We brought the raclette machine with us to Austin in case my family would be willing to take us up on a “personal pan fondue”. Everyone was game, so we set out to do a slightly Americanized version of Raclette (our second after the raclette party).
Instead of boiled potatoes, we baked them as thick chips, instead of more exotic charcuterie, we had lots of black forest ham (and a little prosciutto), and in addition to the traditional raclette cheese, we had some emmental and gouda. On the side we had mushrooms, asparagus, broccoli, broccolini, and a sliced baguette (the last three were not on the table when I took this overhead shot).
I think everyone discovered prosciutto is actually not bad, and that grilled ham is great. The potatoes were a total hit (a great innovation I say!) and went like hotcakes, so we eventually switched to bread, which my brother used to assemble little ham and cheese sandwiches. All the while we were so focused on prepping the machine (and feeding ourselves) that we completely overlooked the salad that we’d made.
On Thursday night, Stephanie and I went to the official opening of the TCHO Factory Store on Pier 17 for a chocolate tasting. TCHO’s CEO is Louis Rosetto, the founder of Wired Magazine.
I’d previously taste-tested some beta samples of their chocolate which they were scoring for various attributes, like nuttiness and fruitiness. They weren’t adulterating the chocolate with artificial flavors, instead they were trying to discern the natural flavors of various types of cacao beans grown in various parts of the world.
Armed with that data, they’ve recently released four different chocolate bars: “Chocolatey”, “Fruity”, “Nutty”, and “Citrusy”. We sampled all four along with a little champagne. They definitely tasted different, though I’m not sure I’d be able to identify them blindfolded. After trying all four, we tasted chocolatey again, and it was totally different to my palate, almost raisiny.
That’s four strips of Nueske’s applewood smoked bacon. Man, it was like eating barbecue. Definitely the best bacon I’ve ever had! And that’s a Rogue Dead Guy Ale in the background. Courtesy of the Rogue Public House in San Francisco.
