Journey of a Cacao Pod to a Chocolate Bar

WARNING: THIS IS A LONG POST ... NERD ALERT! :)

One day when I was walking in Hilo I saw a coffee shop with an ad for a chocolate making class. Of course I just HAD to take this class and I dragged along Chris (okay, I didn't really drag him - he was pretty interested too!) and after several false starts (once we were sick, the next class the instructor was sick and then it POURED) we finally took the class today.

Tom Sharkey used to be a teacher but then quit teaching to start his farm in Papaikou (just outside Hilo). It was raining all day, but that's Hilo so the show went on. Our group was actually mostly people who were really interested in starting their own cacao growing ventures, so Chris and I were a little out of place, but we learned a lot!

First Tom took us through his grove of cacao plants. There are several different varietals, but I think Tom grows Criollo, Forastero and Trinitario.

CACAO FLOWERS AND BABY PODS

CACAO GROVE

Our first task was to wander through the grove and pluck down ripe cacao pods. The color doesn't really matter so much although you are looking generally at red/orange/yellow pods. You can tell which ones to pick if you scratch the pod and the flesh is yellow under the skin rather than green. I was amazed at how many pods grow on a tree. Tom says he picks about once to twice a month.

PICKING A POD

The other thing that is really neat about this little farming endeavor is that the vine you see in the picture below is a vanilla bean vine growing on the cacao!

CHRIS + CACAO + VANILLA

CHRIS WITH VANILLA BEANS AND A CACAO POD

Along the way we sampled some of the beans from right off the tree. The fleshy white fruit around the bean varies, but there was one varietal we tried that was delicious. It was sweet and tarty...but I wasn't a fan of eating the bean with it.

Once you gather a sack of cacao pods then we settled in for stage two:

OUR HARVEST

Basically you whack the pod a few times with a mallet, crack open the pod and pull the beans off the "umbilical cord." You can get anywhere from 20-60 beans per pod. It's goopy and messy, but pretty cathartic! This ended up actually being my favorite part of the tour :0)

WHACK, CRACK OPEN THE POD, PULL OUT THE BEANS

I ACCIDENTALLY PULLED OUT THE ENTIRE UMBILICAL CORD AND THE BEANS!

Once you've opened the pods and pulled the beans out, the fermentation process starts. Basically the beans are left out and the natural yeast in the environment start eating away the fruit. This takes about 5-7 days with daily stirring of the beans to ensure they are constantly getting exposed to the yeast, oxygen, etc. The beans get up to 115 degrees through this natural process! This is when you develop the chocolate flavor.

The beans are then laid out into the sun to dry. The temperamental Hilo weather can be somewhat uncooperative, but generally they just lay out in the sun to dry out. This can take up to 6 days. The beans are ready when you can crack them open.

DRIED BEANS

At this point we got to sample the raw cacao beans. The first thing you get hit with is chocolate flavor, but then BAM this incredibly bitter and lingering taste. Depending on the bean varietal, how it fermented and how it dried the bitterness can be slightly different...but still BITTER. BLAGH!

You don't have to roast the cacao beans, but it really brings up the chocolate flavor if you do so.

Next Tom runs his beans through a Crackenstein which basically crushes up his beans and nibs:

NIBS & BEAN SHELLS

Then he winnows the mix so that he gets just the nibs:

NIBS

The nibs are still incredibly bitter...yuck! However, after this process we are ready to head into the kitchen :)

In the kitchen, Tom runs his nibs through a Champion juicer or peanut butter maker. This makes a chocolate paste.

MAKING CHOCOLATE PASTE

Then the paste is put into a Santha wet grinder which conches and refines the chocolate. Conching allows the chocolate to lose some of "fresh" taste and release some of that bitterness and tannins. Refining is allows you to grind up all the little particles so that you can have really smooth chocolate. Tom runs his chocolate through the Santha for at least three days.

VIEW INSIDE THE SANTHA WET GRINDER

At this stage you can add your additives into the chocolate. For our class we just added vanilla (made from the extract Tom made with Seagrams' vodka and some of his own pods) and sugar. After the ingredients are added and the chocolate has been conched and refined, you have to temper it. Tempering allows chocolate to get its glossy finish and it's all about heating and cooling the chocolate. Once we tempered our chocolate we poured it into squeeze bottles and got ready to fill our molds! I like the technique of a pour and then someone comes along with a squeeze bottle with a cap so that you can add just the right amount. Tap the molds to get out the air bubbles and into the fridge for 15 minutes to cool and harden!

POURING CHOCOLATE INTO THE BAR MOLDS

Once the chocolate hardened we got to bag up our bars and then seal them to take them home! We made chocolate bars and hearts. There was enough for each of to get 3-4 bars and 2 bags of chocolate hearts :)

ASSEMBLY LINE: UNMOLD, BAG, SEAL BAG

FINAL PRODUCT

Tom is really great. He's really passionate about creating a viable Hawaii cacao plant and it definitely seems to be a labor of love over money. We also each got cacao seedlings and vanilla cuttings! (I think this was because everyone was starting farming...we just lucked out!) I think all these little eco-tourism things Chris and I keep doing on the Big Island make us want to buy a little ag land so we can have a farm with cacao, vanilla, goats, llamas and other fun stuff :)

Some interesting references:

- http://www.cacaoweb.net/cacao-tree.html

- http://www.chocolatealchemy.com/

Birthday Dinner

US AT MY BIRTHDAY DINNER

(Yes, this post is nearly two months late) For my birthday we decided to try a Hilo establishment: Seaside Restaurant. Neither of us had ever eaten there before and it's a pretty popular place to go for locals and tourists. They raise some of their own fish (which makes it a shame that I really am not a seafood fan. I tried to look up what fish they raise, but their website has not be cooperative these last few days.

It's just outside the main stretch of Hilo (like airport side) and when you pull up it's nothing impressive. It's basically a house it looks like. When you walk inside the decor definitely hasn't been updated in awhile. On the way to the dining area you walk right by the service door to the kitchen (which has no door, so you can see right into the kitchen) and I thought that was weird. They seated us on an enclosed porch which was nice. The porch overlooks the tanks that they grow their fish in and a pond. As the sun set these beautiful white birds just took off across the pond and it was really pretty. As it got darker, the white Christmas lights gave the dining room a nice ambiance.

We got the escargot for an appetizer and then both got prime rib (my all-time favorite meal). The prime rib was...well prime rib. Nothing too special, but a decently tasty entree. The escargot on the other hand was a WHOLE 'nother story. They were just YUMMY.

ESCARGOT

Buttery, garlicy, cheesy and served with toasty crostini. Served with those cute little escargot forks, when it arrived it was like a little mystery because it was served hidden under a blanket of warm, gooey, stretchy cheese (don't ask me what kind...I'm so not a foodie). But in these little depressions (obviously an escargot serving dish) were the yummy snails, just swimming in their buttery deliciousness. Grab a snail, get some cheese and pop it on a crostini and it's a little piece of heaven. We are absolutely going back for the escargot!

I suppose it's probably ironic that I'm posting about eating snails after just posting about gross slugs...I didn't even realize this until I was about to post this :)

Super Slug

Probably not the most interesting of posts, but awhile ago I wrote about being a slug killer. The slugs out here on the Big Island are some of the biggest I've ever seen. Every now and then I'll step outside on my way to work and nearly squash one of these things. And if I don't see them than I see their silvery trails all over the place...even up the side of the house!

They actually move pretty fast. This slug actually was almost escaping into the little patch of grass between the door and the driveway in the time I stepped inside to get my camera. This really isn't a "Super Slug" but rather a regular sized slug. Obviously "Slug" would be a boring blog title..."Super Slug" just spices things up!

Here's some pictures of the slugs:

SLUG (EW)

SLUG + SLIPPER FOR SIZE COMPARISON

For Mom: Mongoose

Back in 2006 I had moved to Hawaii and my mother came to visit me. We visited the Big Island where I was asleep when the earthquake hit. The story of that experience has sparked one of my many anecdotes that result in me being mercilessly teased in the Wong family. I was asleep when the earthquake hit. I was woken up by a shaking that I first thought was my mother shaking the bed. This was odd in and off itself, but when I opened my eyes I saw that the room was violently shaking. Realizing it was an earthquake, I can clearly remember thinking: "I should spread out so that if I fall maybe the impact will be worse." I was thinking like I was some flying squirrel with webbing between my appendages which I alas I do not have. Once the rumbling was over I went downstairs and found my mother in the lobby. She asked if I had felt the earthquake and I said that I had been woken up by it. She wanted to leave and I asked if I could take a shower first. Now I get teased that there could've been a tsunami from the 6.7 earthquake but Kristen wanted to take a shower first. Har har...

Anyway, the real reason for this post is that I was introduced to my mother's bizarre fascination with mongoose. For the rest of our trip on the Big Island she was dashing away in full pursuit of a picture of a mongoose.

There's tons of mongoose where I live now and I see them all the time - crossing the road, in my backyard, as road kill. When my mother visited this past fall she didn't see one, but here's the big one that hangs out in my yard....pictures just for you mom!

Making a mess on the porch (my fault for temporarily leaving the garbage out there until Chris got home with the truck):

Kung Hee Fat Choy!

January 23, 2012 marked the start of Chinese New Year, the Year of the Dragon.

I love this local stamp company, Sister Stamps. Designed by sisters, they make adorable themed stamps with these Asian kids. Each of the stamps have names and a little story about how they got their names which makes the stamps a little more special it seems.

One of the recent releases was a Chinese New Year themed release. I had never really seen Chinese New Year stamps and while I am trying to hold myself back on the crafting stuff, I couldn't resist these. I bought the Lion Dancers and made some cute cards using Copics (amazing blending markers) and some cute Sizzix embossing folders.

Originally I was going to make these for my staff, but the amount it took to just one made me realize 1) it would take me FOREVER to make 45+ and 2) All the efforts it took to make one meant that they were extra special. Who else to make extra special cards for than my own family? I made four cards and rushed to get them out to my family in time for the New Year:

I made this card for my parents and it's my favorite because I love the play of the two embossed patterns and the colors just pop for me:

Lava Quest 2011

For New Year's Eve we both decided not to go anywhere because we don't really want to drive 2.5 hours to Kona side and frankly Hilo doesn't look like it'll ever have a happening scene and even if it did it would almost definitely rain.

Instead we decided to go for our first hike in the Volcanoes National Park. In the first week of December or so there opened up a new surface and coastal entry point lava flow that was within the park. According to the National Park Service they were letting you have access...IF you were willing to complete the "challenging and extreme 9.7 mile round trip hike. Estimated time to complete is 5.5 hours." The picture on the website was promising:

THIS PICTURE WAS TAKEN DECEMBER 15th

We decided to start the hike around 1 or 2pm and return after dark. I was totally nervous since if you know me, I don't exercise or do the slightest thing to stay healthy or in shape. We got to the park and drove down to the end of the Chain of Craters road. There was a final sign warning us if we were "Ready or Not."

We declared ourselves ready and "Lava Quest 2011" began!

Our trail started at the end of the "scenic hike" which was about a mile and a half one way all along the closed roadway (easy cruising). Once we hit the end of the scenic hike we still had yet another quarter mile through lava to reach the end of the viewing trail. The viewing trail was very clearly marked with little reflectors on the lava. One of the understatements of the "viewing trail hike" was this sign:

At the end of the little reflectored trail there was a workhorse and this sign:

Although the sign says "End of Trail" it was the start of our real hike (you can see the last reflectors on the far left hand side of the picture). The rest of the way would be marked by beacons. After a half of mile of hiking we reached our first beacon:

From then it was a long 2 hours of slogging through the lava field. There was a final sign warning us after beacon 2:

We saw these neat tortoise-shell like rocks in one particular part of the field we walked through:

We took a short detour to the ocean side to take a peek at the newest land in Hawaii:

Chris scouted for the next beacon (not really, he was posing in a "Discoverer" pose, but I couldn't get the whole coast in the shot):

But mostly we walked and walked and walked. Finally we reached beacon 5!

But now what? Where was the lava? What about smoke and steam? Where did we go? The group ahead and behind us all clustered around this little beacon a little confused. But it seemed like the only thing to do was keep walking. Finally after more walking I saw...another beacon. So we headed towards beacon 6...despite the trail being noted as having 5 beacons.

Along the way we saw this really neat metallic effect on the rocks:

It was interesting because much of the lava field was pretty brittle and it was bizarre to have rock crack under you when you stepped on it or to see it crack when you put down your walking pole. One of the neatest conversations Chris and I had while hiking was wondering if at any point we were stepping on land that no one else had ever stepped on before. It was an interesting thought.

At beacon 6 we saw a ranger and wandered over just in time to hear him tell another couple that the lava had deflated up at Pu'u O'o in the last few days and there really wasn't anything to see right now.

We could hike a few miles further and see some hot rocks and maybe some glowing, but there wasn't any surface or ocean entry flowing red lava. We might be able to see some glowing at the top when the sun set. A little disappointed to have hiked all this way only to find out there was no lava, Chris and I talked it over. We decided that with the sunset about an hour away Chris and I turned back.

The walk back wasn't as bad since I knew I could make it. At one point when the sun was starting to set Chris spotted the sun setting between two lava rocks and took some pictures. The result was a really neat picture where the sun looks like a star! (I mean it is a star, but the picture made it look really cool):

OOOH SUN STAR

With about a mile and half to go, the sun did set and we were left to hike with our headlamps. Hiking at night through a lava field - kind of hard! After what seemed like forever we hit the reflectored trail again. There we began to meet a steady stream of folks hoping for some lava. Many of them we pretty shocked when we told them to view it up close was about a 2.5 hour hike and that a ranger told us there wasn't much to see. We also saw two Japanese tourists hiking in the dark (not so notable, we all were hiking in the dark) only, THEY HAD NO FLASHLIGHTS. So stupid. The ranger at the Visitor's Center had told us about how just this past week a lady broke her wrist returning from the hike at night and had to spend the night out on the lava field before they could evacuate her.

At this point we had been hiking for about 4 hours straight - I couldn't wait for the "scenic trail" - nice, flat, paved road. Needless to say I was tired and a little sore. I didn't realize that the worst part of the whole hike was to come...walking back to the car. While it was a relief to be back on paved ground, after all that walking it seemed like torture as we had to walk another half a mile to where Chris had parked...literally the furthest car away from the trail.

But we survived and although Lava Quest 2011 was a fail, it was a fun way to spend New Year's Eve. We stopped by Foodland on the way home and picked up some mochi ice cream (Bubbies!) and sparkling grape juice. [A funny side story...I went home and googled why Japanese eat mochi for New Years and stumbled upon this funny article: http://www.chow.com/food-news/54224/new-years-japanese-style/ The article concludes with "Happy New Year! Don't Die!" because apparently lots of Japanese are hospitalized when they nearly choke on the mochi]

Once home it was nothing but the most glorious hot shower and then watching Dick Clark's Rockin' NYE (which was a bizarre experience because they kept saying it was live and it clearly couldn't be). Chris fell asleep but I was wide awake to great 2012!

Here's to hoping 2012 is a great year. Perhaps Lava Quest 2012 will be more successful!

When Grocery Shopping Becomes Hazardous

I don't know how I missed this display when shopping at the nearby grocery store (Foodland), but on New Year's Eve I finally took notice:

FIREWORKS FOR SALE

Is it just me or is it weird that they sell fireworks in the grocery store? Must be Big Island style...

Thankfully they are concerned about safety as you'll note the "No Smoking" sign on the bottom left hand side of the display. This is especially notable when Hawaii has a Smoke Free law that bans smoking within 20 feet of doorways...in other words, you're not even supposed to be smoking within 20 ft of the doorway much less in the grocery store next to a fireworks display. But just in case you are smoking in the grocery store...make sure it isn't by the fireworks :)