chocolate

My cousin recently called me up to ask me what her family should get my dad for his birthday. I have a hard enough time figuring out what to get him myself, let alone telling other people what to get him. But then she told me that they were going with consumables as gifts from now on because the members of our family can sometimes be hard to shop for. It occurred to me (although people have been doing this forever) that this was a smart idea.

As the holiday season approaches and the search begins for gifts for those hard-to-shop-for people, consider keeping that idea in mind -- with local, organic, fair trade, and delicious treats. Here are just a few possibilities to get the ball rolling on the shopping list.

Chances are, if you’re a regular visitor to this web site, you proudly support the mission of local, sustainable farms: you’re a member of your neighborhood food co-op; you shop at farmers markets; you subscribe to a regular CSA delivery; you spend your Saturdays crop-mobbing; and you eat in restaurants that are similarly committed to supporting local farmers.

Pat yourself on the back. You’re an informed and conscientious locavore – and darn proud of it. You care about your food’s origin, its environmental impact, and its connection to the community.

So, tell me: Is it possible to honor these values if you eat food that’s not grown within a 100-mile radius, maybe even a 1,000-mile radius, of where you live? Are you able to eat bananas, grapes and chocolate, and drink coffee and tea, with a clear conscience?

To say that Susan Dietrich’s handmade Prairiepeeps are akin to the mass-produced flocks of Peeps found in stores before Easter is like comparing a beautifully roasted, free-range bird to a Chicken McNugget. These are birds of an entirely different feather.

These locally made marshmallow chicks hatched from their creator’s serendipitous craving for s’mores. Dietrich, a chef and co-founder of the Minneapolis artisanal food company Very Prairie, had successfully adapted her grandmother’s oatcake recipe to make graham crackers, which led to thoughts of that classic campfire combination. “It had been years since I had a s’more and I tried them again,” she said. “But once you stand there as a chef with a trained palate, and you taste something that doesn’t live up to it to your memory of it, it’s disappointing.”

Hey, you guys… listen up. Valentine’s Day is this weekend. If you're in a significant relationship, this is the one day every year when you’re expected – no, mandated – to express your undying devotion to that person in your life whom you love more than…
(a)  beer
(b)  pizza
(c)  your dog
(d)  your mother
(e)  all of the above

This is also the day, every year, when there is extra pressure to, um, “perform” like the stud-muffin that you are. In other words, Valentine’s Day would be the wrong time to fall asleep early in front of the TV, dressed in your wife-beater undershirt and ketchup-stained boxers.

I'm not sure how to describe what I've recently tasted from Minneapolis' Rogue Chocolatier. I'm not used to eating chocolate that's as complex as fine wine or beer, as satisfying as a cheese plate, or as rich as King Midas. I know that I'm prone to superlatives, but here I go again: Rogue Chocolatier's Sambirano (the only kind I've tried so far), single-origin chocolate from the Sambirano Valley in Madagascar, is as good as any chocolate I've ever had.