slow work

i really need to get a grip on myself. i don't know what the problem is, but i haven't been able to focus at all today. there's so many things that need to be done, and yet i find myself just sitting at my desk staring at them, as if i didn't have any idea what i was supposed to do. i can't decide if i should be freaked out or disgusted.

well, i guess i should try to finish my story about last weekend, at least.

the hotel we stayed in was really nice. i'm still not sure why he booked two single rooms instead of a double, but the rooms were well presented, and more than adequate. i think i slept very well, which isn't terribly common for me the first night in an unfamiliar place. anyway, got up, and cleaned up, and all that good stuff, and we met around 8ish, as we had agreed, and went down to breakfast.

now, some places claim they'll provide breakfast, and you get a cup of coffee with a stale sweet roll. this was not one of those places. they had a smorgasboard layed out to rival most small bakeries that i've been in. fruits, yogurts, granolas, eggs, cheeses, meats, breads, pastries, cookies, and teas. and the lady in the back was making espresso for people (i guess it's too complicated? i dunno, i don't drink). we each went through several plates of food, and only a little bit of trouble with the egg boiler (the first time i tried it, it came out raw). i guess enno wasn't quite paying attention when we sat down, since he nearly jumped out of his pants when i reached "into the mirror" to get the salt and pepper from the table that was actually between ours and the mirror. i got a real good laugh out of this, and after he recovered, he joined in too.

we took a walk around town again, which was cool, particularly since it was light out this time. i still need to buy some clothes, and being outside of switzerland, that probably would have been a good opportunity, but i didn't see any appropriate looking shops, so it didn't happen. but we had a great time, and saw the river, and just talked.

check-out at 11:00, and it turned out to be much more expensive than either of us had anticipated; around 75 euros each. i'm still a little curious as to how he managed to make the reservation without asking the price, but life goes on, and it was a great weekend, so i really can't complain. then we grabbed the car from the parking structure, and headed back to the conference center, which seemed surprisingly easy to find (this time), given all of our previous fiascos. the fun part was trying to decide which of the 12 parking structures there to use, but eventually we just grabbed one, and it wasn't too far away.

the lines to buy entrance tickets were unbelievable, but then again, it was saturday. sure, waiting in line was a little annoying, but otherwise harmless. a benefit of this, though, was that we were standing there long enough for him to read all the signs, one of which mentioned that we got a discount with a coop card. now, never mind that the coop in switzerland is a completely different company than the one in italy, but the logos look basically identical, so i talked him into flashing mine at the lady, and it worked like a charm. :) awwwwwesome. i just love it when stuff actually works. so we were in, and got to look around in the main pavillion some more before our 1:00 session.

which was, of course, faaaabulous. "cacao: food of the gods." and let me tell you, this book lived up to its cover. un-freakin-believable. did you know that there are like umpteen bazillion different varieties of cocoa plant/bean/whatever? i didn't. but i do now. and they taught us other cool stuff too. we had a plate of different chocolates from four producers: valrhona, michel cluizel, domori, and scharffen-berger. and, since you can't have a workshop without spirits, a glass of 'aqua forte' (sic?), which was i guess like a white-grape brandy, a glass of glenmahoney (or something like that) scotch whiskey, and a glass of barolo chinato cocchi, which i think was some sort of port variant, but whatever it was, it was amazing. i _wanted_ it. i can't even describe it, it was just that _good_. and what's more, it blended perfectly with the chocolates. i could live off of that combination for the rest of my life, and be perfectly content. wow. that's all i have to say about that.

anyway, back to the chocolates. none of those presented were less than 70%, and there were four pieces that were either 99% or 100%. (interesting aside: in italy, the law does not allow a product to be called "chocolate" unless it contains at least 1% sugar; therefore, the 100% varieties must be marketed as "cacao mass.") even by my most conservative estimation, the combined worth of the items on the plate was easily many times the 16 euro ticket.

my two favorites from the tasting were a special edition 85% by scharffen-berger using cacao from "cacao nacional" in equador, and michel cluizel's 70% "tamarina" from the ile de sao tome. unfortunately, the latter didn't have a booth at the fair, so i wasn't able to buy it, but i did go wild and crazy and treat myself (something i almost never let myself do) and bought 9 x 30g of the special one, for 13 euro, and 50cl of the barolo, for 22 euro. even now, i can't believe i spent ~$45 on only wine and chocolate, but i still think it's totally worth it. spectolutely absotacular.

i actually got to talk with the lady who works down in equador with the farmers at cacao nacional. she was really cool, and a down-to-earth person that i could actually relate to, as opposed to the conference-goer food-snob types all around us. you could tell from her eyes that she was intensely passionate about her work, and she told me that they are working on completely changing the fermentation step of production, etc, etc... the way she explained that they are "going to make the best chocolate in the world soon" with such fervor, you couldn't help but believe her.

at one point, we passed a booth selling the extremist basalmic vinegar; like more than 25 years old, and about 50 euro for a 3oz bottle, or some such. but they gave us free samples anyway, which was neat. it was indeed incredibly tasty, but i can't even imagine paying that much for it.

our 4:00 session was, if this is possible, even cooler that everything else that had transpired so far. it was back in the "theatre of taste," this time with lidia alciati of "the famous 'da guido' restaurant in costigliole" (which is not to imply that i had ever heard of it either). that woman is one of my heros. of course, it helps that she reminds me a lot of my great aunt mary (yeah, that's the one; i'm always talking about how she's the one who taught me how to cook) before her health started failing. anyway, she made agnolotti. and what's more, not only did she explain the whole process and what goes into it, her chef was actually telling us the proper proportions and everything. she said she "doesn't believe in keeping recipes secret; everyone should be able to make good food." i wanted to kiss her. and that was even _before_ we tasted it. my god, it gave new meaning to the word "delicious." when it was over, i folded up my placemat (with all my notes on it), and guarded it very carefully.

we needed to get going soon, but there were a few things he still wanted to buy, so we ran back through the stands looking for the salted capers and salted anchovies that we had seen (normally, both are packed in oil), cursing ourselves for not taking note of the stand number where we had seen them the previous day. we did stumble across the mozzarella stand, though, and he thought about buying some, but 10 euro for 500 grams was a little too steep. however, while he was vascillating between "to buy, or not to buy," i noticed that they also had the ricotta. that was it; there was no holding me back. i bought it, and that convinced him that he needed one too. so we both got ricotta (about 300g packages for 5 euro each, but totally worth every penny). we then continued our crusade for anchovies and capers. eventually, we did find a different stand that was selling the anchovies, but their different sized cans ranged from 18 to 110 euro, which was clearly too much, but since enno was talking to the guy in spanish (i think), the guy decided to get a plastic container out of the back and just give him a half dozen pieces. and then, against all odds, a couple stands down was a woman with capers; not the ones he wanted, but he asked if she had them, and while she didn't, she said, "well, why don't you just take this jar home and try these?" it was craaaazzzy. he was totally on a roll. but, sadly, all good things must come to an end, so we made our way back to the car with huge smiles stretched across our faces.

finding the autostrade to get out of turin was almost as whacked as trying to find the hotel had been the previous day, and on top of that, i was dumb enough to volunteer to drive... [rolls eyes] but we did eventually locate it, even through the traffic.

okay, so here's the weirdest thing yet, but potentially also the most interesting. about halfway home, we were talking about the equador chocolate lady again, and how she wasn't really connected with scharffen-berger at all, but had gotten them to make and market the special edition chocolates (the ones we bought). so, out of nowhere, he hatches this idea that we should totally try to see what would be involved in starting our own chocolate company, and selling stuff on the internet or something. and what's even wilder, the more we talked about it, the more it seemed like it really might just be crazy enough to actually work... i mean, if we can get the raw materials from her, we're already working with superior ingredients, and then we have the advantage of being able to claim both the swiss and the dutch label, if we want. anyway, the short of it is that we basically decided that we really do need to give this a shot. sure, maybe there's a good chance it will fall flat, or otherwise be a miserable failure, but if you ask me, it sounds like it will be one hell of a lot of fun to try. probalby things will move slowly, but i'll try to keep y'all updated when anything happens. and if i eventually need reminding, or a kick in the seat of the pants to get going, i know i can count on all of you for that as well.

and so, the trip came to a close, and it was 'back to our regularly scheduled programming.' but i had so much fun it hurt (my smile muscles were sore), and i got to work on building a friendship. maybe even a really good one. we'll see.