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“I prefer the delicate flavor profile in Criollo or Porcelana." She loved the Venezuela chocolate, which her mother had favored, too. It blended well with violet and bergamot, equally smooth flavors that created the lightest of delicacies.”

Quote by Jan Moran

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The Chocolatier

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Jan Moran

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“Celina surveyed her inventory. Candied lemon and orange slices dipped in chocolate, roasted coffee beans enrobed in dark chocolate, and coconut confections enveloped in milk chocolate. Petite Coeurs with a crème fraîche and raspberry liqueur filling, rum-spiked caramels covered in milk chocolate, bittersweet espresso truffles studded with crushed Sicilian pistachios. For her seaside fantasy collection, the antique cast iron molds had yielded whimsical chocolate shells and seahorses. Within clam shells formed from chocolate were nestled pearls of white chocolate. Among the delicacies were her trademark stars: creamy milk chocolate, dark chocolate filled with peppermint-flavored crème fraîche, and white chocolate iced with candied lemon peel.”

“My mom hates to cook," Rosie said. "But every time she's had to go to a potluck, she brings one thing. A trifle she makes, with brownies and pudding and candy and whipped cream." Rosie had plated her dessert into two glasses- she was pretty sure they were champagne coupes- and the two chefs poised their spoons at the rim of the glasses. "This is my version of my mom's trifle. Made with moelleux au chocolat, chocolate mousse, vanilla whipped cream, and chocolate feuilletine between each layer." Rosie loved moelleux au chocolat. The internet seemed to translate it as molten chocolate cake, but every moelleux au chocolat Rosie had had in Paris wasn't like a molten chocolate cake at all, but like the richest, fudgiest brownie on the planet. Which made it the perfect base for her trifle. And then the feuilletine, Rosie thought, would give the same crunch as a Kit Kat.”

“Did you take part in the chocolate production directly?" she asks, without quite knowing why. Maybe because she can't imagine his bulky fists tinkering with soft caramel and finely ground licorice powder. "Oh, yes. Every step in the process. White chocolate, milk chocolate, dark chocolate." A much younger man smiles through the wrinkles surrounding his brown eyes. "There isn't a sweet temptation that doesn't lure me in." Ingrid has to smile back, feels the optimism like a gust breezing through her. No, like a taste on her tongue! Wildrid can feel the saliva pooling behind her teeth: soft mint spreading out on the back of her tongue, salty caramel sticking to her molars. Chili chocolate burning the inside of her cheeks, rum cream with ginger melting down her throat. "Pineapple truffle!" she says. "Mango nougat! Marzipan-covered kiwi!" Johnny looks at her and chuckles. "I thought you said you wanted to start slowly and carefully?" The others grow quiet and Ingrid stops, embarrassed by her outburst. An erotic poem wrapped in cellophane.”

“Lifting her nose to the air, she detected the aroma of licorice. "Anisette, isn't it?" With the edges of Lauro's lips twitching upward, he nodded. "You have a good nose." "Have you tried Amaretto?" With her imagination piqued, the scent of bitter almonds, sweetened in liqueur, swirled in her mind. "Yes, of course." "Perhaps in a creamy caramel center." Lauro met her faraway gaze and held it, two minds whirring with creativity. "Dark or milk chocolate?" he asked. "Dark... this time. With zest of orange as a finishing touch." "A little apricot?" "Oh, yes..." She could taste it on her lips.”

“Inspired by the traditions of Piedmont comes a handcrafted, milk chocolate gianduiotto truffle speckled with roasted hazelnuts. This is to honor my late husband's family, the Savoias." When Sara and Carmine sampled the truffles and nodded their approval, Celina breathed a sigh of relief. "Next, we'll sample the sweet lemon flavor of sfusato amalfitano, formed in the shape of lemons and dusted with sea salt to enhance the flavor." After explaining her inspiration for this local favorite and receiving approval, she gestured to Karin and moved on to the next one. "This one is a twist on basil, mint, and limoncello. These flavors are enrobed in rich, dark Venezuelan chocolate. I import the cacao beans and roast them downstairs in my kitchen." Surprise crossed a few faces, followed with growing delight. Celina continued. "Next, you'll sample a truffle infused with blood orange and topped with roasted pistachios from Sicily, and sweetened with Madagascar vanilla.”

“There is a kind of alchemy in the transformation of base chocolate into this wise fool's-gold, a layman's magic that even my mother might have relished. As I work, I clear my mind, breathing deeply. The windows are open, and the through-draft would be cold if it were not for the heat of the stoves, the copper pans, the rising vapor from the melting couverture. The mingled scents of chocolate, vanilla, heated copper, and cinnamon are intoxicating, powerfully suggestive; the raw and earthy tang of the Americas, the hot and resinous perfume of the rain forest. This is how I travel now, as the Aztecs did in their sacred rituals: Mexico, Venezuela, Columbia. The court of Montezuma. Cortez and Columbus. The Food of the Gods, bubbling and frothing in ceremonial goblets. The bitter elixir of life.”

“You ought to make something for Easter. You know. Eggs and stuff. Chocolate hens, rabbits, things like that. Like the shops in Agen." I remember them from my childhood; the Paris chocolateries with their baskets of foil-wrapped eggs, shelves of rabbits and hens, bells, marzipan fruits and marrons glacés, amourettes and filigree nests filled with petits fours and caramels, and a thousand and one epiphanies of spun-sugar magic carpet rides more suited to an Arabian harem than the solemnities of the Passion. "I remember my mother telling me about the Easter chocolates." There was never enough money to buy those exquisite things, but I always had my own cornet-surprise, a paper cone containing my Easter gifts, coins, paper flowers, hard-boiled eggs painted in bright enamel colors, a box of colored papier-mâché- painted with chickens, bunnies, smiling children among the buttercups, the same every year and stored carefully for the next time- encasing a tiny packet of chocolate raisins wrapped in cellophane, each one to be savored, long and lingeringly, in the lost hours of those strange nights between cities, with the neon glow of hotel signs blink-blinking between the shutters and my mother's breathing, slow and somehow eternal, in the umbrous silence.”