Raw Milk and Live Cookies

Raw Milk 
Dungeness Valley Creamery, $1.50/pint

Live Chocolate-Walnut Cookie
The Cookie Jar, $3

Whatever the dairy equivalent of "bread basket" might be, the Sequim-Dungeness Valley would have earned the title for much of the 20th century.  The arrival of the first cows in 1860 inaugurated a thriving industry; eventually the area boasted hundreds of dairy farms and thousands of cows, most of them Guernseys and Jerseys producing buttery high-fat milk.  

Over the last fifty years, though, Sequim-area dairying has declined.  The new norm emphasizes larger farms, industrialized techniques, lower-fat milk, and higher-yielding cows (typically Holsteins). 

One of two dairies remaining in the Valley today, the Dungeness Valley Creamery is extremely choosy about which trends it follows and which it bucks.  Located on the bluff above the Dungeness Spit, the creamery facility was built in 1992 by a family who have been in the dairy business since the 1970s.  The farm's 38 acres are home to 60 vintage Jersey cows, each with her own name and personality.  Their milk is sold unpasteurized and unhomogenized, so that the cream rises to the top, and since 2006 Dungeness Valley Creamery milk has also been certified raw.  

The milk is cold and frothy with the sweet-clean aftertaste of mown grass.  It begs to be put to work washing something down, and the Creamery has the perfect partner on hand:  Live Cookies.  Available in a number of flavors, these substantial treats feature flours ground at the last minute and stored cold in order to maintain their nutrients.  

The Creamery's stock of Live Cookies is limited to what was left over after Live Bread Shoppe owner/baker Sherry Fry closed her Sequim-based business in 2012.  Fry's new nutritional counseling business in Puyallup will eventually offer Live Cookies, along with a cookbook, Nutrition From the Cookie Jar. 

(If you're navigating using Sequim's free tourist map, note that the Creamery's location is marked incorrectly.)

Dungeness Valley Creamery
1915 Towne Rd
Sequim W360/683-0716

Lavender Ice Cream

Lavender Ice Cream
Purple Haze, $4

Around 1850 settlers who reached the Sequim and Dungeness Bays at the northern end of Washington's Olympic Peninsula began to take advantage of the flat plains and fertile soil left behind by retreating glaciers and the protective "rain shadow" cast by the Olympic Mountains.  They cleared, irrigated, planted, and harvested handsomely, eventually shifting their focus from vegetables to small-scale dairies. 

A little over a century later, a new wave of settlers began to arrive, drawn to the same favorable conditions but for different reasons.  After a syndicated newspaper column for retirees published a letter praising the area's mild weather and low cost of living, the small town of Sequim experienced a population boom.   One struggling dairy farm after another was replaced by housing developments and chain stores. 

But just when it looked like nothing could check the spread of the cul-de-sacs, a Sequim civic committee convened in 1995 with the goal of revitalizing the area's agricultural traditions.  Like the settlers and the retirees, they looked at the landscape and the weather and saw yet another new solution:  lavender. 

Today Sequim has positioned itself as "America's Provence," with more than 30 local farms collaborating on events like the annual Lavender Festival, which attracts thousands of tourists in mid-July.  But visitors who arrive outside the high season don't miss out:  farmstands and shops feature a wild variety of value-added products, from sniffable sachets and soaps, to edible lavender-laced cheeses, cookies, and chocolates.  The Purple Haze farm's mainstreet shop even sells lavender and white chocolate ice cream, produced by Elevated Ice Cream in nearby Port Townsend.  

Purple Haze Lavender Shop
127 W Washington St
Sequim WA
360/683-1714

Crumb Grabbers Birthday Cupcake

Birthday Cupcake
Crumb Grabbers Bakery, free (!)

Crumb Grabbers Bakery is a popular spot for light meals and treats located in a friendly-looking house on a side street just off Sequim's main drag.   I had to elbow through the lunch crowd to reach the bakery counter, but that effort quickly paid off.

"It's our one-year anniversary," said the woman behind the counter, "Would you like a free birthday cupcake?"

Giddy with good fortune, I rushed out to the less-crowded parking lot to enjoy my freebie.  The chocolate-on-chocolate cupcake was moist and not too sweet, with a good balance of frosting to cake--even factoring in the frosting that mysteriously ended up on my face and shirt.

Crumb Grabbers Bakery 

492 W Cedar St

Sequim WA

360/504-2031

Calico Cupboard

Cream Puff
Calico Cupboard, $6.49

I learned about Calico Cupboard from a rabid fan of their apple cake who was loudly talking smack in a rival bakery.  Visiting lovely little La Conner on a day trip, I reckoned I'd judge that apple cake for myself--but it turns out only to be available "in season".  So instead I had (part of) a cream puff the size of a kickball but much more toothsome:  flaky pastry, glassy chocolate, rich custard, and airy whipped cream. 

And I added "apple cake" to my fall calendar.

Calico Cupboard
720 S 1st St 
La Conner WA
360/466-4451 

Almond Horn

Almond Horn
P.S. Suisse, $2.85

Langley, Washington is not so much small as concentrated:  you could drive in one end and out the other in about 45 seconds, or you could pull over and spend all day exploring bookshops, cafes, spas, boutiques, the world's best-organized thrift store, and, at the far end of a tiny pedestrian mall, the P.S. Suisse bakery.  

Originally from Ligerz in western Switzerland, Peter Boden served a 3-year apprenticeship in Davos then worked as a confectioner and pastry chef in hotels and restaurants around Europe.  After moving to America, he first worked in Illinois, then Michigan, then relocated again to Colorado--as much for the skiing as for the kitchens.  Some of the framed memorabilia on the walls at P.S. Suisse comes from this period, including a feature story on the Vail Grand Marnier Chef's ski race, with a picture of Peter schussing down a slopes in apron and toque.   

After several years as the co-owner of Vail's Alpenrose restaurant (est. 1975), Peter took some time off to concentrate on producing his sought-after chocolate sculptures and paintings...and somehow ended up in Langley, WA, in a tiny shop at the end of a small mall.  I would've liked to ask about that, but the lunch rush crowding the bakery's few tables put a damper on investigation.  

Peter's wife Sandra covers the front of the house, hustling plates and extracting pastries from the crowded cases.  The cookie choices include spitzbuben (or "rascals," two-layer sandwiches with jam filling peeking out through holes in the upper cookie), linzer (similar to spitzbuben but made with hazelnut dough), shortbread Orcas painted with milk or dark chocolate, and almond horns (above) wrought from mildly sweet marzipan dough, dark chocolate, and a glassy sugar-egg-almond glaze.  There are also strudels, tarts, danishes, Napoleons, croissants, and a shelf full of breads.  

As the shop's sole baker and cook, Peter has plenty to do in back.  In addition to keeping the cases and bread rack full and whipping up lunch plates, there are the seasonal specials.  During my visit Peter was hard at work filling orders for Engadin nusstorte, a shortcrust pastry stuffed with walnuts, honey, and cream. A traditional holiday-time treat, the Engadin is named for the valley surrounding St. Moritz and is a soft-spoken reminder of the poverty endured by generations of Swiss villagers; the Engadin recipe probably spread as bakers went further and further afield in search of work.  
 
P.S. Suisse
221 2nd St #12A
Langley, WA
360-221-9434 

 

Port Gamble Tea Room

Kahlua truffle
For the Love of Chocolate, $2.60

Port Gamble is a 19th century company town that grew up to house and serve the employees of a single dominant industry, the local sawmill.  When that mill finally closed in 1995, after 142 years of continuous operation, the town was able to capitalize on its "frozen in time" appeal.  Although there are less that a thousand full-time residents, tourists regularly fill the parking areas and swarm the sidewalks for special events or fairs, or just for the pleasure of visiting the little shops and restaurants that now occupy the preserved wooden buildings.  

Taste Port Gamble is the superhero of these businesses, a single tidy front that conceals three distinct identities.  By day it's the Tea Room at Port Gamble, offering English-style formal tea options, including chocolate high tea, cream tea, and tea sandwiches; loaner picture hats and feather boas are available for any guests who arrive under-accessorized.  On Friday and Saturday evenings it transforms into Bistro by Night, featuring tapas, schnitzel, salmon, and stroganoff.  And night or day, guests can choose from a variety of flavorful chocolate truffles, made in-house under the For the Love of Chocolate label. 

Taste Port Gamble
32279 Rainier Street 
Port Gamble WA 
360 / 297-4225

Niederegger Eierliqueur Marzipan

Niederegger Eierliqueur Marzipan
Marina Market, $5.50

Although it looks like a typical convenience store from the outside, the Marina Market in downtown Poulsbo is more of a candy convention center.  Begun in 1998 with the intent of providing the area's many Scandinavian, Dutch, and European residents with the tastes of home, Marina Market offers a wide range of specialty food, with an emphasis on sweets.  The shelves of the "Licorice Shrine" groan under the aggregate weight of nearly 400 different kinds, sourced from all over the world (this selection which may soon earn Marina Market a spot in the Guiness Book of World Records).

The Market also carries a vast stock of old-fashioned and foreign candies and chocolate bars, including a range from Niederegger, a renowned German confectioner in business since the early 19th century.  Niederegger is particularly famous for its marzipan, a paste of almonds and sugar that can stand on its own in sculpted sweets, or act as a filling in pastries or bars.  Inside the bittersweet chocolate bar above, marzipan is combined with eierliqueur (aka avocaat), a German egg-based liquor.

Marina Market
18882 Front St NE
Poulsbo, WA

360 / 779-8430

Lengua de Gato

 
Lengua de Gato
Sweet Coconut Bakery, $5.75/12

I went to the Urban Craft Uprising summer show to check out some jewelry...and left with cookies.  I have my priorities.

Seattle's Sweet Coconut Bakery is a young company on a misson:  "to create sweet treats that might induce you to sit down, maybe put your feet up, and enjoy a cup of coffee, cocoa, or tea. Let time tick slowly, as you would if you were on vacation on a tropical island, where coconuts abound, and life is sweet."  

Sweet Coconut's treats are largely Filipino, American, or some combination of the two.  Crisp, rich little cookies that resemble cats' tongues in both shape and texture, lengua de gato are a Spanish recipe beloved in the Philippines and here given a Seattle spin with the addition of cacao nibs from Theo Chocolate.  Sweet Coconut's menu includes other well-traveled favorites such as polvorones (shortbread), pastillas de leche (cooked milk candy), sampanguita (coconut-butter cookies), macaroons, marshmallows, brownies, and peanut butter cookies.  

Available around Seattle at selected farmer's markets--and the occasional craft fair--these treats can also be Sweet Coconut treats can also be ordered from Sweet Coconut's Etsy shop.   

George's Bakery

 

Chocolate Thumbprint Cookie

George's Bakery, $1

A disc of buttery shortbread and a dollop of fudgy icing:  sweet, simple, and satisfying out of all proportion to its size.  The same could be said for just about anything from George's Bakery.  

Founder George Marcis was born in Greece in 1933 and immigrated to the US as a teenager; he learned English while studying at Seattle's Broadway Technical School.  In 1964 Macris and his wife Jean opened their bakery on the main street in North Bend, a small mountain town in the Olympic mountains east of Seattle.  

Until the 1978 bypass, Interstate 90 ran past the front door, delivering hungry skiers and hikers to and from the mountains.  Macris' work day started at 3am, and one North Bend resident described seeing him work "like a buzzard" to keep his cases stocked with fresh baked goods:  cracked wheat, cinnamon nut, and rye bread, danishes, doughnuts, cinnamon twists, peaked "Mount Si" loaves, and boozy rum balls.  When there weren't enough chairs to go around, patrons would happily sit on the floor with their pastries and coffee.

The Macrises commuted into Seattle to attend the St. Demetrios Greek Orthodox Church, and George's Bakery played an active role in producing goods for the annual fundraiser bazaars; in the days before an event, the bakery would host a revolving army of volunteer bakers, trying their best to meet the public's lucrative demand for specialty breads and pastries.  

Macris retired in 1993, selling the business to Greg and Cornelia Cordova.  In 2008 the business passed to current owners Kathleen Stokesbury and Joe McKeown, a third-generation baker from Pittsburgh who had previously run Seattle's Greenwood Bakery.  By all accounts, they've done little to change the formula that made George's Bakery a neighborhood hub:  the decor is still comfortably kitschy, the cases are still filled with familiar favorites. 

Macris passed away in 2008 at the age of 70; North Bend's mayor honored him with a posthumous Lifetime Achievement Award, citing his unwavering support for community members and events. 

George's Bakery

127 W North Bend Way  

North Bend, WA
425/888-0632

 

Other North Bend sources of notable sweets include Twedes's (below left), home of the "damn fine" cherry pie immortalized in David Lynch's Twin Peaks, and Scott's Dairy Freeze (below right), home of some damn sweet signage.   

Boehms Chocolates

Cherry Cordial (left)

Motzartkugel (right)

Boehms Candies

Calling all producers of romantic biopics:  wake up, smell the chocolate, and give the late Julius Boehm the big-screen treatment he so richly deserves!

Born in 1897, Boehm was a Swiss-Austrian who represented Austria in the 1924 Paris Olympics and was a torch-carrier in 1936--the same year he fled the Nazi invasion by skiing over the Alps to Switzerland.  Boehm eventually immigrated to the US and arrived in the Pacific Northwest in 1941.  

As if all that weren't epic enough, Boehm was also the grandson of a confectioner, from whom he learned a thing or two about treats.  In 1934 he and a friend opened the Candy Kitchen in Ravenna, a quiet residential neighborhood on the north side of Seattle.  In 1956, Boehm moved his business to Issaquah, where the surrounding Cascade range recalled the mountains of his childhood.  Next to the shop he built a replica 12th century Alpine Chapel, dedicated to the memory of lost mountaineers.  Boehm himself was one of the lucky ones, safely summiting Mt. Rainier for the third time at the age of 80, just three years before his death in 1981.  

The business Boehm built thrives to this day, cranking out an enormous variety of filled and flavored chocolates.  For the cherry cordials, ripe cherries are soaked in brandy for nearly a month, then double-dipped in milk or dark chocolate.  Mozartkugeln are Boehms' signature sweet, a dollop of soft marzipan blanketed in creamy chocolate ganache, encased in a chocolate shell, and dressed in foil imprinted with Mozart's silhouette.   Honoring the centennial of the composer's death, the Mozartkugel was invented in Salzburg in 1890 by one of Julius Boehms' ancestors, and could itself be the subject of a pretty gripping movie; the confection was a fad that has since become a classic--and the subject of lawsuits, industrial innovation, and consumer obsession.  

Boehms Candies

255 NE Gilman Blvd

Issaquah, WA

425/392-6652

Chimacum Cafe

Chocolate Cream Pie

Chimacum Cafe, $3.22

The "prize-winning" pie at this vintage diner just about swamped me in waves of nostalgia. The chocolate cream pie, to an eerie degree, was just like my grade school cafeteria used to make: a blind-baked pie shell filled to the brim with instant chocolate pudding and topped with whipped cream and a few chocolate chips.  I've certainly had more adventurous or flavorful pies, but this wins my prize for affordably priced time travel.

Chimacum Cafe

9253 Rhody Drive
Chimacum, WA 98325

360/732-4631

Hello, Cupcake

Mocha Cupcake
Hello, Cupcake, $2.55

Although cupcakes are redolent of childhood innocence, birthday parties, and bake sales, there's still something about them that can also be quite grown-up, feminine, and even flirtatious.

Tacoma's Hello, Cupcake bakery teases out the sultry side of this popular treat. Their small, moist and flavorful cakes are topped with sculptural heaps of frosting, like an abstract homage to a woman sashaying down the street in a swingy skirt. Most flavors are further accessorized with finishing touches; the mocha (above) is crowned with a chocolate coffee bean, the seasonal banana split (below, center) attracts attention with a sweep of chocolate syrup and a glossy maraschino cherry.

Hello, Cupcake also offers a event room and an enticing decorating party package: $10 per person for two cupcakes and two hours in which to pile them high with frosting, frills, and furbelows.

Coffee Daifuku

Coffee Daifuku

Two days ago my beloved family dog died; today I made coffee daifuku. It was the most fitting tribute I could come up with. (If you want to skip the backstory and head straight to the recipe, it's at the bottom of the post.)

Tucker was a rescue who ended up at the Nashville Humane Society after his previous "family" moved out their apartment in the middle of summer and left him locked up inside with no food or water. When the landlord found him three days later he was in pretty bad shape, and when my mom and I spotted him at the shelter he was about as energetic and engaged as a wet rag; all the other dogs jumped and wriggled and twinkled, but Tucker just laid in the corner of his cage, avoiding eye contact. The same impulse that compels Mom and me to buy stained, one-eyed stuffed animals and spindly Christmas trees led us to take the world's most depressed dog home for a trial adoption.

It was awkward from the get-go. Tucker was ferocious towards strangers, but a whiny crybaby around us, so fearful of separation he'd keen and jam his front paws under the closed bathroom door if you just wanted to pee in private. Neither extreme was attractive. Eventually we had a dog therapist come in, and she said some things that made sense. We humans changed our ways and gradually Tucker transitioned from impossible to merely difficult to, finally, an awesomely affectionate little dog with some residual quirks. He was devoted to my dad and the two of them developed a program of entertainingly elaborate rituals; here's what would happen every morning when Tucker saw Dad for the first time:



One problem that we never really sorted out: Tucker was a binge eater. Our previous family dog, Mac, was a classic Westie, with stumpy legs, a pig body, and a piggish attitude towards food; he'd eat almost anything, but given his limited vertical range, it was usually easy to keep him out of trouble. Tucker, in comparison, could practically levitate. He was roughly the same size as Mac, but leggier by inches.

The first weekend we had Tucker we briefly left him alone in the kitchen; first, he climbed onto the counter and took a polite but dismissive nibble out of every item in the fruit bowl before discovering the real prize, a boxed Derby pie (pecan with chocolate chips), bought at a church sale that morning. When I wandered into the kitchen a little later, hankering for a slice of pie, I was confused to see a brand-new empty pie pan shining in a patch of sun on the floor: no dents, no marks, not a single crumb. The solution to the mystery was around the corner; our catatonic 15-pound dog lying on his side with his emaciated legs stuck straight out and an entire Derby pie swelling his belly like a cow inside a cobra.

On the vet's advice, I took Tucker outside and proceeded to funnel hydrogen peroxide into him at 10-minute intervals until the pie reappeared. If I thought he'd looked dejected at the pound, I hadn't seen anything yet. That pie was probably the best thing that had happened to him in years, and it had gone horribly wrong. He was stoic about the treatment but the look on his face could have been used to solicit charitable donations.

That was only the first of many crises stemming from Tucker indulging in too much of a bad thing. I know this makes me and my parents sound horribly irresponsible, but Tucker was devilishly quick, silent, and so dexterous you'd swear he had thumbs.

Once when he was accompanying my dad on a car trip, they made a few stops on the way out of town: first at Starbucks, where Dad bought an enormous latte for the drive, and then to drop something in the mail slot outside the post office. In the seconds it took for my dad to walk from the car to the building and turn around, Tucker had lifted the venti cup out of the console between the seats, flipped off the lid, and commenced slurping. Dad didn't make a sound ("I knew if I startled him he'd spill the whole thing"), just walked calmly back to the car as Tucker watched him over the rim of the cup, lapping for dear life. By the time Dad reached down and took the cup from between Tucker's paws he'd drunk about half--but hadn't spilled a drop. As they drove off, Tucker curled into a little ball on the passenger-side floor and went to sleep. My dad finished the coffee.

So there's something right about the fact that I was at a chocolate and coffee tasting when Tucker had a stroke. When my parents called with the news, there was sadness but no shock. Over the last couple of years, Tucker's much-abused body had begun to shut down. When I last saw him, about a week before he died, he was totally deaf and blind, his bony little frame studded with lumps and growths, his smile gummy, his coat--to quote my dad--"moth-eaten".

And yet he was still so cute people in cars would slow down and grin out their windows as we jaunted around the block, me as "seeing eye person" trying to keep him from running into trees or spilling off curbs as he clipped along. Even more impressive, he was seemed happier than he had been in his anxiety-riddled prime; sure, he slept 23 hours a day, but every single time you roused him he'd deliver an abbreviated version of the joyful dance in the above video.

The first stage of mourning a rescue dog is raw sadness, and the second is this: "At least I gave him/her a better life than he/she would have had." But that's where my mourning process derailed. Tucker was certainly better off with us than with his first owners, and probably better off than with many other potential adoptive families. So he had a better life--but I didn't really give it to him.

About four months after I incited my family to adopt Tucker, I packed up and moved to Tokyo. As an irresponsible act it wasn't perhaps on par with leaving behind a baby or even a horse, but it wasn't particularly fair to either parents or dog. Tucker's death got me thinking about that stage in my life, about the fine line I walked between adventure and escape, about the things that helped me to adjust to my new life just as Tucker was adjusting to his.

Which is where coffee daifuku finally comes in. Daifuku are basic Japanese sweets, balls of bean paste skinned in fresh rice dough. As an illiterate vegetarian, I was initially drawn to the rack of daifuku at my neighborhood grocery store on the assumption that I could expect them not to contain meat. I visited more regularly when I realized that just around the time I got off work, the day's unsold daifuku were marked down to half-price. And then, eating my way through the rainbow of options, I got to the brown one: it was coffee and it was delicious.

After that I ate them every time I got the chance, sometimes even paying full price. My habit ran for months, until one day, the coffee daifuku were gone. The next day, none again. And the next.

Emboldened by my addiction, I cornered a clerk and in shaky Japanese asked about my treat. He said there were none, which of course I already knew.

"Tomorrow?" I pleaded.

He responded with a clear shake of the head and a well-enunciated "No" (rare in Japan). I never saw those daifuku again.

So today I was feeling sad about Tucker and thinking about Japan and the fact that I hadn't eaten coffee daifuku in almost exactly eleven years when I suddenly realized that I had all the ingredients to make them sitting in my kitchen. And whereas I would normally mull and research and make lists until the impulse passed, today, in Tucker's honor, I made them right away.

I've learned a lot of things from dogs in general and from Tucker in particular: the importance of a good stretch, the need to trust one's instincts, the nobility of expressing unrestrained affection. And whether because of their short lives or their tiny bladders, dogs are also masters of the immediate: they don't make to-do lists, and they don't let things drag on. So with that I headed into the kitchen for a date with coffee daifuku, feeling the ghostly touch of a wet black nose goading the back of my leg.

Spur-of-the-Moment Coffee Daifuku

for filling:
250g (freezer-burned) shiroan white bean paste; you could also use store-bought red bean paste
1 tsp instant coffee

for mochi:
1 1/4 c water
1/4 c sugar
pinch salt
1/2 tsp instant coffee
1 1/2 c (not-too-expired) mochiko sweet rice flour
starch for dusting (eg cornstarch or more mochiko)

Let's say you had big plans to make fancy Japanese sweets last year so you spent a couple of days making a stockpile of white bean paste and that cured you of your urge to make wagashi; unearth a package of forgotten shiroan from the freezer and defrost. Mix the instant coffee with just enough water to make a smooth paste and blend into the shiroan (photo below).

You might also have some mochiko, with which you planned to make microwave mochi, but then the microwave died and you were intimidated by the idea of making stovetop mochi so you pushed the box of mochiko into a dark corner of the cupboard; dig it out and dust it off.

Combine the water, sugar, salt, and coffee over medium heat, stirring until everything has dissolved. Use a dampened wooden spoon to stir in the mochi about 1/3c at a time. Once it's all in, continue to stir the gluey mass vigorously for 2-3 more minutes.

Dump the mochi out onto a surface heavily dusted with cornstarch or more mochiko. Allow to cool for a couple of minutes, until you can handle it without wincing. Roll into a fat snake and divide into 10 pieces. Dust your hands well, then roll each piece into a ball and flatten into a small patty. Top that with about 1 Tbs of the bean paste, and stretch the edges of the mochi up until they meet and pinch them together to seal the shiroan inside. Set the daifuku seam-side down on the starched surface to cool.

You can tweak the daifuku to make them as round as possible but don't expect them to look like something a machine plopped onto a conveyor belt; you are not a machine. They will be lopsided and lumpy but you will enjoy the hell out of them anyway, as will the friends you share them with.

Intrigue Chocolates + Zoka Coffee

As part of the Northwest Coffee Festival, Intrigue Chocolates hosted a guided tasting of their flavored truffles paired with specially-selected joe from Zoka Coffee.

In a small kitchen just off Pioneer Square, Intrigue concocts French-style truffles; with no hard chocolate shell to protect them, these sexy little morsels of ganache start to liquefy the instant they hit your tongue. Intrigue's chocolatier, Aaron Barthel (above), is constantly tinkering with new flavor infusions, offering old favorites and new discoveries six at a time on a rotating basis.

For the tasting Aaron matched six of his truffles with single-origin and blend coffees roasted by Zoka and brewed with military precision by Zoka rep Jessica Schmidt. It was a fundamentally delicious experiment, in theory like a deconstructed mocha but so much more interesting. It was fascinating to experience how the flavors of the different chocolates and coffees played off each other, and how that interplay was further complicated by so many other variables--the order of consumption, the temperature of the coffee, the brewing technique used, etc.

Plenty to think about during the long sleepless night ahead...

Intrigue Chocolates

76 S Washington St #M104
Seattle, WA
206/829-8810