain just itch to no end!

Worth Consuming!

Rating: 7 out of 10 stars.

The Secrets of Chocolate (2022 Comic Book & Graphic Novel Challenge)

French comic book creator Franckie Alarcon is given the assignment of a lifetime! He's to follow confectioner Chef Jacques Genin for a year in order to create a graphic novel that unlocks the mysteries of Chocolate! During his time, Franckie will learn how cocoa beans turn into cocoa and then later chocolate. He'll explore the challenges chocolatiers face both professionally and personally during the holiday rushes of Christmas, Easter and Halloween. 

After the holiday rush, Franckie spends a week as an intern at Chef Genin's chocolate works. The pace is grueling. Then Franckie heads east to Peru to visit a fully operational cocoa plantation while being introduced to the global initiatives of fair trade and eco-friendly indigenous farming techniques and the protection of endangered heirloom crops.

I found Alarcon's book fascinating. As a professional chef and culinary instructor, I find it increasingly difficult to get high-schoolers to want to read. So, I am on the lookout for alternative texts in order to teach cooking techniques to them. And I know that I at least learned a lot. Unfortunately, due to a scene involving 'sexual chocolate', I don't think I'll be able to use this book in schools.

There are 2 types of chefs in the world. Bakers and those who can do everything else. I am not a baker. But I can do chocolate work. Still, despite being able to do it, I've had trouble trying to understand some of the process. Thanks to Franckie's illustrations, I understand the cocoa development process. Though, I still don't know why white chocolate isn't chocolate if it has cocoa butter in it! 

Chefs have very strong opinions about work ethic, food, taste and quality. Chef Genin and his sous chef, Sophie are not afraid to share theirs! And they pass along a few recipes as well. One thing to keep in mind is that all of the recipes are based on the metric system. I'll need to use the Google measurement converter tool before I tackle some of them however.

When it came to the recipes, I had trouble with Chef Genin's definition of a praline. His have zero nuts of any kind in them. I checked and both American, French and Belgian praline recipes call for nuts- just different types. All Genin's pralines call for are butter, sugar and fruit. No nuts and No chocolate! For a book about the revelations of chocolate, Franckie Alarcon spends a lot of time on a cocoa-less confection!

Franckie also eats a ton of chocolate. Considering how much the author eats in a year, I'll never understand how he didn't gain any weight. That is unless he took a lot of liberties and decided to not drawn himself getting bigger over time!

Though The Secrets of Chocolate debuted in American retail outlets last year, this book is actually a lot older. Alarcon's quest occurred between 2013-14. It then was published a few months later in French. This book probably would have come overseas sooner if not for the pandemic. 

I really enjoyed this book. Though it wasn't a bad read I had to take my time with it. It was very technically and quite philosophical. Plus, I feel like too much time was spent on non-chocolate candies. That being said, I'm actually looking forward to more time with Franckie Alarcon. His Art of Sushi dropped just last month and upon completing this visual journal of sugary delights, I placed an order for it at my favorite LCS.

A shining star in the growing trend of culinary graphic novels.

Worth Consuming!

Rating: 8 out of 10 stars.

Completing this review completes Task #44 of the 2022 Comic Book and Graphic Novel Reading Challenge. 'About Cooking/Food.'