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Tag: chocolate

The love of chocolate

The love of chocolate

Goodies from Sarina Chocolate’s kids workshop. (photo by Viva Sarah Press)

Israeli chocolatiers aren’t worried about the reported shortage of the sweet treat despite warnings by the world’s largest cocoa grinder, Barry Callebaut, that a potential chocolate shortage by 2020 is imminent.

“There will always be chocolate,” Limor Drucker of Sarina Chocolate told this reporter. “As long as there’s a demand, people will make it.”

“Originally, only kings were able to get chocolate. As long as people want it, people will grow it. I think reports of a shortage in chocolate are a marketing tool to get people to pay more,” added Jo Zander, co-founder of Holy Cacao.

photo - Chocolate spoons from Galita Chocolate
Chocolate spoons from Galita Chocolate. (photo from israel21c.org)

Visitors centres and chocolate-making workshops like Sarina have popped up around Israel as the domestic gourmet chocolate scene continues to grow. From Sweet N’ Karem in Jerusalem to Sarina Chocolate in the Sharon region, to Galita Chocolate Farm near the Kinneret to De Karina Chocolate Factory in the Golan Heights, to Hagit Lidror’s Vegan Chocolate in the Western Galilee, hands-on workshops on making pralines and other chocolate treats are popular.

Israel has a Chocolate Museum in the Upper Galilee and annual chocolate festivals.

“What’s more important for me than how many chocolatiers there are in Israel, is what kind of chocolate Israelis are eating. There’s more awareness of good quality chocolate,” Drucker said. “The level is going up. Today, people understand what makes good chocolate.”

Israeli cacao trees?

At Sarina Chocolate, the workshop begins at the hothouse. This is the only place in Israel where visitors can see cacao trees.

Drucker had worked as an English teacher before becoming a chocolatier. In 1999, her husband, Gil, who is an agriculturalist and grows oranges, was relocated for a job to Germany and they lived there for six years. During that time, she decided to take a course in chocolate-making at Barry Callebaut Academy.

She was hooked. Fine-tuning her craft came via internships and visits to chocolatiers in Europe and North America. Upon returning to Israel in 2005, she and her husband decided to “build this centre from scratch on our own land” in Ein Vered, a moshav near Netanya. After five years of bureaucracy and licensing procedures, Sarina Chocolate opened at Rosh Hashanah 2010.

The Druckers decided that cacao trees would add an educational element to their venture. On a visit to a nursery not far from their home, they met a salesman who had brought cacao seeds to Israel from Brazil “because he wanted to be able to say that he had every type of tree at his nursery.” He had tried to grow the trees in Israel with little success. The Druckers bought all six of his seedlings.

Though Israel’s weather is not ripe for these tropical trees, the Druckers created a singular hothouse replete with special air-conditioning units, sprinkler systems and drip irrigation. The six cacao trees may need pruning so as not to split open the roof of the hothouse, but their yield is zilch.

“We don’t make our own chocolate. Six trees are not enough to make chocolate,” she said. “So, why do we have this place if we don’t make chocolate? We have them to teach and show people how the process is made. We leave the cocoa fruit on the trees as long as possible for people to be able to see.”

The Druckers received a one-time grant from the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development of Israel when they first set up the hothouse, but today all energy and care costs are their responsibility. “It’s worth the investment because we’re the only ones in Israel with the cacao trees,” she said. “It’s special.”

Get your hands dirty

From the hothouse, visitors are taken to a square mosaic at the entrance to the centre. Here, Drucker tells the abbreviated history of chocolate from the Mayans to the Aztecs to Christopher Columbus presenting these brown beans to King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella, to Spanish explorer Hernando Cortez, who is credited with being the first to add sugar to cocoa beans, to modern-day chocolate habits.

A short film highlights the health benefits of chocolate, and shows how the beans are dried, ground and mixed into chocolate sludge before being cooled, molded and packaged.

Visitors, decked out in aprons and chef hats, are now ready to get their hands dirty.

Eating chocolate is one thing, but actually trying to mold it is a whole other experience. Squeezing the chocolate through a cornetto (funnel) is harder than it looks, as the chocolate quickly hardens.

The kids workshop includes fondue dipping, cupcake decorating and making milk-chocolate discs with outlined white-chocolate pictures, as well as three-chocolate molded lollipops. Adult workshop participants get to play with alcohol fillings, premium ingredients and chocolate-making techniques. Like the other chocolate centres throughout Israel, Sarina has workshops for families, businesses, wedding parties, bar- and bat-mitzvah events and birthday parties.

Drucker – who was born in Congo, grew up in South Africa and immigrated to Israel with her family in her late teens – conducts the workshops in both English and Hebrew.

“The centre is designed to be an experience for all the senses,” she said. When the hardened chocolates are brought out of the refrigerator and displayed on the counter, they look almost too good to eat.

Demand for quality

Whereas mass-produced, low-grade chocolate candy bars used to suffice, today Israelis demand better texture and flavors.

Most of the chocolatiers in Israel – and around the world – use ready-made industrial chocolate processed in Europe. The innovation and creativity kicks in when the imported product is formed into pralines, truffles or flavored confections.

One Israeli company, Holy Cacao, actually imports cocoa beans, grinds them and mixes its own chocolate.

“We’re proud to be Israeli chocolate. Do we do it to be the most profitable? No. We grind our own beans for quality,” said Zander.

“The demand for chocolate has always been more than the supply. The demand for our chocolate is greater outside of Israel. We sell to the health market. I’m not sure why our top sellers are 100% cocoa mass with no sugar.”

Sarina Chocolate, named for Drucker’s late mother, adds its own flavors to fine Belgian chocolate. “I love working with chocolate,” she said, confiding that she prefers working with it than eating it. She also loves the reaction her job elicits from others. “I just tell people I’m a chocolatier, and they start smiling.”

Israel21C is a nonprofit educational foundation with a mission to focus media and public attention on the 21st-century Israel that exists beyond the conflict. For more, or to donate, visit israel21c.org.

Format ImagePosted on July 10, 2015July 8, 2015Author Viva Sarah Press ISRAEL21CCategories IsraelTags chocolate, Holy Cacao, Jo Zander, Limor Drucker, Sarina
Ten years of chanting

Ten years of chanting

The Chanting and Chocolate band, from left: Charles Cohen, Lorne Mallin, Charles Kaplan, John Federico and Martin Gotfrit. (photo from Dave Kauffman)

On the last Sunday of every month, you can find a group of people gathered around a band of musicians, chanting Hebrew text to the rhythm of beautiful, rich melodies of the likes of Rabbi Shefa Gold and Rabbi Andrew Hahn (also known as the Kirtan Rabbi). It is a deceptively simple concept with surprisingly diverse results.

These harmonies of chant, through the repetition of just a few words, seem to have the power to carry you away from the daily hustle and bustle into a realm of music and spirit. This is Chanting and Chocolate, Lorne Mallin’s creation, which just celebrated its 10-year anniversary.

“In the summer of 2004, I began a two-year training called Kol Zimra (Voice of Praise) with Rabbi Shefa Gold of Jemez Springs, N.M.,” said Mallin about how Chanting and Chocolate came to be. “During our first gathering, Shefa encouraged us to create chant circles where we live and so, on Nov. 28th of that year, I began offering monthly evenings of sacred Hebrew chanting in Vancouver, initially called Evenings of Jewish Chant, which were then held at Sourcepoint shiatsu centre on Heather Street.”

This became a monthly tradition until Mallin moved to Uganda to live with the Abayudaya Jews in 2009. Not one to let geography, language or architectural challenges stand in his way, he was intent on sharing his passion for Jewish chant with the Abayudaya.

“At the mud-brick synagogue in the village of Nabugoye Hill, I led Shefa’s Nishmat Kol Chai, using the Luganda translation of ‘The breath of all life blesses you,’ ‘Okuusa kwebilamu kukutendereza.’ I tried to start a chant circle but, at the first announced session in the shul, I drummed and chanted alone until there was one arrival – a clucking hen skittered into the room.”

Fifteen months later, and back in Vancouver, Mallin and his band started the monthly evenings again.

“One regular participant brought tea and some baking to celebrate,” he recalled. “I noticed people enjoyed the opportunity to linger and get to know each other, so I began baking triple-chocolate brownies and rebranded the evenings Chanting and Chocolate. Two years ago, we moved to Or Shalom Synagogue at Fraser Street and East 10th Avenue.”

Beyond the good it does to its participants (naches to the soul and an uplifting of the spirit), Chanting and Chocolate is also a tikkun olam project on another level: the musicians perform for love, with the proceeds from admissions going to support the education of four Abayudaya orphans.

So, after a decade, what is it about Chanting and Chocolate that keeps Mallin going?

“For me, nothing creates a space for connecting with the Divine like chanting. The chants combine short sacred texts, beautiful melodies and deep spiritual intention. They often last 10 minutes, which strengthens the intention and clears the mind. After each chant, we give time for inner silence and connection, which is the most profound experience of the practice of chanting.”

Although Mallin has been the driving force behind this monthly undertaking, bringing it together and making it happen is very much a group effort.

“I am very grateful to my beloved teacher Shefa, the holy Kol Zimra community, Or Shalom, our band – Charles Cohen, John Federico, Martin Gotfrit and Charles Kaplan – and the lovely people who come to chant with us.”

While Mallin and the band have recorded little so far, they are planning to record their first CD in February, so stay tuned. In the meantime, to experience a unique kind of musical Yiddishkeit, attend the next Chanting and Chocolate, which will be held at its regular venue on Sunday, Dec. 28, at 7:30 p.m., with Rabbi Laura Duhan Kaplan as a special guest. Since no previous singing or chanting experience is needed, all you need to bring is some kavanah and yourself. And maybe a friend.

For more information, visit chantingandchocolate.com.

Format ImagePosted on December 19, 2014December 17, 2014Author Yael HefferCategories MusicTags chant, Charles Cohen, Charles Kaplan, chocolate, John Federico, Laura Duhan Kaplan, Lorne Mallin, Martin Gotfrit
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