Chocolate Cheesecake Uncle Lewis

I spent a week in Charlottesville with my Uncle Lewis this summer. He gregariously introduced me to one of the Gearhart brothers from the chocolate shop of the same name, but he expressed his own skepticism about bon bons laced with ancho chiles. My uncle is a good home cook, but he prefers basic ingredients and recipes that call for a single bowl, pot, or pan. One of his favorites is a chocolate cheesecake recipe passed down from my Aunt Laura (really, my great aunt). He sent it to me and I made it last week. It had a few of the unanswered-question trappings of transcribed family recipes (how do you soften cream cheese?), but it was very well appreciated in Pittsburgh.

Recipe:
Chocolate Cheesecake Aunt Laura

Place foil on bottom of oven or on a rack below the baking rack to catch drips. Preheat oven to 350. Melt butter in two batches; melt chocolate; soften cream cheese.

Blend:
2 cups chocolate cookie crumbs (1 package Nabisco Famous chocolate wafers, or Oreos)
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 cup (one stick) melted butter

Press crumbs firmly against bottom and sides of a 9-inch springform pan. Chill.

In a mixer or energetically by hand, beat until light:
3/4 cup sugar
3 eggs

Gradually add:
1 1/2 lbs. softened cream cheese

Stir in:
8 ounces melted semi-sweet chocolate
2 Tablespoons cocoa
1 teaspoon vanilla

Beat in thoroughly:
1 pint sour cream

Fold in:
1/4 cup (1/2 stick) melted butter

Pour into chilled shell. Bake at 350 for 45 or 50 minutes; cake will still be liquid. Remove from oven and chill. Remove rim from pan after cake is chilled before serving.

Southern Fried Christmas

Mmm... Just a quick jaunt around any mall these days reminds me that the holidays are already here! The smells of pumpkin lattes, roasted nuts, and peppermint candies are ripe around every corner and I, for one, am in full holidays cooking mode. And had you joined us for dinner at the cafe this past weekend, you would have been treated to a full holiday feast. Yes, friends... we celebrated T-day a full week and a half early this year and 95 of you joined us! If you missed all the tasty vittles, don't fret, you've got one more chance!

Join us Saturday, December 12th at 4.5, 6.5 or 8.5pm for an Xmas feast from the deep South. For just $30, you can enjoy 3 courses of seasonal faire two weeks before the big day. Make a reservation today and help us bring in the holiday with our Southern Fried Christmas dinner! Guests to enjoy:

Cheddar and Chive Biscuit Bites with Sawmill Sausage Gravy (optional starter)

Wilted Greens with Candied Cocoa Nibs

Fried Coconut Shrimp -or- Fried Green Tomatoes

with Cocoa Butter Grits, Coddled Egg, & Chile Burnt Caramel Peanut Sauce

White Chocolate Cranberry Cobbler with Vanilla Bean-Peppercorn Cream

Space is limited so RSVP today at 619.578.2984! Until then, check out the deliciousness from the last dinner:

Starter- Fried Bacon, Mac, & Cheese with Bacon Fat Drizzle

First Course- Roasted Veggies with Frisse & White Chocolate-Lemon Dressing

Entree- Rosemary & Lavender Sea Salt Crusted Cornish Game Hen with Cocoa Butter-Smashed Potatoes & Savory Bread Pudding with Cocoa-Brown Sugar Gravy.

Dessert- Ginger Pumpkin Cheesecake with Brownie Crumb Crust & Vanilla Bean Ginger Cream

Spread Love
Your dwindling holiday gift budget will be easier to swallow once you learn that Sucre is donating a percentage of their seasonal sales to the LA/SPCA this year. There's nothing like win/win gift giving to put you in a festive mood...oh and uh smooth eggnog, gingerbread and candy cane truffles help too.

How I See It
Everyone loves chocolate so you really can't go wrong when searching for the perfect inexpensive holiday gift for associates, grab bags and difficult to please loved ones. It's especially great for people like Grandma who rants and raves when she feels like you spent way too much and complains that she "already has everything and doesn't need a new blender because her blender from the 1950s works perfectly well." In her case, I'd go for a tin of decent toffee or a box of grandma approved assorted chocolate. Why go though the trouble to save those gift receipts when no one in their right mind would ever dare have you return a box of perfectly fine chocolate. Happy Shopping!

Trick Questions and Chocolate Treats: November in Context

It's that time of year again. Halloween, Day of the Dead, All Saints' Day, All Souls' Day, Veterans Day, Midterms, Thanksgiving. Claude Lévi-Strauss isn't around to codify the structures anymore, but we humans, in my opinion, like to commemorate things.

Here's something I'd like to commemorate: It's about a year since a bunch of guys walked into my apartment and forcibly demolished a written-by-committee solid-chocolate tablet that proclaimed our salvation as a species awaited us in a can of Axe body spray. Perhaps to celebrate the one-year anniversary of that paradigm shift, I invited the guys over to my apartment again to play cards and and eat chocolate. (In truth, we do this nearly once a week, but usually at someone else's house.)

This time around, I had some test-batches of the "Fruity" and "Nutty" chocolate from high-concept Silicon Valley chocolate maker Tcho. "Fruity" and "Nutty" in this case refer to "flavor profiles" rather than ingredients, and the Tcho folks wanted feedback on the selection, fermentation, roasting, and blending of their cacao beans. "Tcho encourages you to experience your samples with your friends, family, and colleagues so that you can compare flavor notes and tasting experiences," an email from Tcho told me, adding that "We are also looking for Beta testers who'd like to share their experience on camera." Well, this year, as last, my little digital camera was nearly out of batteries, but I recorded a few moments of our "experience," during which Kristen remarked of the Nutty version 1.9B that "first you taste nothing, then you get sour, then you get bitter, then you get chocolate," and Dmitry commented on Fruity 1.9A that "this is like a Bukowski poem--the grittiness of it." We found some of the questions to be suspect (for example, "How would you rate the cacao content of this flavor?" is both grammatically and culinarily awkward and the only appropriate answer seems to be "65%," which is the number given on the box) and concluded, in response to the final question, that yes, we would buy this chocolate, but only for about two bucks (the asking price is closer to $5).



The next day, I received a large box (waiting for me mysteriously in a locker at my local post office, for which the key had been left in my post office box) containing four made-from-all-Guatemalan-ingredients chocolate bars from Rain Republic. Last summer, I met the proprietor of the not-yet-named brand, Josh Sermos, in Antigua Guatemala. I'd attempted to carry out a survey of my own: Which farms are you sourcing cacao from? Where did you buy your machinery? But, as I recall, Josh didn't want to go on the record--I can't find an interview with the guy on my computer or even messy notes scribbled in a steno notebook. So I turn you, dear reader, directly over to the Rain Republic. (One thing I know is that they're already competing with Carlos Eichenberger, who opened a boutique for his Danta Chocolate in Guatemala City this month).

Free Coco
In time for hot coco season Caribou Coffee is adding Guittard drinking chocolate to their menu. I'm more excited about the take home tins as I prefer to drink my hot chocolate in the comfort of my own home. If chillin' in coffee houses still floats your boat you can catch the launch festivities on November 27th where free samples and buy-one-get-one free mochas and hot chocolates will flow.