Spending Valentine’s Day with your sweetheart is fantastic, tasting and learning about great chocolates with your sweetheart is even better. While many were eating at restaurants, enjoying romantic dinners at home, or enjoying a concert or sporting event, a group of chocolate novices and enthusiasts met at Olivette Oil in Darien and were educated on the finer points of high-end chocolates by Analiese Paik, trained chef, chocolate aficionado, and Editor of The Fairfield Green Food Guide.
The table was pre-set with five different chocolates, a rating card and a flavor wheel. Normally, the chocolates would have disappeared in a nano-second but the group was instructed to sit and relax. Analiese presented an incredibly detailed and comprehensive overview of the process that converts the bean pods of the Theobroma cacao (“food of the Gods”) tree to chocolate. All of the chocolates that we would sample were from Venezuela and included Bonnat Puerto Caello, Bonnat Chuao, Bonnat Hacienda El Rosario, Pralus Venezuela, and Pralus Chuao.