tuesday, june 24th, 2008

I spent the day in the lovely village of Scarsdale, NY last Friday and on my way out of town, I made a pit stop at Balducci’s, my favorite gourmet food store in the area where I always walk away thinking I spent way too much money followed up with excitement about my splurge. This visit was no exception.

At the check out line I held in my hand a bottle of pomegranate-blueberry-acai juice that cost a whopping $4.59. I justified the extravagance by thinking of the anti-oxidant explosion I was about to experience. This was a matter of health, not a decadent bottle of ruby-amethyst tinted juice.

As I waited in line, my eyes wandered to the goodies that every grocery store piles high at the check out line. Normally I refuse to succumb to the annoyingly adorable little packets of chewing gum, brightly colored candy bars and ridiculously priced mint tins that pant at me like a window full of homeless puppy dogs that I try to ignore as I walk past the pet store.

Just as my eyes were about to shift away from the jam packed rows of glossy treats to the high maintenance mother and her whiney, over-indulged daughter in front of me, both clad from head to toe in pink and lime Ralph Lauren, I stopped short. Screaming (and I’m talking a deafening screech) was a chocolate bar I saw mentioned recently on a few of my favorite food websites and culinary magazines.

I had yet to see the too good to be true bar in person though and promised myself that when I did, I would snatch it up, no matter what the cost. This was my in the flesh moment and I was not going to let $7.59 for a single bar of standard sized chocolate get in my way. I had to have it. I reached for it and held it close to my heart. I was smitten even before my first bite. How could I not be? After all, this gorgeous temptress had it all. Not only was she a glistening bar of perfectly tempered chocolate, she was studded throughout with smoked sea salt and nubbins of apple wood smoked bacon.

I will now give you a moment to catch your breath for I am confident that your reaction to the melding of three of the food world’s most perfect ingredients; chocolate, smoked sea salt and bacon, flutters your heart, tickles your tongue and entrances your brain, just as it does mine.  

The American based company Vosges Haut-Chocolat produces these glorious chocolate bars and as I held the first in my hand, I silently sang my praises to its founder, Katrina Markoff. Bless you woman for delivering to the world, and more importantly, to my hands, this magical holy trinity.

A classically trained chef, Markoff earned her Grand Diplôme from Le Cordon Bleu in Paris before setting off to apprentice in Australia, France, Italy, Spain and Southeast Asia and then founding Vosges, a company that produces spice kissed truffles, chocolate bars and liquid chocolate reflecting her east meets west training. 

The company’s mission (besides jetting me off into culinary nirvana) is to “create a luxury chocolate experience rooted in a sensory journey of bringing about awareness to indigenous cultures through the exploration of spices, herbs, roots, flowers, fruits, nuts, chocolate and the obscure.”

Markoff’s goal is to bring together what might initially be perceived as an odd pairing, such as curry and chocolate. However, after tasting what an ideal partnership these two components make, she hopes that we might learn to embrace what was initially perceived as something different, even odd.

While Vosges goal of brining peace to the world through chocolate, encapsulated in their mission statement, “One Love, One Chocolate,” might seem a lofty one, who was I to object as a wave of love and peace washed over me. When I thought of chocolate, smoked sea salt and bacon dancing on my tongue all at once, I did feel more peaceful, spiked as it was by barely containable anticipation.  

If all this chocolate goodness weren’t enough, Vosges production facility is powered by 100% renewable energy and has been certified as an organic manufacturing facility. The company has outposts in Chicago, New York and Las and its products are also springing up in gourmet food stores around the country such as Whole Foods and Balducci’s. 

Chocolate bar and overpriced juice in hand, I set off for the wilds of Manhattan at rush hour on a Friday night in summer. As anyone who has ever tried to drive into New York City during rush hour on a summer Friday knows, traffic can be a tangled nightmare of scorching steel and rubber going nowhere for hours.

I found myself sitting in the irritated heap of cars, SUVs and semi trucks jockeying for space and inches at the entrance to the George Washington Bridge. I was meeting friends for barbecue in the city and planned to save my bacon chocolate bar as a dessert treat for all of us to share after our sticky mess of ribs and brisket had concluded.

Sitting in my sun-drenched car with horns blaring and patience wearing thin, I eyed the black and white Balducci’s bag that held my overpriced juice and chocolate. I first tried to appease my rush hour impatience with a sip of juice but after three gulps, I knew it was no match, bursting with antioxidents as it was, for the fiery-mouthed beast that is a Manhattan traffic jam.  

In a moment of congested desperation and stagnation, I decided to succumb to the power of my chocolate bar. The urge was so strong I swear I heard those little porky nubs whispering, “Eat us, eat us and you’re tension will melt away.” Come on, fess up. Don’t deny that at some point in your life you too have been hypnotized by the power of bacon. Especially if its thick cut apple wood smoked bacon. Spiked with smoked sea salt. Drenched in chocolate.

Enough said.

I removed the bar of chocolate from its rectangular white and peach box printed with the image of a glistening strip of bacon. The chocolate was wrapped in an airtight package and as I tore open one corner of it while inching ever so slowly into the city, the tantalizing aroma of chocolate filled my car followed by the subtle whisper of smoky bacon. The sheen on the chocolate was evidence of its perfect temper. The squares were imprinted with either the Vosges moniker or a slice of bacon and the piece I broke off (one with a bacon slice of course) clicked with a sharp, decisive snap.

I broke the square in half and placed one of the pieces on my tongue. Almost immediately, the chocolate began to melt. I did not chew it but instead let it do its thing, dissolving into melty liquid as it met the heat of my mouth. I pressed it against the roof of my mouth with my tongue and initially tasted nothing but buttery chocolate, melting beguilingly, seductively.

The silky allure of chocolate might have been enough to quell my rush hour frustration but just as my brain fluttered with giddiness from the singular power of chocolate, my tongue met the layer of smoked sea salt. It served to heighten the flavor of the chocolate, to refine it, inspire it to display its brightest virtues, to pull out all the stops and make this seduction an overpowering one. As the chocolate melted away, its velvety sweetness lingered for just a moment more before giving way to the real star of this edible show; bacon.

The smoked sea salt served as the bridge from the silky alure of the chocolate to the unctuous headiness of the bacon. Baby nibs of smoky pork drifting in on a melty river of salty chocolate. I waited to bite down on the bacon until all of the chocolate had melted away and just as its last sweet notes lingered in my mouth, I took my first bite of bacon. And then I took another. And another. As I swallowed the last bit of it, its sweet apple slicked virtues lingering to remind me of the decadent experience I had just experienced, I looked at myself in the rearview mirror and saw an enormous grin stretched across my face. I did not even know it was there, caught up as I was in the sold-out show of my bacon chocolate bar, missing it already, even though the curtains had just closed moments before and were still swaying from the drop.

I tucked the rest of my bar away in its package and looked forward to sharing it with my friends when I eventually did make it into the city. The traffic no longer bothered me. A half a square was all I needed. I looked at the scowl on the driver’s face in the car to my right, I watched the driver to my left squeeze his steering wheel in a white-knuckle embrace. I looked straight ahead of me at the Manhattan skyline gleaming in the pulsing heat of a New York summer day. It all looked so lovely now, even the snarl of cars were swallowed up in my blissful cloud. Who knew that my silver lining on this rush hour afternoon would be lined with chocolate, smoked sea salt and bacon?