Collectively speaking, the U.S. has an obsession with everything pumpkin: pumpkin spice lattes, pumpkin cinnamon beer, pumpkin nutmeg pasta, and pumpkin, of course, Doritos – have you tried these? Oh, and pumpkin chocolate, the best of them all. We admit, we love our pumpkin chocolate truffle. It’s a bit of an obsession with us as…
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Chocolate tempering. Ever heard of it? If yes, congratulate yourself for knowing this fairly obscure term. If no, give yourself a pass — you’re in good company. Chocolate tempering is central to the art of making fine chocolate. It’s a term and a process we, as chocolatiers, use every day, so it surprises me that…
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Traveling and being outside are two of my favorite things. There are a hundred lists for best restaurants and places to stay in most cities, so you don’t need that from me. And it’s easy to find indoor attractions like museums everywhere you may go. If I’m away, unless it’s pouring, I just can’t get…
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Chocolate and red wine. Chocolate and coffee. Chocolate and beer! Just like these pairings, small businesses in Maine often pair well together too. That is undoubtedly true in other parts of the country as well, but I can speak personally to the wealth of support we have in our community in Maine, and especially (for…
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It’s not all chocolate and flowers around here. A lot of chocolate flowers, sure, as we prep for Mother’s Day, but there are many other things we think about when it comes to honoring our moms. I’ll get back to chocolate in a moment, but here are a few of our favorite non-chocolate items the you might…
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Maine is a rich source of wonderful local flavors that go so well with our chocolate. There’s an abundance to choose from, and we make careful choices so that we can bring the best the state has to offer to our customers both here in Maine and all over the country. You can see a…
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Easter is coming right up! When is the right time to order your Maine chocolate so that it is both wonderfully fresh and on time for the holiday? It’s important to find that sweet spot (pun intended) so that the chocolate arrives to you or your loved ones with zero stress for you and maximum…
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Can You Say That? We have a popular and fun chocolate item in our stores and on our website that no one, including myself, really knows how to pronounce. It is the nonpareil. I’ll add the pronunciation here, mostly for my own benefit, taken from Merriam-Webster, so we can all be on the same page: ˌnän-pə-ˈrel. Or in…
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I’ve joked over the years that we need to have a Valentine’s Day every month of the year. It would be good for business to have what we call a “chocolate holiday” on a regular basis. Or at least, I say, let’s throw one in every now and then, maybe in September. I realize it…
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Standing behind the counter helping customers at our chocolate store gives me a laboratory to watch human behavior. Any retailer will tell you the same. The public parades before us. I see couples newly in love. I see parents exhausted from a family vacation. I can tell if a customer is a chocolate connoisseur or…
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