I saw this video about New York based Mast Brothers Chocolate about a year or so ago, and have desperately wanted to visit their shop ever since. As someone who’s interested in starting their own business, I found the approach they discuss really inspirational. I love the romantic idealism of treating their business like a boys own adventure, and striving for something that feels nostalgic and hand made, as opposed to mass produced and uniform.
Anyway, yesterday afternoon I managed to satisfy my desire by paying their Williamsburgh shop a visit. I was hoping to take the factory tour they mention on the site, but alas they aren’t doing them at the moment as they are in the process of expanding their operation. However, when the lovely guy behind the counter saw we were a bit bummed out about not getting to do the tour, he snuck us in to have a look at their new space. It’s a really lovely big, open brick walled warehouse unit, but what hits you first is the smell. It’s like being in a chocolate cloud. I’m pretty sure I started to drool almost instantly. The room is filled will sacks of cocoa beans, a roasting oven, ‘conching’ drums (these heat and grind the beans for 3 days until the chocolate is beautifully smooth), and this awesome mad scientist-esque glass vacuum pump device that separates the cracked beans from the husk. It’s very cool, and feels really nicely old fashioned.
From Nashville we headed for the ‘Low Country’, with a quick overnight pit stop in Atlanta to break up the journey to Savannah. In the short time we were there, we didn’t get much of an impression of Georgia’s capital, but it seems like a modern city that’s expanding pretty fast.
One thing we did get to check out was Varsity, which is (apparently) America’s largest drive in. I was pretty excited about visiting as it’s one of those old school places where they have people bring out your food and do the whole tray on the window thing. Unfortunately we were disappointed. Definitely go and check it out for the spectacle and atmosphere, but don’t go for the food. It was average at best. The burgers were no better than a basic McDonald’s hamburger, the fries were limp, and god alone knows what was on in the chilli on my chilli dog, but I’m not sure it was of this World. Bit of a shame really, because it’s a pretty cool set up.
We’re ‘enjoying’ some the South-East coast’s famous storm season weather, so you’re going to get to read another post.
From LA we flew to New Orleans. After seeing all the news about Katrina and subsequent storms and floods, I really didn’t know what to expect, but I’ve got to say we were really impressed. Aside from Bourbon Street which is a bit of an abomination, it’s really cool and interesting place, that literally sweats music and good times from ever pore. We arrived with a fist full of recommendations of places to go from my mate Graison who I met on the SFBI course and who used to live there, so we set about munching our way through town.
We had three really memorable meals in ‘The Big Easy’. The first was at Dante’s Kitchen. It kicked off in style with some stellar ’spoon’ bread, which is a kind of corn bread, and was absolutely delicious. So much so that I had to know what was in it, and the chefs kindly printed me out a recipe. This was followed by fantastic shrimp and grits and then ox tail. Small dishes, really nicely done. I’d go back in a shot.
So we are exactly a week into our road trip across the ‘States, and so far, so amazing.
From San Fran we drove to Yosemite which is just incredible. I visited the valley before with my folks as a young child, but I didn’t remember much of it. Probably too young to appreciate it, but it’s a jaw dropping place. Everywhere you look, there are unbelievable postcard views. It really is the big country. Food wise we had to pretty much fend for ourselves, firing up the barbie or gas stove at our camp and packing lunches, which was all good ‘back to nature’ stuff.
Next into Death Valley. Everyone had told us stuff like ‘…it’s just a long road…” or “…there’s not much there…”, so we were unprepared for how beautiful it is. That’s beautiful in a kind of brutal way. En route we stopped by Schat’s bakery cafe in Bishop and gorged on his famous sandwiches. The turkey club was the bomb. We stayed in the heart of the valley in a little settlement called Stovepipe Wells, which felt a bit like a theme village you might get at an amusement park. It was as hot as Hades, and the food wasn’t up to much, but the setting was incredible and they had a pool. Nuff said.
Hand To Mouth is a blog about food. Eating it. Cooking it. Reviewing it. Reading about it. And everything in between.
I’ll be regularly posting recipes, reviews of some of my favourite places and opinion about anything food related that grabs my eye. Hopefully there’ll be a few laughs along the way, and I promise not to cut the cheese.
If you like what you see please let me know, and equally don’t be afraid of throwing a few rotten tomatoes my way if you don’t.
BIG thanks to Tom Hardcore at Nation for the blog design.
