Be careful going directly from beans to the bar, you could awaken in a topic like this one:
Unless your SO likes igniting them after a chilli and bourbon date.
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I make âartisinal chocolateâ nearly every morning after my first cup of coffee. . . or at least, thatâs what I like to call it.
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The comment thread on that guardian article is well worth reading. You can learn that cilantro tastes like soap, and Hersheyâs taste like puke. Itâs like a little sliver of boingboingâs bbs.
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Now thatâs some lies, sweet lies! 
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The Theory of the Leisure Chocolate?
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The DallasFood blog approves of couverture.
Was that unfair of me, putting her on the spot with such a blunt question? Hardly. As Doutre-Roussel has written, âA good chocolatier is proud of his work, and will not hesitate to share with you which couvertures he usesâŠ.â
So what about other chocolatiers? Are they evasive on this question?
They sure donât appear to be. When I started gathering phone numbers from chocolatiersâ web sites to ask them the same questionâjust to see if theyâd dodge, as Merrem had doneâmy efforts were repeatedly cut short, since many of their web sites openly identify their couvertures. The FAQ on Michael Recchiutiâs web page states that he uses E. Guittard, El Rey, and Scharffen Berger. The web site for La Maison du Chocolat states that they use Valrhona exclusively. The FAQ on the Vosges web site states that they use Valrhona, Felchlin, and Belcolade.
Most quality chocolatiers donât play âhide the ballâ on this question. When I visited Jacques Torresâs Brooklyn shop over the Thanksgiving weekend, I asked the girl that was making my hot chocolate whose couverture they used for their single-origin bars. Without hesitation, she replied, âWe use Belcolade for everything.â
After being very impressed with the texture of the ganache in Gale Gandâs truffles at Tru some time back, I sent an e-mail to the restaurantâs general address asking if they could tell me what they used. In less than a day, I received a friendly e-mail from Gand telling me she used Callebaut for the ganache.
When I called Norman Loveâs shop, the gentleman answering told me right away (Felchlin). I received answers just as readily from the first person that picked up the phone at Knipschildtâs order line (Valrhona, Belcolade, and Cluizel) and MarieBelleâs (Valrhona).
An e-mail to Franâs Chocolates was responded to in under two hours (Valrhona, Felchlin, and Callebaut). One to Richard Donnelly was answered personally by Mr. Donnelly within eight hours (Valrhona, Callebaut, and Cacao Barry). Brian McElrath personally responded within eight hours (Vintage Plantations, E. Guittard, Belcolade, et al.). Chuao responded within four hours (El Rey). Garrison Confections responded within twelve hours (Guittard). Lake Champlain Chocolates responded in under four (Callebaut).
In a recent food trip to Portland, I had countless chocolates from several of the cityâs excellent chocolatiers, including SahagĂșn, DePaula, and Alma. All were open about what they used, and it was all quality chocolate (e.g., El Rey, Valrhona, Vintage Plantations, Dagoba, Pralus, et al.). (SahagĂșnâs Elizabeth Montes even had some truffles made with DeVries chocolateâa name that only serious chocolate geeks will recognize and appreciate.)
Calls to several Dallas chocolatiers were equally productive. Morgen Chocolate answered (Barry Callebaut), as did Dallas Chocolates (Callebaut & Belcolade), and Dorian Isenberg of J. Dorian (DGF).
Whatâs absurd is the misrepresentation, not the use of couverture itself.
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It is very much like saying your microbrew is grain to glass, then being evasive that you use Golden Promise from Simpsons.
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Beard : `teens :: Mullet : 80s
The only time beards are acceptable in a secular setting is if itâs Halloween and you are going as Sexy Taliban.
Disagrees. 
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Exception to the rule. But I am sure he will be lumped in with the Hipster Douchebros 10 years from now because they have ruined the beard. They ruined the beardâŠ
âŠyou know after the actual Taliban.
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Time will show that Beards are on the wrong side of history. And all the bearded hipsters, with fecal bacteria hanging around their necks, and all the nerds and degenerates will lookup and shout, âShave us!â and Iâll whisper âNO!â.
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Yeah well aware. But many sites that are re-reporting it are rotely dismissive of Valrhona and bulk chocolate of any sort. Rolling them in with Hershey and other mass market cheap confection companies. Which is a really poor comparison, and really misrepresents how chocolate is made and the way the market works. The Mast Brothers werenât passing an inferior, cheap industrial chocolate off as a more expensive, high quality product. They were passing a high quality, expensive, but readily available product off as something theyâd made themselves.
Hell good wholesale or couverture chocolate isnât appreciably lower quality than the artisanal bars that are coming out these days. Its sort of our baseline for good chocolate, you need to meet or exceed what these guys can produce to get that mark of quality. Frankly for Valrhona I canât really speak to where they stand in terms of these sorts of producers, I never really got much out of their retail products. They didnât stand out much to me. But I know that many of your couverture companies have been packaging eating chocolate for the retail market. And in some cases those products arenât really as good or the same as what they push wholesale. Ghirardelli for example. Now I really do like their retail products, thereâs some tasty stuff there and its of pretty good quality. But we used to knick their couverture and bulk chocolate from a pastry chef friend of mine, and its a lot better than the stuff they sell in stores. A lot of us would reach for the Ghirardelli couverture wafers he kept on hand over nearly any bar chocolate on offer. Regardless of how well regarded, fancified or expensive.
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sure, if you like the prepubescent twink look.
Whatever you were doing with your beard or someone elseâs beard that resulted in fecal matter being deposited there, you were doing it wrong.
Unless you intended it, then, have at it.
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Maybe itâs a way to say beards are da shit?
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That box lies. You should never, ever eat those dates. Like @Stynx said, medjoul, or kimia. I thought I didnât like dates til I tasted proper ones.
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All that. Now I like my chocolate, just chocolate, no sea salt, cheese, caramel, coffee, nibs, nothing - just smooth chocolate. Of all the chocolates Iâve eaten the best have almost always been the top end mass produced ones, with Guittard being my favorite. I donât care about bean to bar or who you are using as your chocolate source, because if you canât at least match what the mass produced companies are doing in terms of pure chocolate then try harder. âArtisanalâ stuff has a tendency to irritate me, not because itâs more expensive, but because somehow it being artisanal automatically means itâs better. Yeah, no.
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