Kavarna eNewsletter, Holiday Season 2009
The Holiday Season The Holidays invite us to concentrate on the joy of giving, the joy of being with people we care about, and the joy of being ourselves. Christmas is about NOT minding your own business, and that's the particular magic of the season (particularly after a year like 2009!) So this afternoon we'll flip the switch on the Christmas music happily (with a ratio of one Christmas song to every four non-Christmas songs). And tomorrow, we'll start up our absurdly decadent Panettone French Toast special! There are more events during the Holidays than we can list, but some that hope to attend are:
Finally, holiday hours...
We wish everyone a joyful holiday season! |
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Stocking Stuffer #1: Bean to Bar Chocolate Surprisingly rare in the United States are bean to bar chocolate companies. "Bean to Bar" refers to companies that import raw cacao pods and see the process through from roasting, to winnowing, to blending, and finally to molding of the chocolate bars themselves. Most small chocolate bar manufacturers don't work exclusively from raw cacao. According to The Chocolate Life, there are only fifteen such companies in the US. While they start with industry heavy weights like Nestle and Kraft, we favor the small guys; the ones who take an enormous risk in sourcing particularly fine cacao and handle all the difficulties themselves. The practice of bean to bar chocolate manufacturing is an analogue to the direct coffee trade models practiced by the best coffee roasters like Alterra. We respect these small chocolate companies so much that we wanted to highlight this relatively recent trend in our holiday chocolate selection. We've chosen three companies, Rogue Chocalatier, Taza Chocolate, and Madécasse, because you can taste their passion. Best of all, when you call them, the owners pick up the phone.
Rogue Chocolatier: Rogue is the ultimate underdog in American chocolate, they can rightly claim to be the smallest chocolate company in the country. Operating out of a rented space in Minneapolis the size of Kavarna's kitchen, with one employee, and machines that he largely made or modified, Colin Gasko is single handedly making some of the best chocolate in the world. Even more remarkably, he's only 23 years old. Currently he's making three different bars, all 70 percent dark. There's the rum raisiny Sambirano bar, made with cacao from the Sambirano Valley of Madagascar, the Rio Caribe bar, with cacao sourced from Venezuela, and the Hispaniola bar, sourced from the Dominican Republic. Each bar has an incredibly distinct flavor profile. We're proud to be the third retailer in the state of Wisconsin to offer his amazing bars! The story behind the Rio Caribe bar in particular shows the great lengths that Colin is willing to go to produce great chocolate. Hugo Chavez put an end to cheaper ocean freight this past year, so Colin was forced to pay air freight for the cacao, doubling the cost of raw materials. He's on Net 30 terms with the exporter, representing a significant financial risk. Rogue is the only American chocolate company to put out a single origin Rio Caribe bar. And it's worth it! He describes the flavor profile like this, "The flavors of this cocoa are really fun! There are really forward cocoa and coffee flavors, and then deep dairy and nut flavors, hints of dark citrus and spices." If you're interested in Colin Gasko (he's my new hero) and his adventures in the chocolate trade, here's an article that ran about him in Gourmet Magazine last year.
Madécasse: Madécasse offers an equally compelling story, if that's possible. In 1999 Brett Beach and Timothy McCollum met while serving in the Peace Corp in Madagascar. Seven years later, they decided to launch a company that would pay fair prices to small farmers for some of Madagascar's most valuable commodities: cacao and vanilla beans. They took their business a step further by building their chocolate factory in the place that would most benefit the growers: Madagascar. Their cacao comes exclusively from the Sambirano Valley, and we are offering their 67 percent and 70 percent dark chocolate bars, as well as their amazing vanilla extract. It's enormously interesting to sample Madécasse chocolate along side Rogue Chocolatier's Sambirano bar, the comparison reveals the artistry of the chocolate maker. You can tell that they have their origin in the same cacao, but just like no two interpretations of Bach's Goldberg Variations will ever be the same, the two bars reveal different aspects of the cacao. Madécasse is an excellent company that demonstrates that global capitalism can serve the developing word rather than exploit it, and still be successful.
Taza Chocolate: Taza is taking a very different approach to being a bean to bar chocolate company. While they use excellent, organic, direct trade cacao from Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, and Mexico, their company is inspired by the traditional, stone ground chocolate culture of Oaxaca, Mexico. All of their chocolate is ground with Mexican stone mills, and molded into bars and Mexican Hot Chocolate disks in Somerville, Massachusetts. We are offering two of their bars, and a comprehensive selection of their flavored Mexican hot chocolate disks. You can learn how to make 100 percent authentic Mexican hot chocolate at here. Like Rogue and Madécasse, they are committed to fair or direct trade practices and sustainable development, and are an inspirational case study in global trade. |
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Stocking Stuffer #2: Travel Mugs Are In! Our new travel mugs have finally arrived in the store just in time for the holidays! It's been months since we sold our last copper mug, and we knew that we wanted something a little different. Our friends at Glas Coffeehouse in Sturgeon Bay turned us onto a travel mug made out of a type of plastic that will break down into inert material after several years in a landfill. We field tested a couple of them and we've been very pleased. They are double walled so they insulate coffee for a reasonable length of time (though they're not quite up to the standard of Nissan Thermos mugs that cost three times as much). The travel mug holds 15 ounces and is emblazoned with the new Kavarna squirrel. They are $9.95, and the price includes a free drink! |
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Upcoming Events at Kavarna
December 4th, Rough Draft, 8 p.m.: With guitarists Stefan Hall and Brian Sutton and vocalists from UWGB's Theater Arts Department, Rough Draft has been one of our favorite interpreters of jazz standards colored with Djangoesque flair. They've played Kavarna several times in the past, but this will be their first performance without original vocalist, Suzi Lindner. We can't wait to hear the newly revised Rough Draft!
December 10th, "Three Cups of Tea" Book Discussion, 6 p.m.: We've always liked the idea of One Book, One Community. This year we were asked to participate by holding a book discussion, which we will do on December 10th at 6pm. I wanted to give a little lead time to those of you who are interested in participating. Copies of the book are readily available in local bookshops like the Reader's Loft and the Attic, as well as available at the Brown County Public Library. I have never conducted a book discussion before, and I was initially a little nervous about it, but as I read the book I'm gradually getting more at ease with the idea of doing it. There is a lot to talk about! I haven't finished the book quite yet, but I feel comfortable making the promise that you won't regret the investment.
December 12th, Lil' Rev, 8 p.m.: Lil' Rev (see his website here) is one of this country's finest interpreters of the American canon. He has an exhaustive knowledge of old show tunes, campfire songs, Jewish folk songs, old blues, and especially old novelty numbers. He is a master of the ukulele, mandolin, guitar, and harmonica; not to mention assorted bits of hokum and flibbertyjinks. He is probably the world's foremost authority on songs about quilting, as well as many other esoteric things. The more we know him, the more we like him... I hope that you'll help us in welcoming Rev back to our stage on December 12th at 8 pm. December 17th, Green Bay Green Drinks, 7-9pm: Want to hobnob with the area's environmentalist/conservationist community? Green Bay Green Drinks is an informal get together held at Kavarna on the third Thursday of each month. | |||||||||
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