Interview & Tasting: Chocolat Moderne | #PodSaveChocolate Ep48

e [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] hello everyone and welcome to this episode of pod save chocolate my name is Klay Gordon I'm your host and moderator and today my special guest is Joan Cucos who's the founder chief choler chief bottle washer I think chief everything officer at um shot modar Joan thanks very very much for joining me today clay thank you so much for inviting me and I want to thank all the viewers out there for tuning in you know uh this is you know number one as I've said you know this kind of format where I get to you know talk to a new friends and old friends and get a chance to catch up on their history and our connections and then to do a tasting um is always one of my favorite formats and you know I'm really excited today because I've got a brand new collection from you and we're going to talk about Inspirations um and this is my first ever chocolate and olive oil tasting so I'm really really excited about that as well I do want to remind everybody if you're watching on YouTube LinkedIn or Facebook go into the comments and let us know where in the world you're connecting from we'll get that shout out up on screen and if you do have a question for Joan or for me at any point during the episode go into the live chat go into the comments and what I'll do is I'll get that question asked of Joan we'll try to get it answered for you today and with that Joan you know one of the things that's been fun about putting together this episode is going back and realizing that we've been connected now for yeah I want to say about 20 20 years which is you know really really you know it's just like oh my gosh you know my history and your history in New York City but you know what I want to do is is is talk about the fact that like many people um in the chocolate business chocolate wasn't their first career so as I understand it you know in the first time we ever met in your Workshop right which is on the ninth floor of this industrial building of Chelsea and you're still in that same floor in that still same space right the same it's it's a fantastic neighborhood no it is no it absolutely is but you know I understand that you were in the finance business so and that you were in Moscow if I remember prop properly and you were on holiday and I didn't remember exactly where but it turns out you were in holidays somewhere in Belgium and tell me about what happened there and how it inspired you to get into the chocolate business in the first place so I always pinch myself because it never seems like it's really true but it is I swear um I was on the plane flying to Brussels and in the inflight magazine there was an article about an artisan choler Pierre marcolini and I had never read about a human being being like a chef choler so I really I cut out that article I cut out that article it really impressed me I was always into food and always into learning about new trends in food so I thought oh my gosh this is like a new trend in chocolate and the next day basically I walked into this outdoor Market in the center of Brussels la plas sabl and I saw antique chocolate molds and at first I didn't know what they are I thought they're not cupcake molds you know they're too small for that and then it hit me of course we in Brussels it's they're chocolate molds and I don't know what possessed me I bought two molds and I said I'm going to teach myself how to make chocolate and I don't think a lot of other people are really making chocolate like this in the states right now so I'm going to be like in the beginning of this trend so that is exactly what happened I bought two molds I came home and I started Googling how to make chocolate and it became as they say a consuming passion and three years later I started chakal D so that's that's really it in a nutshell so you know it's such a it's a so I mean so did you go from Moscow to Brussels to the United States or did you have to take these these um these molds back to to back to Moscow with you in your in your luggage went from Brussels to Moscow I think back to Brussels and then to the United States I can't even remember anymore honestly and it was like December it was December of 2000 coming back in January of 2001 and like a weekend after I got home I I literally I really literally Googled truffles I didn't know anything about tempering I wasn't even really a baker okay right um and I just started experimenting in my apartment and like I was still in PRI I was in private banking with JP Morgan at the time and every weekend was like my time to learn how to make chocolate that's I you know I started studying like in January of 200 m one and um basically did you know or work with Johnny Mack no okay just curious anyway all right all right so oh you know what I need to put the phone in the other room I'm so sorry hold on we're doing this live folks and that's just one of the things happen I do want let again remind everybody where in the world you might be connecting from I'm back you go into the comments and let us know where you are connecting from we'll get the shout out up on screen and we can let Joan just show Joan some love let us know where you are connecting from anyway I'm sorry Joan So I mean you know I don't want to drag this out but basically I found I went to Barnes & Noble I you know I went to JB Prince like every place that might have a book about how to make Artisan chocolate you know I I found every every local piece of literature that I could I started telling everyone that I wanted to make chocolate I mean I had friends of mine who knew more about where to find chocolate things in New York City than I did at the time even Banker friends of mine knew more they knew about the salon cha before I did they knew about New York cake and bake store you know so like all these resources I just took advantage of all of them and then I started going like to the trade shows and things and telling people in the industry that I wanted to start a chocolate business and they would point me to other people and so I managed to amass enough let's say skill and talent to at least start in um the fall of 2003 yeah so I'm thinking about the timing there and it was in May of 2001 that I hung up my shingle on the internet right prior to that prior to that I had been doing things like selling cluel and dorei right into right in into restaurants yeah yeah yeah that you know I you know you know the name Pi schard you know obviously and so per per gave me my first my first job in the chocolate business in 1999 yeah so we have that so you know so you we have this period of time you know you you've been using I think valona since day one right so so but there and there is a definite sort of French influence in what you is obviously the name shom with Aron you know is is French influenced but in those early days you know who are the other chefs and and chocolateers and food influences that led you to the kinds of choices that you were making with respect to Flavors and things like that so I like to say the Sha m is kind of a combination of Belgian style shell molding because I fell in love with the molds and we still only make things with molds we have hundreds of molds here you can see some of my little antique Inspirations back there um but really my inspiration came from my long-term love of Fine Food and fine dining I mean I was really obsessed with that kind of stuff when I went to Europe on vacation I would book the restaurant reservations before the hotels because they were harder to get you know for all the restaurants you know the New York Times was writing about or whatever so but my actual inspiration about maybe ingredients and is and being Innovative probably came more from the French literature like some of the books and magazines that I found that were like like that were coming from France so the types of ingredients the ganache fillings kind of focused at the beginning more on dark chocolate and dark n feelings and also I would say being a little more experimental with flavors maybe than the Belgian uh classic Belgian Bon bonss at the time and then in terms of my own personal um influences I thought about you know I'm from a Greek background I thought about Greek fruits that my grandmother would make and you know Greek pastries and you know other ingredients maybe that were inherently in in Greek Delicacies and also um I was very very interested in you know the combination of sweet and savory ingredients like I remember the first time I I saw something that combined sweet and savory on a restaurant menu I think it was at Boule it was something like peach ice cream with basil or peach ice cream with thyme or something and then I remember grandury Tavern I think had some kind of an ice cream with black pepper in it um so things like that inspired me and also you know from the very minute I I got on the plane to head back home I was already thinking about what my brand was going to be and um I I just thought about the fact that mole sauce has chocolate in it and you know so that also said to me wow chocolate really goes with a lot of different kinds of ingredients and when I came back and started doing my research on chocolate as a food or as an Agricultural Product and started reading about how many different let's say chemicals um if you would call them chemicals were you know natural chemicals were in Chate at the time time maybe I remember reading there was like 143 but I looked this up like about a year ago and now they say there's like more than 300 you know things that have been you know identified in chocolate so I think that all of those things enable chocolate to go with so many different kinds of ingredients so I just one of my favorite things was experimenting and let's saying um expanding the chocolate repertoire in terms of the ingredients used in the flavors so I want to I want to jump in on that um because you know when you think about the fact that you opened for business in 2003 and we find ourselves now in what 2024 or something like that I mean it's quite remarkable the ability to stay modern right and stay true to your roots and be successful as a business over the course of 20 years so how is how how do you think number one there number one is that you do have a finance background which I think might be a clue to some of your longevity right but you know what do you think it is that you know you found is that sweet spot between respecting your personal tradition and brand and staying sort of near the Leading Edge of whatever flavors are going on right well from the beginning the most important one of the most important things to me was quality and never getting so big that I had to change any of the ingredients that I was using um you know in view of what the bottom line should be or something like that you know I wanted to I wanted to create a brand where you could keep it fresh you can keep innovating you can keep using all of your favorite ingredients so that was that was number one also I just feel like you know I came into this career midlife and I already had a lot of life experiences and my own ethnic background and I think that really helped me be very innovative and at the same time I mean the chocolate industry is part of the food industry and all of the trends that have you know come across in the last 20 years in the food industry are also opportunities to keep innovating in chocolate I mean for example we're we're gluten-free we've basically always been glutenfree um and so that that is an important Trend that we've followed you know we started making vegan chocolates uh in 2019 and in fact I'm right now in the process proc of kind of you know revising and expanding our vegan line so you know those are some of the things that you know helped keep us I guess in business well but there's also so there there are a couple aspects of you know sort of the industry growing around you and so you know when I think about you know the time when you started right um is you know who were the people who were actually sort of high-end confectioners and what did the you know the the Cher business look like in New New York City Jac TZ okay TZ in Mary Bell you know obviously but but but again let's let's not let's not you know talk about Imports like lamon shakan toyer and Leonas speaking of your Greek Heritage um right um and things like that but in New York City you know around that time it's it's jacqu it's Mary Bell and shc was making the chocolate for Mary Bell at the time um and then you have key which is oh yes of course yeah right and you know from a sort of a sort of high-end confectionary basis I'm you know I've been struggling to remember other names at around that time who are who were New Yorkers yeah well Drew Drew oh Andrew Shotz absolutely Garrison Confections yeah um he was here um but also I mean at the time I wasn't only thinking about who was you know local in New York City there was Spritz Kip shil you know Chuck apology and of course norw RTI and vog I mean when I was starting yeah I mean those were all people that had like started you know within like five years let's say of when I started I think I think maybe 1997 or 1998 from you know reading their biographies or whatever is when um maybe those started uh so yeah there wasn't a lot here at the time there wasn't a lot yeah and I think surprisingly to many people when we when I think about sort of legendary chocolate cities you know in terms of homegrown right um Brands they're really aren't that many in New York City that have number one been able to maintain and we've seen some change I mean so obviously um not around this time you have um oh man I've just blanked on it Ronda cave at R Ronnie Su right who's making a very very different kind of product um and uh but since then you know Drew um left New York City went up to Rhode Island and he's gone out of business Fritz has changed his business away from retail but you know you've managed to be there and maintain and I think that's one of the things that's interesting is you started off saying we're going to do shell molded pieces you know we're not doing airbrush you know High speckle design kinds of stuff we're we're not using 3D molds and you know putting lots of brightly colored transfers on the top of things it's sort of very very classic work I mean well we do actually do we do that's okay we do actually do a little bit of everything okay so we have some pieces that are not colored we have some PE some pieces that are you know colored with natural cocoa butter colors we do have some transfer sheets um but I I actually really like the variety um we have some collections I I was a literature major so we I love themes so we we have the Greek Revival assortment which is Greek inspired flavors and it has transfer sheets on top that came from you know antique Greek molds um you know then I have the kimono collection which is Japanese inspired and the transfer designs are like kimono pattern designs with cherry blossom and the block wave kind of a theme so you know we do do a little bit of everything and we do like to mix it up but we don't we we like the variety and I love having some pieces that have no color on them at all I I do think that looks really good gotcha I'm just looking at the current collection and you know one of the things that you and I talked about is that you know even though we've known each other since forever you know it may be that the last time we actually sat down and had an in-depth conversation might have been around 2016 2017 or so which just like boggles my mind when when I think about that I mean you and I do remember a chocolate and wine pairing event that we had in your studio I forget exact how that came about um and then we had also done a um a tasting around solvesso right and you know for people who aren't familiar with solbeso um it is a an 80 proof Spirit which is distilled from fresh cacao juice and we I maybe convinced Joan right to do a chocolate bar with solbeso in it we had a solbeso event there and I was surprised that there are still bottles that you can find some place in the United States and Joan you're collecting them because you still make that bar so besto right and offer it to people yeah I'm just really really thrilled about all of that um because you know I invested you know like eight years of my life in that project um well part of eight year parts now this at this point we've been making the bar for about 10 years so yeah know I think that's very very cool I think that's a great thing um before we get on I want to do a quick shout out to Ian Carl so Ian from Montana just signing in joy chocol in Montana hey Ian thanks for giving the shout out and if you have a question um for Joan put it into the comments and we will get it um asked and answered today so you know Joan um you know the there's been a lot of change over the course of the last 20 years so I think of you know what the New York Chocolate scene looks like now you know jacques's business appears to have changed a little bit um then um you know I I was at an event for Mary Bell a little while ago um you know Ronnie Sue is still around you know we have to go back to like the OG lilac right right which we forgot which which we forgot yeah well they were here so much earlier like I think 1954 or something like that something like that I think of them as Hometown Favorites they're not necessarily the upper end Gourmet but it's like you know where you where your parents would take you is when you were a small child and you oh this is you know better than going to the grocery store that to get stuff um you know and um but um and now you know we're beginning to see you know some other kind well not some other some other practitioners so s Yun um who used to be the ex um executive pastry chef for um at per now it's her her her business so how do you see the CH or if at all if you know how you know competition in New York City is driving you know the way you're so the way you react to the changes in the markets I mean are you seeing um you know pressure uh from customers to change or is there enough you know internal drive you know that that you don't feel that direct need I don't feel that direct need I mean I just keep sticking to the ideals and goals that I had from the beginning and I really I really don't see a need to change when I see what other people around me are doing I feel like we're always on the Innovative side um and um yeah I I don't I don't really feel the competition in that way I mean we have a lot of people that you know we say we're their favorite chocolate and everybody else has people that say they're their favorite chocolate and you know I feel like we can all peacefully coexist because we're all a little bit different in our own ways it's good you know you know you know the reason why I mentioned is I you know I spend a lot of time talking with startup businesses and I listen to the difference between what they tell me is their core ideas and how they respond to suggestions you know and this is something that you know I don't know when you're in finance if you were involved in you know new business pitches and things like that and you you'd get you know company Founders who would change the way they represented what wanted to do based upon what you said you were interested in and so this whole notion of you know setting up this brand it's now it's you know I'm looking at the the logo here you know when I think of you know Belgian classic Belgian things I think of seashells is that where the seashell comes from in the logo the sea you know we we did our packaging last year we kept the same color actually we deepened it a little bit and I was wondering I was wondering it seems like it's a a richer s you know it's a little and um I was always searching for what would be the little image you know the little logo Mark that would make sense and tie it into the whole story so actually it's a shell mold and it's a violet mold and it is the two molds that I bought at that Antique Market in 2000 I had an illustrator they really look exactly like that I had an ustr to do them and that's what we added to the logo Mark last year that's a wonderful story it's a way of connecting where you are to the original inspiration so when you were in the grun sub blone you know I think of you know big you know really really well-known Belgian Brands like viter I mean right there and Pier molini was across the square the pastry shop surrounded by chocolate AA you know without even knowing it you know right oh you you didn't even go into either of those places well you didn't know about later I think when I walked across I was like how did the chicken get to the other side of the road it just happened to be an antique market across you know so I cross the Antique Market and I wasn't looking for antiques and I wasn't and but there were all kind of antiques there I mean you know paintings and furniture and everything but my my my eyes went to the stall that looked like antique kitchen objects I thought oh maybe something decorative there to hang in my kitchen and lo and behold I stumbled on chocolate mold so that was just lucky I guess so well I mean we're standing here today so yes we're all Lucky in in that regard but one of the things that I I find is there's a connection between the Serendipity of your introduction to the chocolate and the Serendipity of my introduction to chocolate and this notion that you have no idea how a very small decision that you will make will have this you know you know you know wings of a butterfly impact on your lives and the lives of million so for example I was in can so I was in the south of France in early 199 4 and I was waiting to go to nice to catch a flight back to the United States and you know I had an hour or two and a couple hundred Franks in my pocket and the decision was do I go to the airport and spend it or do I take a walk around can and so I decided to take a walk around can walked into a gourmet store and was presented with this display of bonut chocolates ah and it was buying those chocolates right that eventually led to my well like a month later saying oh my gosh you know there's no such thing as a professional critic for chocolate that's what I'm going to go do with my life and so that oh I'm I'm in Brussels I'm I happen to be Crossing through right the center and I've been on that square I mean I know exactly what that Plaza looks like and you know and and where things are situated and and I was there in 2020 so it's it's fresh in my mind um you know about these I mean I don't mean to cut you off but I I just no no no go ahead the EP what we're talking about is epiphanies and I've had to talk about it a lot and so what I like to say is that an epiphany is something that connects a lot of dots that are in your past you know that you're not even aware of it at the time so if you go back and think of maybe things in your past that that triggered I mean to me it was everything from I was in Brussels it's the city of art nuuvo art Nuvo is like one of my favorite art forms art Nuvo period like let's you know end of 1800s early 1900s is what I studied in French and Russian literature so there were all these things like that love of food love of culture and so when I saw these molds and read the story about Pierre marcolini it was like oh my gosh like I can be a chocolate Chef you know so um yeah again I'm sorry to cut you off no no no no no you know I think that that point is is is is really I think that there there's a really important point for anybody who's who wants to be successful it at whatever it is that they do right is the the point that you make about Epiphany and epiphanic um moments if that's the word I don't know even know if that's a word um but you know so for example I'm a fine artist by training and one of the things they teach you to do is to trust your intuition and so what happened was is um when I was in a Barnes & Noble on the upper west side and I was looking at all these books architecture digest and all these sorts of things I all of a sudden just this this pattern of events and and understandings and things that I knew that were just sitting there in the background just sort of came to the front you know and through my through my the intuition that I was taught to trust through my fine arts training it's like oh there is a ring of truth to this right and then once you know the truth the question is what do you do you know with that the truth that you know and I think that's a really really important connection to make and I think it's a it's a wonderful connection that you know you know I've known you for 20 some odd years this is the first time we've had this conversation and to find out that that connectedness um really does um ring U ring in in much much deeper ways um and I'm going to guess that that that trust in intuition is one of the things that drives business decisions you're making to this day you know I I do like to think of myself sort of as a a transpod in a way um you know for example why was I in Moscow for six years uh I was in Moscow in banking for six years in the 90s because from the time I was like in junior high school seeing some you know film strips at the time you know of Russia I just thought it looked like a really interesting place and that you know in terms of politics and things it was like you know an evil place but if you saw something just about the people it was like always really heartwarming and so in my mind I was good in languages already I mean I could speak some Greek I was studying French in school so I thought I should study like a difficult language and I thought that you know that's the other superpower so it's going to make sense someday to be able to speak Russian and in fact you know in terms of my banking career that was really the best assignment I ever had I get to I was in Moscow from 94 to 99 and you know when I came back from there um I really had a lot of self-confidence in myself and so I trusted myself and so I mean that really helped me get to the point of you know saying I am really gonna take a flyer on this and start a chocolate business right so that was good so that comment was a segue into the last the second part of this episode um which I really really really love but I do want a quick shout out to Ian again thank you very much Ian for staying tuned um which is what we're talking about what we're going to be talking about in tasting is a collaboration now is this the first collaboration of its kind that um you've decided to engage in you mean in terms of shakal laad yes yes yes it's the first collab gotta and so my understanding of the story and please correct me is that Chef Mark Murphy who many people may know from Food Network and other places right right which was on bravoo um was New York his landmark and he's reopened his restaurant mark his event space restaurant Mark of 179 and trca yeah yeah I was gonna go onto all that stuff no it's all right you know it's you know it's a live interview it's not scripted this is the way things are it's not edited in any way so um but so Chef Murphy um is a customer of yours yes right and U he turns out that he appears to be a big fan not just a customer um and he's working on a project which is to create uh a new branded olive oil right which I have a bottle here which I have a bottle here and I want to thank Chef Murphy um who was in Italy at the moment and couldn't join us um otherwise you know we'd hop you'd be here right about now um but he's in Italy um so um so what Chef does is he calls you up and says hey Joan right I got this new olive oil I'd like to see if you can do something with it is that basically how it happens yes and he did say something about I'm sort of Imagining the olive oil bursting into your mouth when you eat the chocolates so that was the first conversation so I started thinking I was thinking the same thing I want the sensation of olive oil bursting into your mouth not just being part of the ganache okay which was is also a great idea but I wanted more um so first I thought briefly about should I make olive oil pearls I looked at how to make them I said too too complicated I don't like some of the ingredients you have to buy for that so then I said olive oil Padu so I found a recipe for olive oil Padu all nice kind of natural ingredients and I said this is perfect because in this way the olive oil will be the olive oil podu will be a layer and then in each Bond Bond there will be a layer of a more you know traditional type of chocolate filling like a prolin or or a ganache so in this way you know the olive oil part of it is on the same level as the chocolate part of it and it really it really stands out and highlights how delicious and flavorful this olive oil is right so what I'm gonna do Joan is I and you know I just want to let everybody know that getting this chocolate here was fun and a challenge so Joan send it to me on Monday it was supposed to arrive on Wednesday it didn't arrive until Thursday last night and you know fortunately the the the driver the delivery driver knocked on my door and says here it is right but um so almost everything survived right there were a couple of pieces that that uh were uh worse a little the worse for wear what I want to do is uh let me go back and share this way um is um show a crosssection of what the pieces look like all right so um this is the one that's just that's got uh it's the one that's got the color in it is it orange orange if it's yellow it's gotcha all right so anyway um yeah it's it's orange on it's got the orange coloring on the top yes right but yeah what I wanted to show is I wanted to show you know the cross-section of the piece and let people know um what that is so olive oil P um you know it's a it's it's the two of them like don't you know strike me as going together right in any in any kind of way right so you know walk me through how you got to that point well basically you're making you know a a jellified olive oil layer and you need uls you need an emulsifier to help the olive oil part of it you know blend in with a part that basically is like the water and sugar elements so I mean you know that that's that's basically it right but so you know you know but for me and you know this is something that I've mentioned a couple of times as Joan is there's a bit of expectations subversion here right because when I think of Pat defu I'm thinking of like a fruit jelly you know something that's got sugar you know crystals on the outside of it maybe a little citric acid moves in and I've got a jelly which has got some tooth in it some bite into it so there's a pectin or some other jelling agent which is giving it that and that's not what this is in it but you know depending on how firm you want it to be like we do everything in the molded style so everything has to be loose enough to be able to be piped um so it really has to do of course it has pectin in it yeah it's not a garar or something like that it's um so you know we just as we use just enough pectin to get to the you know firmness that we we need to be able to pipe it but so it still stays firm right you know and you know and I've got a knife here and you can you can put the knife in it and you know I'm a geek and so I have all these kinds of things you know and you know you have something which you know ends up being you know like a jelly right and the expectations of verion is not just a matter of the flavor right but it's the texture I which is you know because when I think of ptiu I have this very very specific idea of what the texture is going to be and this is not that texture so one two three show it's a white chocolate shell so this is the one this one and the other white chocolate are the two ganaches that actually also have olive oil in the ganache because in my mind you know I was creating flavors that reminded me of Italy and even Umbria because umbrea is like one of the chocolate capitals of you know Italy and they have Chate festivals every year so um but also like the Italian olive oil Citrus cakes like lemon olive oil C orange olive oil cakes those were my Inspirations for the two white chocolate bon bonss in here so that's you know a white ganache with orange puree and orange juice and you know olive oil replacing you know the cream in it and then it's the layer of the olive oil Padu and so what happens there is that um you know and you know again you know you know I'm going to encourage you if you don't have a Father's Day present everybody today and you want to do something for your father um or another male figure in your life um for Father's Day um you can order through Monday right and it will be delivered in time for Father's Day and it's a it's a real unusual combination but if you do get these keep in mind that you can eat it with the bottom on your tongue first or the top on your tongue first who was one of the reasons why I like to cut them yeah no no absolutely yeah well because one of the things I love about about it the most is that when you bite into one of these pieces the olive oil coats you know your palette and your lips you know and that's just such a wonderful feeling and then you know you talked about the difference in texture between the olive oil Padu and like a fruit Padu you know of course because of the fat it starts melting right away so I me it Blends into the ganache and makes the ganache you know like more creamy and silky and wonderful well and also you know you know there's a complexity a French Fresh Orange right so you know so you've got an orange and you know maybe it's still got a stem on it and when you can smell on you've got that and so what happens is not only does the olive oil have its own sensibility in terms of flavor and Aroma but it you know in the way in this particular piece what it's doing is it's adding more of that kind of roundness right and completeness to the flavor of the orange it's just really really a wonderful combination it comes in it melts again again it melts very differently I'm expecting something which is much sweeter because of p and I've had multi-layered pieces and I'm going how do you do a p in a shell mold I mean that that sounds without melting the chocolate how do you do that I mean I so so you know again just expectations subversion not just in terms of I cut it in half and what's going on right here but also in the way um the flavor experience right goes in my mouth I mean that's also just something which is completely uh different as well I want to jump uh if I can for a second John and excuse me it's it's you know still it's the end of allergy season here in Arizona as I wanted to show people um the olive oil and you know I do have a a little sheet of paper and can look at it and the clarity of it but um you know it's um you know it's it so this is a blend um so this is the the olive oil from Chef Murphy um organic Evo as Rachel Ray would say evoo um um but it is a mix of three different olives which are a fruit by the way which I thought was interesting so you know it's we're using a fruit a fruit patii even if it is a fat from the fruit sort of like cocoa is right right anyway so it's just a but it's three different varietal so there's a Mor morol froo and Lino I I'm familiar with the froo um variety of all what I'd like to say about the varieties because I did some research on this is that the morolo is H one of the varieties of Olives that has the highest polyphenol content okay that can make you feel even better is as if you needed to feel any better about eating olive oil like this one is like really has the good stuff in it yeah and you know you know as a finishing olive oil I mean I'm thinking about you know I would now use what's left of the bottle right and what I'm going to do with what I opened up today and and use it rather than discard it um I'm going to the market and getting some fresh fish and then gonna use this as a finishing oil along with some finishing salt that I have um on top of probably some probably some salmon um although it may be tuna yeah I know I'm just think about that but you know there's an herbaceousness um and which is more grassy I think um definitely grassy on the nose um that's I get a lot of that yeah um and there's nothing sort of in the sort of peppery note which is sometimes a really fresh olive oil especially when that's high polyphenols will have that this does have the spicy and a little bit of heat at the end yeah but I'm but sometimes you can pick it up on the nose not always no more on the back yeah right and one of the reasons why I love glasses like this is I can cup the them like this and I'm not affecting the temperature of what's inside the glass oh that's cool right very very very much it's one of the reasons why I love these I it was it's been uh it's actually I forget what the name of the company is um but it you know I use this a lot for for for tastings for that reason but I'm just you know I'm going you know what's going to happen to this is I warm it up slightly and you know the flavor is going to explode I mean the color is like absolutely pure um and it's a golden green I mean it's a lovely lovely Lov color and I can imagine you know you know using it as a decoration on a plate a white plate with this on top of it would just be a wonderful a wonderful thing oh wow oh yeah I mean I don't want to make too many scary noises in the process of doing this but it's warm it's again it's like 83 degrees in my office right now right and so it this is warm even though I have it you know cool down overnight um but it just explodes with flavor and immediately as it hits the back of your throat you do get that pepperiness which is just a wonderful a wonderful but it you know when when I think about my mouth it's like I have one set of flavors up here in the lips and on the top of the tongue and I have a completely different set of flavors on the back of that mouth that three-dimensionality in this is just really quite lovely and as it lingers right the heat starts to dissipate actually fairly quickly and then the grassy notes just take over I mean it's it's you know really really quite remarkable and go back and tasting it and you know it's like you don't get yeah and so this is the 2023 harvest the 2023 V oh wow it went all the way down by my throat that time and that that so there is this pepperiness without actually any heat which is also interesting as well um wow it's it's it's it's quite remarkable product um and um Joan um you know one of the things that you you you told me is that you know this is not something that you can currently sell on the shamod website um I'm GNA go over to not I'm not doing it yet I don't think there's anything that prohibits me from doing it it's um something I'm thinking about or either either on the website or at least up in the shop you know sort of shipping it I'm a little worried we never we don't really ship a lot of glass but whatever more like we might be selling it up in the shop also gotcha but currently it's not so if if you wanted to purchase some of this for a Father's Day gift what you'd have to do is you'd have to go over to the which and by the way there's a link right on the post for today's um episode where you can go and um you can go that and um and purchase that um and Joan you know if you're going to do this I'm sure Chef will be able to Chef Murphy and his team will be able to share how they ship it because it arrived you know you know United States postal service parcel select stuffed into my mailbox right without any problems without any problems uh whatsoever so you know you know you know these flavors like you know all flavors in all collections are sort of like children um do you have a current you know new new favorite piece and we talked about this yesterday um you know guide me through you know what your what your favorite piece is well it's it's really it is my children okay so let's put it this way I love all of them and um sometimes I'm in the mood for one of them and sometimes I'm in the mood for the other of them in general I tend to eat milk and dark CH milk and dark chocolate more than white chocolate so maybe I gravit gravitate towards those pieces more um you know maybe my favorite ones are the Hazelnut and the espresso because maybe they have the most different you know variety of flavors in them but I really love all of them I mean they all show me something new every time I you know try them so pick one for me you know I'll I'll take it out and I will um um cut it in half and then we'll do a a taste on it just know I think the one that I might have picked was the one of the ones that you said melted so I don't know got melted got melted all right so let me pick one of the dark chocolate ones all right right and I'm I'm gonna pick um the dark chocolate one in the swirly okay good that's the espresso gotcha I thought that it was I mean my box is ordered a little bit differently from what the the the key is in the photo and I don't know if I've got it upside down or right side down or whatever so I'm gonna I'm going to cut it in half um oh and let people know about this so what is the construction of this piece then Joan so it's a white chocolate ganach with an infusion of you know espresso beans right anything special about the espresso it's a lavas I mean we use La okay okay gotcha um and you're doing the extraction of the espresso in milk cream yeah oh Dairy yeah just you to think for a minute because I'm in the middle of my vegan chocolate so like gocha gotcha gotcha because because yeah right in the other white chocolate ganache um you said you with the with the orange you said you're using olive oil for that and so I'm trying to think what would a fat extraction of coffee beans look like I mean just you know answering that question um okay I'm just you know Impressions so one of the things that I would recommend to anybody who is a geek who likes to eat these Confections is to cut them in half and then actually eat this thing by sticking your tongue into the p and then scooping out the ganache and then and then chomping down um because you get the the flavor of the ganach on the tip of the or the flavor of the Patu on the tip of your tongue right and then it's it's doing all these things so you know coffee is you know the seeds of a fruit right and the coffee cherry and we we tend to forget that I think right and espresso has a tendency to be often and for the lavata it has a tendency to be this italian roast a heavy roast right and so there's a bitterness that's associated with it and one of the things that's interesting is to me about this is that the fru which comes through on the olive oil and I you know maybe it's because there any sugar in the PTI yes okay let make sure so anyway so there's there's more of a fru than a vegital quality sometimes in the Pati and what's happening is that fru is coming through and it's it's enhancing um the way the coffee flavor is expressed right and so I think about it you know if I'm going to go get a dark roast espresso that's one thing yeah but like when I was in Panama I had a Panamanian gisha and it's just fundamentally a different kind of experience and it's a specialty coffee and it has a much lighter roast and the idea is to bring out all these things and so what's interesting for me about this one um is that it brings this broader flavor experience to the coffee right it's not just onedimensional which was sometimes what coffee um what sometimes what coffee is um that's why I used a white chocolate ganache instead of a like a dark chocolate ganache a milk or a dark chocolate gache Mak sense flavor come out more so the chocolate itself is not overwhelming may not be it may but may could be the right word right in terms of thinking about how the ganache um so what's the so you know you do a mix of dark milk and white so there are 12 pieces here there are two milks two darks and two whites in the six piece basic collection right so we're doing that is that the same distribution in terms of ganaches two white two milk and two dark ganaches I'm just sort of curious there's one car the so there's six flavors gotta and the hazelnut is a prolin so that would you know it's nice so you have the crunchiness you have the Nutty flavor from the hazelnut um the crunchiness comes from burnt sugar so you have the texture which also kind of intensifies the flavor um gotcha and it's a I guess we call it P alen it's like it's like a it's not a smooth peanut buttery smooth kind of a hazelnut it's like a coarser grind well and so normally when you do a PR nanen what you're going to do is you're going to cook the nuts in sugar syrup and you caramelize the nuts right and you just don't refine them I'm sorry I do it a different way you do yeah no I think way that no one else does just kidding but we do it a different way yeah so you've got the crunchiness which is from caramelized sugar um the hazelnuts in the background but for me um what really really comes to the front of this um is the the P the P it just it's sitting there on top of this and it's it's you know it's you know I'm not going to say it's peanut butter and jelly but it's peanut butter and jelly adjacent where the nut butter the pro the hisel nut pry is not as forward as the peanuts are right and the fruit the jelly component which is a p right is much more subtle and much more delicate than a normal well certainly a concord grape jelly is going to be but the balance again and it's one of the things I've always you know really enjoyed about tasting your work joone um is the balance of flavors and textures that you get in here so no matter you know what the inspiration is coming from um that you know what the one of the things that you know roer lank said Robert Lynx um who is the founder of Lon shoka said to me in a class that I took on the Upper East Side um many many years ago when he was in the United States just one word equili balance equilibrium that's you know that's what it is in that he seeking for um and you know and it's this tension between um you know conventional what we think of as Belgian style work which has a tendency to be lighter and sweeter and it's more about the decorations on the shelves you know the fillings are just tend to be very very straightforward in terms of flavor right and French work which tends to be darker less sweet and there's you know a focus on less more of a focus on the flavor of chocolate and the balance between oh chocolate is the first thing in your mouth and then you've got this flavor which is whatever the filling is but in the end what you're tasting the chocolate and so what what's interesting here is you've got this delicate Balancing Act between both of those different styles of working which is a lot of which is a lot of fun um let me do a quick Mouse mouth rinse um and just remind everybody you're watching pod saave chocolate um my guest today is Joan Cucos um and no matter where you are in the world watching from whether it's YouTube LinkedIn or Facebook if you got a question for Joan put it in the comments and we'll get it asked and answered we got a couple more minutes before we go um and Joan tell me about the other um White Chocolate shell piece okay because that's going to be the next one the next okay the other white chocolate is the same idea about the olive oil you know the Citrus olive oil cakes that are popular in Italy so it's lemon okay so are you using a sicilian lemon or any any particular just whatever lemon you can get in the marketplace okay okay and I do want to remind everybody it's like it's it's 83 degrees now and stuff is starting to get a little warm and difficult to cut right but I mean it's just a wonderful color and the side here so um it's fresh lemon juice fresh lemon J zest in the white chocolate ganache um the the olive oil patiu and the same white chocolate in the Shell pretty much mhm and when you cut it in half I mean what really does come right up front is the Lemon the lemon is stronger than the orange so it is a definitely a different experience this is very very lemon forward um and then you know just boom you got the spike of lemon the citricity of the lemon up front and then the olive oil ptiu just comes in nicely behind it and after that you've got the unctuousness of the white chocolate so this is one of the valona white chocolates I mean it's just I mean um it's it's it's it's like a flavor Rodeo is the wrong word but I'm here in Arizona so and that we have the the big presc rodeo the oldest Rodeo the United States up com as flavor Rodeo in the mouth it's just it comes in it just bang right there with a lemon and then it quickly goes to the um the ptiu the olive oil and then the chocolate so it's in succession it's just really really straightforward um and really really lovely in terms of the succession of flavors um that it goes on um I want to get through all of them I'm just you know and at this point I've got a little bit of the fat from the chocolate in my mouth or from the olive oil from all sources in this what's that there's a lot of fat from all different sources in in these Bond right the cocoa butter the olive oil the hazelnut I mean the sacrifices we make and so I'm gon to say you know you know again whether you purchase this for a Father's Day gift this collection right and so let's get the collection back up on screen again um listen I got a photo for it let's share it whether you decide to purchase and by the way there's no affiliate link here I I know you know if you decide to purchase you purchase and if you don't you don't um um what I was going to say is that what I would recommend that you do for both the lemon piece and the orange piece is if you can get your hands on a bottle of the olive oil um try this piece on its own and then try it having just tasted a little bit of the olive oil so you have a little bit of the olive oil you get that heat in your mouth from the olive oil the the the spice and then have this lemon piece and it just transforms it to another place entirely so there is this sense in which yeah the olive oil on its own in these pieces is really quite remarkable but there's a secondary tasting exercise that you can do right which is to um have the olive oil in your mouth when you taste the piece um before you begin just just really really quite um really really quite lovely and quite remarkable um yeah um Joan I think we have you know we're almost at the end of the hour I think we got two more pieces yet um do you think we can get to the other two pieces quickly sure sure all right so we have a milk chocolate in the square with yeah do that one because that's the plain plain milk gach okay and by the way I love cutting things in half right so and looking at the insides well you learn a lot I mean if you've got all three if you got all four you know the thicknesses around it are all the same you know you you know it's it's a it's a you know it's a it's a it's a a sign of you know just you know understanding the technical aspects of putting together shells I me hand we don't we don't haveing machines it's all spatula you know that's it piping bags bag spatula yeah so there's a Simplicity here just a plain milk chocolate right no olive oil in the ganache no just it's dairy in the ganache yep and then the olive oil P so what what's what's happening here is just that the olive oil is adding some brightness you know it's up in the top of your no it's up in the top of your mouth and in your nose in ways that the plain milk chocolate um almost certainly isn't and so there's this there's this um rounder more complete it ends up you know even though the PA is sweet um to some extent the fuess makes the chocolate seem less sweet in a weird kind of way I mean it's just very very very interesting the way that that works um and by by the way everybody you know J joanes sent me a box two weeks ago and you know getting ready for this you know I had a chance to taste um last week and we had a call um to talk about these things so this is not the first time um we've ever done this and then the last piece Joan is the dark chocolate dark yeah so the dark gach is what percentage I mean aruani so it's Venezuelan 72 gotcha right have you done this with other chocolates other than the aruan or was there something specifically about the aruani that said this is the right chocolate for this piece well it's bold so I wanted to put bold things together you know bold olive oil and bold chocolate and it's one of my favorite H cures so from the beginning from day one right and what I would say is you know chocolate is made from the seeds of a fruit and so essentially you know fruit flavor are ones that should be a part of chocolates right and are often missing right because of fermentation in a particular kind of way um roasting and other things like that and one of the things about adding the PTI here and with the aruani is it sort of emphasizes that you know fundamental fress which should be a part of chocolate I mean which in that and you know it's like all the way through to the back end of this you know there is a bitterness to the aruani right and this sort of mediates the bitterness as well yeah I I find that with the plain dark gach and with the plain milk inos it really brings out the fru of the olive oil like kind of what you were saying maybe you were saying it in a different way or it brings out the fuess and the chocolate or you know well well there's a balance there if you if you've got a piece if you've got a piece which has got slightly more of the p in it or slightly less than the P that balance will shift right and I think that but and it's interesting because on the nose it's herbaceous but now that I've had all these things I'm picking up a little fruit on the nose that wasn't there in the beginning but that's just because of all the other things that have been in my mouth and so there there is this fundamental compliment which is interesting hey you know Joan we do have um a question right and this is from Effie mcis um who is another I believe I don't she's still in Arizona so I can't wait to try the collection inspired by the flavors of olive oil cakes which my mother used to make you know that's a wonderful thing you know connecting something like this to right something that you know is is a favorite flavor memory especially as a childhood flavor or maybe he's an adult child you know something that your mother made interested in the Greek inspired collection so is the Greek inspired collection available year round yes it is available year round and the flavors are Bak laava Kalamata olive caramel believe it or not this olive oil 2008 mat Olive caramel a fig and port wine ganache a halva Sesame pralin um a ganache with bergamont puree and oil of bergamont and a pomegranate Rose ganache those are the six flavors in the Greek Revival assortment yeah so Effie just really really quickly um this is something that I wanted to say if you click on this link down here and go to shoka modar right now we have to click on this link um um if we wait long enough because I don't think my cookies have been set um you'll get a an opportunity to sign up for their newsletter which includes a 15% discount on your first order unfortunately that discount doesn't extend to the um um uman Gold collection um but it would extend to the Greek collection but you know and this is offer is available to anybody go to the website sign up for the newsletter you'll get 15% off the first order um nothing to do especially um with me today I just wanted to let everybody who's watching this who's watching through to the end um that um it is U it is available um and I can tell you um Effie that you know it was a challenge um for me to get this piece to get the box uh in good condition but that was because as I say FedEx messed up right I think that had they delivered in in two days rather than three days it would have been um just fine and Joan I have an idea about something that may have contributed to the melting uh of one or of one or two of the pieces we can you know it's like this is the hardest thing it is to do and and we we just so eie we ship year round and we we hardly have any issues um we ship this second day I mean to be even safer you know if you want to pay for overnight shipping but um we ship it second day and we put a lot of ice in um um you unfortunately we can't control whether or not FedEx is always going to deliver on time and you know we you know make adjustments you know we want our customers to be happy but we don't really have that many mishaps yeah this was this was completely unusual you know we think what happened is that FedEx thought the box was on the truck for delivery on Wednesday and it didn't actually get on the truck for delivery on Wednesday so it sat around the depot for an extra day and then uh anyway um just that's another ratio and I got to say that you know you know you're down to Phoenix it was about 107 Cave Creek yesterday it was 110 you know downtown Downtown Phoenix it was only 92 here yesterday and so it was just a little bit easier in terms of what's going on hot it really does have to go overnight yeah yeah I wouldn't TR so clay I would just drizzle the olive oil over tomatoes from the farmers market or mixed greens instead of cooking with it to really appreciate the flavors no absolutely you know you know I'm you know I'm a fan of a really really good um um you know tomato mozarella salad and I can definitely see drizzling this on the top of um a Capra but again it's a finishing oil I'm not going to cook with it I wasn't thinking of cooking the tuna in this or cooking the salmon in this I was thinking if once it had been cooked putting a little bit over the top or putting it on the greens so I could see like a mixed greens including arugula and other things like that and putting the the salmon on top of it and just letting the warmth of it just really drive the aromatics um uh and bringing them to the four but you know absolutely you know if anybody gets a ball of you know bottle of olive oil like this and thinks that what they should do is cook with it no no it's like putting your favorite cast iron frying pan like into the dishwasher I'm sorry there's just something fundamentally wrong with that um and Joan you know we're at the end of the hour it's just shot by um I'm going to give you the next to the last word it has been a real pleasure and a really privilege thanks for you know sharing all this stuff with me thanks for giving me the opportunity to share it with everyone else what's next what's what's what's next for Joan I you know this is a great collab I'm sorry that Chef Murphy couldn't join us um today to talk about his side of things um but you know with the success of this collab um you're going to be looking for other ones or you just going to wait for them to come across the door what's new you know coming out of we're already working on a chocolate bar in the umbre and gold collection where all of the cavities will be double filled double layered layer of olive oil and a layer of G PR so that's new in the umbre and gold collection and then so liquid olive oil or the P same idea same P same P of so that'll be fun there'll be a new price entry point for people who want to try the umbre and gold collection and then other otherwise my main one of my main initiatives right now is um revising and expanding our vegan our vegan collection we want everyone to be able to try you know fine chocolate so we're you know want different lifestyle choices to also feature our chocolates but it's always been gluten-free always been gluten-free that's good to know right and with that Joan again hold on for just a second and I want to make sure that you we have a chance to uh um do the do the close out of this uh I do want to remind everybody that you've been watching pot saafe chocolate with my special guest today Joan kukos um founder Chief everything officer um cooking bottle washer however you want to describe it sham modar and you know for people who didn't jump in at the very beginning who will watch the archive you know Joan and I have known each other as we discovered for more than 20 years but it's been a while since we've had a chance to connect in person so this has been a real real special um episode for me um um pot safe chocolate is a um not a Spike Lee Joint but it is a um it comes out of the work that I do at the chocol life.com this is the homepage of the chocol life.com um for every single episode of pod save chocolate um there is a post and this is the post for today's episode where you can get the links um to buy Jones chocolate to buy the olive oil if you are interested you can go there and um every episode of pot save chocolate is sponsored by members of the chocolate life and if you're not a member of the chocolate life you can click this green button up here or there's a little icon which is down here in the lower right hand corner I'm logged in so it shows my avatar um and you can go and you can become a member always a free tier um and we don't spam you and this is the way um you guys support the work that I do don't do patreon not running advertising or anything like that and with that Joan again thank you very much it's been really really special pleasure and to remind everybody if you're working with chocolate and you're not having fun you are doing it wrong until the next time everyone ciao have a great weekend you play

Channel: Pod Save Chocolate

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Id: vln9OCnUUig

Length: 68min 35sec (4115 seconds)

Published: Sat Jun 08 2024