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We survived another Valentine’s Day. Has it really been that crazy? Yes it has

But after a long day, we enjoyed our own Valentine’s Dinner with friends at the City Square Cafe in Manassas and it was time to relax and recap all the events the prior days.

One of our personal highlights was to have the opportunity to serve the needs of the Inn at Little Washington in Virginia:

We also made some custome confections for the City Square Cafe’s Valentine’s Day dessert, which is pictured here:

They are dark and white chocolate hearts, about an inch in diameter and they were used to decorate the strawberry-filled crepe - YUMM!

This week we will make more ganaches (since we are almost completely sold out) and prepare to make our new Spring flavors (recipes are finished and the new flavors will be announced soon) as well as prepare the first Easter specials. Our marzipan bunnies will make a comeback, but we’ll also have some new surprises for you ….

That’s it for today, don’t forget to eat some more chocolate!

Although we really enjoyed our trip to Mexico and the plantations (yes, there are still many more pictures to come!), we are glad to be home too.

We have a few new additions to our retailers list and I will have to update the website accordingly (Occoquan, VA and Ashburn, VA).

We have been mentioned in the February Issue of Northern Virginia Magazine (page 25) - also to view on this site under ‘in the news’ (to your left).

We will be out and about in a lot of places before and after Valentine’s Day to conduct free tastings. The exact locations and dates will be announced here on the blog and in our email newsletter.

If you haven’t heard - we are featuring our Jasmine Tea Hearts this Valentine’s Day again. They were a big hit last year and since they are for Valentine’s Day ONLY - they are going to be hard to get. Luckily you are able to order them online with us and we can ship them out to a later date.

Enough for today, we have to get up early tomorrow, as a power outage prevented us from working late tonight.

Have a good night!

Safe and sound back from our trip to southern Mexico - we were about 100 feet from Guatemalan border at times

First of all I have to apologize for not keeping up this blog - it has been over a month since the last entry and well - it is finally time to catch up with everything.

We will bring you a detailed report with all of our discoveries of the beautiful country of Mexico - we learned a lot about the culture and history of the country and its people. We also learned a lot about the history of cacao and inspected a few plantations along the way to familiarize ourselves with the growing and processing of cocoa.

For tonight it is already too late to type all this up, but stay tuned for more information and more pictures from the trip - one of our computers had to go to the hospital (and it happened to be the Mac that I need for graphic processing) - on the weekend we should be able to bring you some imagery!

Finally we hope that the weather will be good on Saturday, so that we can entertain everyone with our chocolate making class together with TasteDC.

Good Night and have a nice weekend!

And we are very busy. You probably noticed this, since I am not writing on the blog…..

Well, on upcoming Friday night we will be tasting out chocolate confections at Thos. Moser in Georgetown. It is necessary to RSVP - you will find all the details in our newsletter, which will go out tomorrow night (sign up, if you didn’t do so yet!).

Some of you may have noticed our ‘Christmas Trees’ at Biagio Fine Chocolate in Adams Morgan or here at Jan’s Opera House Gourmet in Manassas - if you are intrigued then hurry - there is only a limited number out there and quantities are decreasing fast. We are not sure if we will be able to make more of those delicious treats (they are made with slivered, caramelized almonds coated in dark Valrhona chocolate).

It’s cute alright

I will be posting again soon (before Christmas) and let you all know the order deadlines. One thing is for sure: The earlier you order, the better for everyone! We gladly ship all orders to your loved ones or family, wherever they are

Have a great week,

Wilhelm

Hey Chocolate Conoisseurs,

Sorry for the late notice, but tonight we will be tasting our chocolate confections at Artfully Chocolate in Alexandria, VA.

RSVP is advised - although we will bring enough chocolates to cover a good amount of walk-ins as well. We wouldn’t want you to lose out

If you haven’t been to Artfully Chocolate, get ready for an eclectic store that greets you with bright paintings and of course delicious treats by local artisans, such as us.

See you tonight!

About Sweet:

“The premier culinary festival for New York City’s” Food Network’s New York City Wine & Food Festival” is deeply concerned that more than 35 million Americans are at risk of hunger. That is why “We’re Sweet On” the Food Bank For New York City and Share Our Strength, two of America’s leading hunger-relief organizations and the hosts and beneficiaries of SWEET. ”

Why am I telling you this? Well we wanted to let you know that we participated in part in this event, as in providing Perrier Jouët with a specially made Wine Pate de Fruit made with pairings of:

- Perrier Jouët’s Grand Brut champagne paired with green apple puree

- Blason Rose champagne paired with fresh-squeezed pink grapefruit juice

Every visitor of the show will receive a complimentary favor from us and Perrier Jouët:

We were very happy to work with Perrier Jouët and to be able to contribute to the good cause of the event.

We were also surprised how well the champagne went with the Wine Pate de Fruit! In particular the Blason rose champagne and pink grapefruit make a good combination.

We will make up some boxes of this special selection for our upcoming one year anniversary - but that’s for another post!

How beautiful the weather was the last few weeks. We got a chance to get out and get ourselves some freshly pressed apple cider and explore some more of Virginia’s Vineyards.

This photo shows the church across the Inn at Little Washington in Washington, Virginia. It reminds me of our time in New England, when the trees appeared to be on fire - so vibrant the colors.

Melanie and I got into the Vineyard through a small whole in the fence and got up close to the grapes This picture was actually taken last Sunday (10/28) … the grapes were harvested today and experienced two cold nights (first frost on Monday). They tasted nice and sweet, but we’ll have to wait until 2010 to enjoy the wine from them.

This week we are in full swing again with making and enrobing chocolate confections all day. Tomorrow we have more meetings, put chocolates into cups and package a few boxes. On Thursday another enrobing day and more to package.

We have our first order from Japan - the mother of a bride we provided the wedding favors for called in and she happens to live in Tokyo. She is getting a 12# package next week and we’ll spread the word about our confections in Tokyo

Don’t think that we go international now though - we are here to stay in the US  ….. well, you know … Manassas, Virginia that is

So long and expect our Newsletter for November in your email box shortly! Not signed up yet? You might want to do so, we will tell you about our upcoming tasting events, new products for this season, specials and much more. You can sign up here.

Sounds good, doesn’t it?

We will be at Chrysalis Vineyards as part of their 7th Annual Norton Wine & Bluegras Festival. Bring a friend and enjoy good music, good wine and good chocolate on Saturday and Sunday from 10AM to 6PM. Of course there is a lot more to it as well. More info on the festival is here.

See you tomorrow or on Sunday!

We are heading towards our friends at the Sugar Cube Sweets in Alexandria. We already know that many will miss their favorite Rhubarb Caramel, but we have really fantastic new flavors lined up for the Holiday season. Also, our assortment grows to 12 different flavors, which we are proud of and think that each one is unique in flavor profile and appearance.

Come and visit us at The Sugar Cube Sweets and discuss our new flavors with us - or just enjoy!

We are in!

In the District that is

  William and Biagio from Biagio Fine Chococolate will start to carry our confections this week. We have a tasting on Thursday, September 27th from 6:30-8:30 PM.

We will have all of flavors of our standard assortment PLUS all new Fall/Winter flavor. You will see some old favorites of ours, but also new exciting flavors - well worth a trip to DC on Thursday!

On nother note, we are preparing seasonal gift baskets for this season. One of them is pictured below, we chose a lovely looking red tin to hold all of our gift box assortments, chocolate caramelized almonds, chocolate covered dried fruits and marzipan confections. Fully customizable, you will see it in our online store soon as well - if you need a couple for gift giving, just ask