Monday, March 26, 2007

ALAS! ALACK! OH WOE! AND SOMETHING CHEESY

On the way to the Indian restaurant yesterday evening we passed by the cheese shop. Savage Kitten snorted angrily, but did not say anything.

An hour later, as we waddled home replete, we passed the cheese shop again. And now she howled. A long kvetching ranting wail, though not so loud as to draw any attention from any passers-by, relating that she had gone there recently to buy some Schokinag, but all... they... had... was... Scharfenberger!
Which, apparently, is crap. Her opinion. Utter crap.
Despicable overpriced snob white twenty something yuppie ignoramous rotten garbage crap.


Can't say I particularly disagree.

Schokinag is good stuff.
[See here: http://www.worldpantry.com/schokinag/home.html]


Scharfenberger, while highly reputed among the snobnoscenti, just ain't right. Good chocolate is more than advanced chemistry and math. There is no inspiration in Scharfenberger.
Tain't bad, but it ain't exciting either.

[Unless your taste runs to overpriced snob white twenty something yuppie ignoramous chocolate.]



The cheese shop has recently changed hands, and the food maven wot run the place is no longer there. Now it is uninspired as far as anything which isn't cheese is concerned (the cheese selection is sterling - hence the nickname 'the cheese shop', it is actually called something else).


Good drinking chocolate is hard to find in San Francisco (Ghirardelli is not nearly as good as the tourist brochures claim). Schokinag drinking chocolate has fragments of ground chunk-chocolate in among the prepared cacao, which give the hot beverage made with their mixture a wonderfull mouth-feel and aroma. And a depth of flavour. Most hot chocolate mixes are little more than mediocre generic cacao with essences and stabilizers. But Schokinag is indeed special. Luscious.

[Mind you, I am not going to tell her that because of me her supply of Schokinag diminished quite a bit more rapidly than it should have. There are some things one's significant other does NOT need to know. Like about the afternoon that I had a furious argument about wild clover honey with her teddy bear. She does not need to know that either. I do not wish to pay with my life for speaking firmly to the Ms. Bruin about honey, nor for stealing Schokinag.]


We still have Cadbury's. And Droste in a pinch. One can always melt some fine bar chocolate and whip it into the scalded milk. Add a pinch of freshly grated cinnamon (not cassia but real Ceylon canela).

Some vaunted Mexican cacao mix is also available at the cheese shop. It costs nearly twenty dollars for a tin. What kind of price is that? Does anybody really think very many Mexicans will fork over twenty bucks for cacao? Any Mexicans? Any at all? Hmmmph!

----------------------------------------

For more on chocolate, and the important soul-soothing qualities of a good cacao fix, please visit this site: http://goingslightlymad.blogspot.com/
Browse until you stumble over Maltesers.
There's chocolate in them there hills.

9 comments:

Looking Forward said...

why would I not be surprised if you actualy fed your kitten hot chocolate to drink?

(other than I am starting to think that savage kitten is your wife, I am still unsure.)

The back of the hill said...

Savage Kitten regards marriage as a nasty feudal remnant which serves only to make Cantonese women miserable for the rest of their lives.

As I am not a Cantonese woman, I have a different opinion.

She looks at her parents' generation as proof of her contention.

Ms. Bruin, alas, agrees with her. Bears are partisan.

Tzipporah said...

I think I may have been to that cheese shop. In amonst a bunch of other snobalicious gentrifiable shops, with a wide selection of samples for your tasting pleasure... have never tried Schokinag, so now I will have to. If it's better the SB, it must be fabulous.

Tzipporah said...

ok, so are we looking for trible chocolate or extreme dark drinking chocolate? recommendations, please.

The back of the hill said...

The Triple is truly excellent, as is the Extreme Dark. But the Triple is the genuine stuff, the real McCoy(I cannot quite remember in Extreme Dark - we had that a very intense chocolaty month or more ago, and my mouth memory is of more recent things).

I'm also keen to try the Moroccan spice chocolate.

e-kvetcher said...

You write a post about a cheese shop and expect no Monty Python references?

BTW, since you are the only Dutch type person I know, how does one go about buying an album by the Amsterdam Klezmer Band? It seems like most of their albums are not sold in the US.

The back of the hill said...

Try Amazon.

Type in Amsterdam Klezmer Band as the search criterium.

At present there are "41 Used & New" copies of 'remixed' showing as available.

Limonchiki by Amsterdam Klezmer Band (Audio CD - Jan 6, 2000)
4 Used & new from $44.48


------------------

Started in 1996, the Amsterdam Klezmer Band is a spin-off of a collaboration between Job Chajes and Don Munzer. They both played for circus theatre Sjappoo, accompanying the diverse acts on saxophone and accordion. Don, who knew several Jewish songs, asked Job to come and play for the circus, which was based in Arnhem. He managed to convince Job, who was more interested in hip hop and jazz, to start playing Yiddish music. The circus turned out to be a good place to try out the songs. The band plays Jewish festive music from Eastern Europe, but is also strongly influenced by Balkan gipsy orchestras such as Taraf de Haidouks from Romania and several brass bands from the same region. Many of the songs are composed by the band and there is always room for improvisation. The band is now a septet, consisting of vocals, saxophone, clarinet, trumpet, trombone, accordeon and double bass. A new cd is out on Knitting Factory Records. Its name is "Limonchiki" (spring 2002). Web: www.amsterdamklezmerband.nl. E-mail Amsterdam Klezmer. (Joop van der Linden). 2002-04-15.

e-kvetcher said...

thanks man. I saw those already. What I am really interested in are the other albums on their site.

Anonymous said...

Hey, as long as "ex-Leonards" stocks Cashel Irish bluecheese, tell Savage Kitten to stop savaging them.

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