Paper and Chocolate

I have all but stopped buying newspapers. Taking the time to read a whole paper seems like an unaffordable luxury most days, and with several titles that I like doing good online versions, it seems wasteful to buy and then throw out big wads of paper like that. Today, though, I was tempted by the Observer as it was OFM week. It was a very long time since I'd read this supplement, and today I was reminded that it's a really good read! And when you have a collection of nice articles and photography it's much more satisfying to hold them in your hands, in print, than be peering at them online - where you might be more encouraged to skip articles that don't immediately stand out, when in fact they could be very interesting. It also invariably has lots of recipes which call for cutting out and storing in my scrapbook. Today's offering held a cover story about the ubiquitous Jamie Oliver (which despite his utter over-exposure, managed to be engaging and balanced), but more intriguingly, there was a piece about a chef called Damian Allsop, who is intent on re-inventing the process by which chocolate is made. He's found a way of producing fine, flavoured chocolates without adding any extraneous fats or creams. It's just chocolate mixed with water. Of course exactly how it's done is terribly top-secret. Anyway, the article had my mouth watering, and I'm inspired to try and hunt down some of these magic chocolates.

I think to date the best chocolates I have tasted are from the Maison du Chocolat. I was given a box of one of their flavoured assortments as a gift about a year ago, and thought they were very exciting! The flavours, such as ginger, pistachio and almond, rum, were subtle, and the textures really silky and beautiful. I got the bug and gave my dad a box of their truffles for his birthday, and I can see this developing into an expensive habit...