After a month-long hiatus from The Tasty Show blog, I'm back with this tidbit I found on Boing Boing today. A fascinating inside look at TCHO Chocolate's curious chocolate laboratory. TCHO Chocolate founder Timothy Childs talks about his converted turkey ovens, how he plans to run the chocolate factory from his iPhone, and NASA's role in it all, among other things. Also, at 4:58 there is an awesome explanation of what is really happening when chocolate is tempered. Note that this is the second part of a 3 part Boing Boing series. The first part can be viewed here.

As of right now, the adorable and delicious Tasty Show Chocolate Tasting Kit for Two is available online in the Tasty Boutique. I am totally thrilled. A short blurb about the kit that's in the current issue of Stuff@Night Magazine says, "These are no kiddie-birthday-party treats, either: paired with adult beverages (Zemack suggests a fullbodied red wine or dark beer), the tasting makes for an excellent stay-at-home date night or gossipy evening with friends." Stuff@Night also has a great pic of this newly available 'chocolate board game' (of sorts).

The "Amendoa" from Athan's, featuring alternating layers of vanilla sponge cake and vanilla mousse finished with chantilly cream and toasted almonds. Both lovely and delicious. My dad liked it, which means that it was a good choice.

My dad's birthday is on Saturday. I am in search of an impossibly beautiful extraordinary birthday cake. The two layer classic + frosting & piped roses is cool... but isn't quite what I'm going for. That said, here are some of the excellent options that come to mind: Athans Bakery: This bakery always has a wonderful selection of French-style cakes and tortes featuring various combinations of creams, mousses, fresh fruits, and other elements. I LOVE the cakes here. But for once, this isn't about me. Will my dad love them too? Tatte Bakery: This bakery is all about sensuous tarts, some featuring really rich fillings of almonds, pecans, or cashews with caramel and others on the lighter side with fresh fruits likes kiwis or figs. Very lovely to look at. I'd consider a fig tart, which looks and sounds pretty delicious. But it's not really cake. But does that matter? I'm not sure. Burdick Chocolate: There's really just one cake here that's birthday style. It's got a raspberry chocolate ganache and is definitely quality but I've had it before (more than once!) and so has the fam, and I feel that we're all ready to move on to other things. Truly Jorg's Patisserie: The first time I heard of Truly Jorg's was a few years ago when I saw this cake in the Boston Globe, which totally blew me away. Who knew cakes could be all slanted like that?? That might be a little much for this occasion though... I'm less familiar with Truly Jorg's than I would like, but I do know that I really enjoyed the napoleon I had there several months ago, and that they have a wide array of visually stunning tortes, tarts, and cakes, and there is a vanilla orange cake that sounds really delicious... Sweet Cheeks Cake Company: I already know that these cakes are not an option, because they need to be ordered in advance, and apparently, I'm a big procrastinator. When I looked at their list of flavors, I saw one called Mom's Classic Birthday Cake... but nothing for Dad. However, the Orange Celebration Cake could be a strong contender (it's all about the orange flavors, really). But these impossibly cute, colorful little cakes might appeal more to the ladies... just a hunch. Which cake will win? My adorable friend Ariel drew the cake pictured above on my Facebook page using the graffiti application. See the little teacup sitting next to it? Hard proof that cake is best enjoyed with tea.

It's 90 degrees in my house, my car is in the shop until tomorrow, and it's a little late to be waiting outside for a bus to the nearest ice cream place. I searched through my fridge to see what I have to make it myself. I found a carton of heavy whipping cream that was 90% empty. I just made ice cream out of about 2 ounces of heavy whipping cream, 3 ounces of whole milk, a teaspoon of sugar, and a couple drops of vanilla. Total yield was about 3 tablespoons of ice cream, not counting the stuff that was frozen to the ice cream maker bowl. Better than nothing.

Last night I led a beer + chocolate tasting workshop at the Cambridge Center for Adult Education. Around 20 of us tested out various pairings of pure chocolates, chocolate desserts and artisanal beers. I'm sad that I forgot to take a photo of the glorious array of chocolate treats that we sampled - but all I can do now is post a picture of the fabulous drawing of a cow saying "moo" that one of the participants in the class drew next to "Valrhona Milk Chocolate" on the pairing menu. Here is the pairing menu in its entirety: Ommegang + Valrhona Jivara 40% Milk Chocolate Aventinus Eisbock + Cafe Tasse Milk Chocolate Guinness Extra Stout + Valrhona Manjari 60% Dark Chocolate Guinness Extra Stout + Theo Madagascar 65% Dark Chocolate Chimay Ale Premiere + Fran's Chocolate Smoked Salt Caramels Ipswich Ale Oatmeal Stout + Kickass Chocolate Cupcake Left Hand Milk Stout + Petsi Pies Bourbon Chocolate Pecan Pie Lindemans Lambic Framboise + Taza 80% Dark Chocolate A few of these pairings are old favorites, and several others were a little more experimental. I tested out most of the menu at a pre-tasting tasting two nights ago with my friends David, Dmitri, and Brett, who were kind enough to swing by my house late night and super last minute to offer up their tastebuds for some chocobeer!

This is a picture of one of the pretty display cases at Aroa Fine Chocolate, which features truffles and confections made with Venezuelan El Rey chocolate. Aroa opened recently in Boston's South End. My friend Christine and I popped in there yesterday to keep the whole Venezuela theme going after having lunch at the nearby Venezuelan lunchspot Orinoco.

Yesterday my lovely friend Mariah and I made our own version of the famous and beloved Ben & Jerry's Chunky Monkey ice cream. We used the same simple ingredient proportions as the brown sugar peach ice cream I made a couple days ago - it was super easy, no cookbooks required! Homemade Chunky Monkey Ice Cream Ingredients 2 ripe bananas 3/4 cup brown sugar 1 cup whole milk 1 cup whipping cream 1/2 teaspoon vanilla 1/2 cup halved walnuts 1/3 cup dark chocolate pieces* Tools Ice cream maker Mash the bananas (peel first, please) in a bowl until they are a just little chunkier than a puree. Add the brown sugar and blend thoroughly. Add the milk, cream, and vanilla, and mix well. Pour into your ice cream maker and follow the manufacturer's directions. After the mixture is partially frozen (around 10 minutes into the process), add walnuts and chocolate pieces (while the ice cream maker is still going) and allow the ice cream maker to run its course to complete the process. Also note - for the chocolate pieces, we used Cote d'Or Orange for an added orange twist. *For this recipe, we used untempered chocolate pieces. To make it, we melted the chocolate bars, poured the liquid chocolate onto parchment and spread it into a thin slab, stuck it in the freezer to harden, and then broke the untempered chocolate into pieces to add to the ice cream base. The reason we did it that way is that tempered chocolate is very hard at room temperature, and considerably more so when frozen. Untempered chocolate is much softer at room temperature, and when it's frozen, is about as hard as room temperature tempered chocolate. Chocolate pieces that are put into ice cream are often untempered so that they are a little less brittle in their frozen state.

My nice friend Aaron emailed me this New York Times article that came out today about miracle fruit parties ("Flavor Tripping") in New York. I have never tried miracle fruit - but have been dreaming of hosting my own miracle fruit parties ever since I saw this blog post around a year and a half ago. I obsessed about it and told everyone in my office about my plans to have the most awesome miracle fruit party ever. At that point, however, miracle fruit was not available online, and after trying to call some farm in Florida more than thirty times over the course of a week, I finally searched on eBay and found a miracle fruit plant that I purchased immediately. I waited on edge until it arrived in the mail, only to learn that it would take a short six years for the damn thing to produce berries. . . and then everyone in my office made fun of me (especially you, Eric, and you're still on my shit list). Traumatic, I know. How many parties do I have to have until I'm satisfied? Last week it was a chocomusic party, then I wanted to have another cupcake week, and now it's miracle fruit parties? I'm so mad that I haven't tried miracle fruit yet. I'm in a jealous rage. I have to go make some lists of things now. It's the only thing that calms me down. The above image signifies the utter agony I feel that I have not yet hosted a miracle fruit party. It was taken by my friend Dan Reed.