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Monday, November 16, 2009
Drop the guilt, and drink some chocolate
Drinking chocolate is one of Spain’s gastronomic gems.
The indulgent drink is more like pudding than what Americans consider hot chocolate and is widely consumed in Spain, often at breakfast with pastries or churros, or fried sticks of dough similar to doughnuts.
At 5 grams of fat and 200 calories per 3/4 cup, the drink has half the fat of a chocolate bar and about the same number of calories. You also can serve it on top of ice cream or as a fondue dip with fruit, graham crackers or marshmallows. Available at Cost Plus World Market (13.52 ounces for $3.99, 30 ounces for $10.00) or online.
I hold Valor near and dear to my heart because when I lived in Spain, I got to visit their Willy Wonka-esque factory in Villajoyosa, which isn’t far from my adopted hometown of Alicante. Valor Chocolates have been around since 1881, and the company has a museum of chocolate right next to its production facility, which smells exactly like you’d think a chocolate factory smells. (I remember not needing to try any of the free chocolate “bonbons” because the sweet smell of sugar and cocoa was enough to satiate my craving.)
Fact: For centuries, the only way you could consume chocolate was by drinking it. The Mayans first explored the uses of cacao, and it wasn’t until the 1800s that Europeans figured out how to solidify liquid chocolate, thus making the first chocolate bar.
There are several other drinking chocolates around, but this was the first I tried that gave me flashbacks to the kind of chocolate that madrileños have become famous for drinking in the wee hours of the morning after a long night out eating, drinking and dancing.
Now if only I could find some authentic churros…
Photos from Ensee on Flickr and Valor.
Permalink | Comments (4) | Post your comment Categories: Desserts
Austin company lets you design own wine label
At least once a week, someone proposes on the label of a bottle of wine, says Alex Andrawes, founder of Austin-based PersonalWine.com, a site that allows people to order customized wine labels.
If it’s not a proposal, it’s a birthday wish, congratulations or thank-you note sent on a bottle of wine shipped from Andrawes’ East Austin office. (He even recalls a label with a picture of someone flashing the middle finger that was sent to a former boss. That bottle spawned a slew of bottles sent to ex-bosses from people who had been fired.)
But Andrawes, who above is standing in front of a wall with every label they’ve printed this year, isn’t just selling any wines he can get his hands on. Ever since the 33-year-old started the company in 2001, he’s been buying from winemakers around the world directly, using his palate to find sophisticated, yet accessible wines that no one would be embarrassed to give their boss, fiancee or mother-in-law.
Bottles start at about $20, which includes a label that you can either upload, design on the Web site or have one of Andrawes’ in-house artists create for you. Etching is also available on any bottle in stock. Andrawes also runs Wines.com, a discount retail site with a discussion forum.
Last week, I was a guest on the first of Andrawes’ twice-weekly “winecast” on Ustream, which also featured John Antonelli, a local cheese expert who is in the middle of opening Antonelli’s Cheese Shop in Hyde Park. (The store isn’t open yet, but when it is, Antonelli and his wife plan to showcase some of the finest cheeses in town.)
Tune in at 2 p.m. on Tuesdays and Thursdays on Personal Wine’s Ustream channel to see who else Andrawes brings to the table.
Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment Categories: Beer/Wine/Spirits
