Yesterday I spent a beautiful, chocolate-filled day in Kansas City. I had the fortune to be invited by Jasper Mirabile for his Valentine's Day radio show Live! from Jasper's Kitchen on 710 AM. We talked a bit about micro-batch fine chocolate, the processes employed here at Patric Chocolate, and what makes them different from those of mass-market chocolate. It was really a great time, and after the show I was lucky enough to have a group of about 75 fine chocolate loving Kansas City residents give me their undivided attention back at Mirabile's KC restaurant--called Jasper's--for a fine chocolate talk and tasting seminar that expanded upon many of the themes from the radio show.
Though I was expected to talk for about 45 minutes, I, due to my notorious wordiness when it comes to chocolate, was unable to keep it to under about an hour and a half. To my delight, however, everyone was not only patient but filled with a multitude of incredibly perceptive questions that really helped to drive the point home about the differences between fine chocolate and what one may find in the supermarket aisles.
And the chocolate tasting that came at the end of the talk truly seemed to be an eye opening experience for many people, which made me happy to no end. We all sampled Patric Chocolate's micro-batch 70% and 67% Madagascar bars and two supermarket bars. It was a joy to watch everyone's faces as they tasted flavors in the Madagascar bars that they had never experienced before, but also as they realized how little flavor of the cacao is actually present in common chocolate. One attendee, upon tasting the difference between the four bars, proclaimed that one of the common market brands didn't even taste like chocolate! Imagine that: chocolate that doesn't even taste like chocolate; Quelle horreur, the French would say!
Anyway, I had such a great time and got to meet so many warm and enthusiastic chocolate lovers that I would gladly return to KC--and Jasper's whose Italian cuisine is good enough to make a grown man cry--anytime!
(above: One section of the KC chocolate talk crowd)Comments from attendees of the Patric Chocolate, Jasper's-hosted chocolate seminar are welcome!
