Growing up in the US, going to Whole Foods was a special occurrence, reserved for birthdays and whenever I convinced my mom we needed fancy hummus. As I grew older and began doing all my own grocery shopping and cooking (fancy hummus occasionally included), I quickly learned that when it comes to health food stores, …

Have you ever thought about where vanilla comes from? The plant, Vanilla planifola, is native to Mexico, but now grows on a vine in tropical locations around the world. The largest growing regions at the moment are in Madagascar and Indonesia.And like the chocolate tree, vanilla comes from a fermented fruit grown from one of …

Have you ever wanted to visit a chocolate farm, and try a fresh chocolate fruit straight off the tree? Of course you have! For those of you not in-the-know, the chocolate tree is called Theobroma cacao, and it grows within 25 degrees of the equator, putting Hawaii right at the edge of its growing region. …

Paradise. This is most people’s understanding of Hawaii. There are palm trees swaying in the wind, a gentle surf, and pineapples. Sometimes we imagine macadamia nuts and hula dancers, but overall it’s more tropical beach than rain forest. But such images just scratch the surface of Hawaiian potential, and all the many unique things to …

In honor of the fact that not only is it Thursday, but it’s the beginning of a new school year and the end of a chocolate era, today I’m sharing a throwback: the first academic paper I ever wrote on chocolate. This was submitted a little over 6 years ago, when I was doing a …

When you’re visiting Alaska, chocolate doesn’t usually come to mind. Most people visit for the jaw-dropping views and nature-oriented activities, like hiking Root Glacier. The state’s chocolate culture is unsurprisingly underdeveloped. Yet I still managed to find a very large selection of both American & imported craft chocolate bars, a sign that fine chocolate culture …

Practice what you preach. Hammered into my head as a kid, this advice had lead to me making many questionable choices in the name of fine chocolate. Just last month I spent $20 on a cheap hostel for the weekend, and then a few hundred dollars on fine chocolate around Seoul. It was all in …

My biggest accomplishments this month were submitting the last of my paperwork for my job, finally Latin dancing again, buying my plane tickets to Korea, and turning 21! As a celebration, my mom bought me free drink coupons to over a dozen DC bars. My mother, the loving enabler. Days Danced: 9 Days Sick: 0 Life …

Quality food overload. Everything from fatty braised lamb to gooey chocolate desserts. We were in such fancy spots that it was impossible to even snap a photo. ​Days Danced: 5 Days Sick: ~2 Planned Monotony; Unplanned Fear This month I got to tour Counter Culture Coffee’s roasting facilities, which was a wonderful wrap-up of the interview I …

When was the last time you ate bone marrow & creme brulee in the same day? For me, it was just last month. At the end of January I went with my Eats 101 class to spend the weekend in Asheville, staying at the Biltmore, touring its estate, mansion and winery, in between fabulously decadent meals. Seriously. I couldn’t …