PDX Chocoluck Dinner Party
posted August 23, 2015 11:09 AM RSS | iCal | +googleCal
Sat October 31 at 5:00 PM, home
7707 N Fiske Ave, Portland, OR, USA (Map & Directions)
The ketchup meetup reminded me that I wanted to throw a chocolate party! How about Halloween?
OK! A Chocolate Potluck it is!
Me & sibilatorix are writing a chocolate cookbook for a small, mostly-vegan audience. Basically everything we eat has to have chocolate in it until we finish writing the book. Chocolate everything! Cocoa butter in our muffins! Cocoa powder in our curries! Our salads! Our breakfasts! Our beverages! Chocolate in our potlucks!
There are a couple ways we could do this.
1) Potluck style. Everyone bring a dish that contains chocolate and we all enjoy a chocolatey feast together. Those who want can give us their recipe and if we use it we'll totally give you credit and probably a cookbook. (I have a million recipes I need to test if you want suggestions.)
2) We could all make a complicated mole or moles together (like the marmalade, soap, and catsup meetups). We could then either can it (can you can mole?) or eat it then and there as a sauce on something.
What fun! This Saturday til 9ish (our housemates go to bed by 10, so we're hoping people will head out by 9-9:30ish)
There are a couple ways we could do this.
1) Potluck style. Everyone bring a dish that contains chocolate and we all enjoy a chocolatey feast together. Those who want can give us their recipe and if we use it we'll totally give you credit and probably a cookbook. (I have a million recipes I need to test if you want suggestions.)
2) We could all make a complicated mole or moles together (like the marmalade, soap, and catsup meetups). We could then either can it (can you can mole?) or eat it then and there as a sauce on something.
What fun! This Saturday til 9ish (our housemates go to bed by 10, so we're hoping people will head out by 9-9:30ish)
We can host in North Portland. We have the kitchen for it.
posted by aniola at 11:11 AM on August 23, 2015
posted by aniola at 11:11 AM on August 23, 2015
Sounds awesome. I would be down for a potluck-style gathering.
posted by homodachi at 12:34 PM on August 23, 2015
posted by homodachi at 12:34 PM on August 23, 2015
I can make it, with something delightfully chocolatey!
posted by thebotanyofsouls at 8:28 AM on August 24, 2015
posted by thebotanyofsouls at 8:28 AM on August 24, 2015
I am so, so in. I can make some of these delicious brownies, or at least use that recipe as a starting point; they're not vegan, but I bet I can figure out substitutions for the egg and honey.
posted by rabbitrabbit at 11:29 AM on August 24, 2015
posted by rabbitrabbit at 11:29 AM on August 24, 2015
We have loads of kitchen space so if anyone wants to do kitchen-related things after you get here, that's totally okay.
posted by aniola at 7:15 PM on September 12, 2015
posted by aniola at 7:15 PM on September 12, 2015
Woah! Good thing I changed my profile location back to Portland and found this just now! Yay chocolate, I am interested. The thing that comes to mind as a good idea right now is pancakes, but maybe I'll dream up something else!
posted by Secretariat at 1:06 PM on September 14, 2015
posted by Secretariat at 1:06 PM on September 14, 2015
I've been having these thoughts about persimmons. I don't eat them very often, but they have a really interesting flavor from what I remember. I was thinking about a persimmon salad with chocolate dressing- is this crazy? Can I even find persimmons at the store?
posted by Secretariat at 12:34 PM on October 19, 2015
posted by Secretariat at 12:34 PM on October 19, 2015
I think persimmons would match a chocolate dressing nicely. I have the flavor bible out, so I'll just pass along their list, in case you find it useful:
posted by aniola at 9:40 AM on October 20, 2015
autumn-winterI'm also happy to brainstorm ideas with anyone who wants to bring something and hasn't been inspired yet.
sweet-sour
moderate-loud volume
bake, broil, raw
and are known to go with:
almonds
apples
avocados
bourbon
brandy
caramel
cashews cheese, esp. creamy, goat
chile peppers, serrano
chocolate, white
cinnamon
cloves
coffee
cognac
cream and ice cream
custanrd
endive
frisee
ginger
grapes, esp. red
hazelnuts
honey
kirsch
kiwi
kumquats
lemon: juice, zest
liqueurs, esp. orange
mace
maple syrup
nutmeg
oatmeal
oil, hazelnut
olive oil
orange
pears
pecans
pepper, black
pomegranates
pork
poultry
prosciutto
puddings
radicchio
raisins
rum, esp. dark
salads: fruit, green
salt
seafood
sorbet
sugar: brown, white
sweet potatoes
vanilla
vinegar: champagne, red wine, sherry, white wine
walnuts
watercress
wine, sweet (e.g., Suaternes)
yogurt
posted by aniola at 9:40 AM on October 20, 2015
We've got trick-or-treat time with the kid, so I'm going to bow out.
Secretariat: yes, you can get persimmons in stores! I've seen them at Fred Meyer and Trader Joe's already this season.
posted by homodachi at 1:40 PM on October 22, 2015
Secretariat: yes, you can get persimmons in stores! I've seen them at Fred Meyer and Trader Joe's already this season.
posted by homodachi at 1:40 PM on October 22, 2015
Oh! This is on Halloween at 4pm? Darn, I really can't do that, that's exactly trick-or-treating time, and I have a kid who's very excited about it. If there's ever another chocolate meetup, I'd love to go.
posted by rabbitrabbit at 9:01 PM on October 28, 2015
posted by rabbitrabbit at 9:01 PM on October 28, 2015
did you guys ever checkout the food blog khymos?
The cauliflower angle has me thinking gratin. And chocolate seems like it can fit into some kind of modded red eye gravy. I'd like to get a handle on how to emphasize the earthier characteristics of chocolate.
posted by 0bs01337 at 1:16 AM on October 29, 2015 [1 favorite]
The cauliflower angle has me thinking gratin. And chocolate seems like it can fit into some kind of modded red eye gravy. I'd like to get a handle on how to emphasize the earthier characteristics of chocolate.
posted by 0bs01337 at 1:16 AM on October 29, 2015 [1 favorite]
Also listed on khymos was mushrooms and cocoa. I could see that working. Interesting!
posted by Secretariat at 9:26 AM on October 30, 2015
posted by Secretariat at 9:26 AM on October 30, 2015
Frozen mushrooms are on sale at New Seasons. I'll give it a try some time! We're probably going to do crepes, some of which will have cocoa muhammara for the party.
Someone else we know was talking about bringing cocoa curry.
How does one emphasize earthy characteristics in other foods?
posted by aniola at 10:35 AM on October 30, 2015
Someone else we know was talking about bringing cocoa curry.
How does one emphasize earthy characteristics in other foods?
posted by aniola at 10:35 AM on October 30, 2015
Sprinkle a little topsoil in there and—wait, I'm not sure I'm doing this right.
posted by cortex at 10:44 AM on October 30, 2015
posted by cortex at 10:44 AM on October 30, 2015
I'm pretty sure I have seen people use liquid vacuum distilled from soil in a recipe as part of literally trying to capture the terroir of a place.
When I talk about emphasizing earthiness I basically mean pairing with food that tend to taste earthy and the stuff that goes well with earthiness. Not sure if I can describe earthiness out side of examples. But it does kind of taste like dirt. Mushrooms are a good example. Beets and rutabagas. Most things one would keep a root cellar, probably not coincidentally. Pumpkin (Pumpkin, chocolate and walnut cheese cake is really good). It's a not flavor I think about much so while there are a few things I think of as being earthy I don't have many developed ideas of how they would fit together or other things that would go compliment that specific aspect. I tend to associate it with gaminess too, so it seems to add up that prosciutto.
Doing some testing tonight to see how to fine tune stuff before tomorrow.
posted by 0bs01337 at 7:03 PM on October 30, 2015
When I talk about emphasizing earthiness I basically mean pairing with food that tend to taste earthy and the stuff that goes well with earthiness. Not sure if I can describe earthiness out side of examples. But it does kind of taste like dirt. Mushrooms are a good example. Beets and rutabagas. Most things one would keep a root cellar, probably not coincidentally. Pumpkin (Pumpkin, chocolate and walnut cheese cake is really good). It's a not flavor I think about much so while there are a few things I think of as being earthy I don't have many developed ideas of how they would fit together or other things that would go compliment that specific aspect. I tend to associate it with gaminess too, so it seems to add up that prosciutto.
Doing some testing tonight to see how to fine tune stuff before tomorrow.
posted by 0bs01337 at 7:03 PM on October 30, 2015
So I think I'm bringing a cocoa wheatberry persimmon salad. I'm still kind of making it up as I go, but the goal is more salad, less dessert- but still a little sweet. If the whim strikes me, I might make squash/chocolate chip muffins too, since that's a pretty reliable tasty thing.
posted by Secretariat at 9:12 AM on October 31, 2015
posted by Secretariat at 9:12 AM on October 31, 2015
Hah! We've got some chocolate beet filling for the crepes. I just tasted it, yum.
Pot chocolate - I won't eat it, but if everyone else thinks it tastes good, I'll put your recipe in our cookbook.
posted by aniola at 4:47 PM on October 31, 2015
Pot chocolate - I won't eat it, but if everyone else thinks it tastes good, I'll put your recipe in our cookbook.
posted by aniola at 4:47 PM on October 31, 2015
Ouiiiii that was fun! Thanks for coming and for all the great recipe ideas!
posted by aniola at 9:58 PM on October 31, 2015
posted by aniola at 9:58 PM on October 31, 2015
Thanks for having us over! That was fun, and tasty, and food-thought provoking!
posted by Secretariat at 8:11 AM on November 3, 2015
posted by Secretariat at 8:11 AM on November 3, 2015
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posted by aniola at 11:09 AM on August 23, 2015