ZOMG, Candy!

Today marks the start of the Taste of London festival in Regent Park, and I just happen to be hopping a train to London tomorrow. Of course, once I get there, I’m hopping a bus to Stonehenge for overnight early Summer Solstice celebrating. BUT I’ll be back in London for Saturday (though verrrry tired from a sleepless night, I’m sure) and Sunday fun.

I asked about getting free access as press, but I also asked pretty last minute (as in on Tuesday) since I only recently found out about it. If a press pass comes through, I’m totally there. If it doesn’t, I may splurge and cough up the 25 pound (~$50) entry fee anyway. After all, everything in England is expensive thanks to a terrible exchange rate. It’s reasonable England prices for what looks to be a fun event, and even though food isn’t included in the entry fee, it would still be way cheaper and easier than actually visiting the brick and mortar versions of the great restaurants serving food at the festival. And maybe some the exhibitors will have samples?

If I end up not going to the Taste of London, or even if I do, is there anything off the beaten path that I should see while I’m in London? I want to visit the Tate Modern and at least walk past Big Ben and Westminster Abbey and Buckingham Palace, but that’s about it.

In other food festival news, I had successfully registered as press for the BBC Good Food Show Summer, which was held in Birmingham last weekend, but I wasn’t able to make it because a friend came to visit me in Cambridge that weekend. It meant missing out on Gordan Ramsay and a long list of interesting looking exhibitors. Note the one called “Chocolates for Chocoholics“. But, instead of going to Birmingham all alone, I got to explore more of Cambridge and watch some of the May Bumps races with my friend, which was great fun.

Finally, I am for sure attending the New York City Wine and Food Festival in October this year. Fortunately, it was scheduled for one of the few fall weekends in which the football team is away and the band isn’t following, so I’m free to catch Anthony Bourdain interview Ferran Adria with my friend and former roommate, Jenny. Hooray!!! Jenny managed to book our tickets before they sold out. Hooray again!!!!!

It should be really good (and at $35 for an hour-long program, it better be), as Bourdain is awesome and Adria is the man. I’m excited just thinking about it! I sort of wish I hadn’t given my signed (by photographer Melanie Dunea) copy of My Last Supper to a foodie friend for her birthday, as the NYC Wine and Food Festival features a TON of big name chefs, many of whom are photographed in My Last Supper (like Adria and Bourdain). I may just have to buy another copy for myself and try to rush the stage at the end of the talk like a squealy fangirl.

Take a look through the full events list for the NYC Wine and Food Festival. Soooo much of it looks absolutely amazing, but on my college student budget, the only way I could afford to attend more events would be to scalp the ticket I already have. But I would never do that because it’s Bourdain and Adria on the same stage! Still, I bet at least some of you, dear readers, are real people with real sources of income who could buy tickets to festival without having to live off ramen (or, more realistically for me, stop splurging on nice chocolate) to be able to afford it.

If you do go, or if you happen to live in NYC and would want to go on a ZOMG, Candy! outing, let me know. We can visit Economy Candy or Jacques Torres or La Maison Du Chocolat. And Momofuku Ssam Bar, which has nothing to do with candy but is delicious nonetheless.

Chow’s Summer Gift Guide 2008 has been posted. While there are no actual candy items, Vosges (which I’ve reviewed quite a bit) has a product that made it on the list: their Red Velvet Mini Party Cake. It looks delicious and gorgeous, but really, $60 for a cake that only serves four? Not even including shipping, which will run you $32.50 for 2nd day air to keep it from going bad? Must be nice to be made of money.

If I had $92.50 to spend on Vosges, I’d eat their incredible truffles and Exotic Chocolate Bars until I exploded. Great red velvet cake can be found in bakeries and restaurants all over, and you can even make one yourself. Creamy, indulgent, and excitingly flavored chocolate, not so easy to find.

And, in completely non-candy related Chow Gift Guide news, a book edited by my former History of Food professor, Food: A History of Taste, made the cut as well.  It was also nominated for a James Beard Award but lost out to something about oysters (that probably only won because it picked a weirdly obscure topic and was automatically charming; I am, of course, clearly biased on this topic).

Congratulations to….. Emily! (what a coincidence), the winner of my Emily’s Chocolates giveaway, courtesy of Emily’s Chocolates in honor of National Candy Month. She will be receiving a bunch of their goodies, and I will be jealous and bury my sorrows in tea and a scone, or something.

If you’re curious, I used an online random number generator to select the winning comment number.

A nice little piece from last weekend’s Washington Post’s Sunday Source wrote about jobs you wish you had. Susan Fussell, the VP of communications for the National Confectioners’ Association, was one of the profilees.

Don’t forget, y’all have until 5pm EST on Monday, June 9th to enter my Emily’s Chocolates giveaway, courtesy of Emily’s Chocolates. Leave a comment on this post for a chance to win. US readers only please (sorry to my international readers. I’m getting a taste of your frustration, as I can’t receive US samples while I’m in the UK).

Last Tuesday, I flew from JFK to Gatwick, London, so of course I had to pop into the JFK duty free shop to look for candy deals. They had Ghirardelli and Godiva and Cadbury and Toblerone and more, but none of it was particularly special or well-priced, so I nearly left without buying anything. But just as I was turning to leave, a display of Michel Cluizel chocolates caught my eye. And at the top, a sign stating that, for a limited time, all Michel Cluizel chocolates were 50% off. Eep!

I bought two boxes of his champignon mushrooms that I so loved in this review. That’s 16 mushrooms for a flat $17. Considering that they’re usually at least $2 per mushroom (if you can find them in the first place) I got a great and delicious candy deal!

One box is already half gone; the other I’m saving to give to my aunt when I visit her in Liverpool. No one tell her I got it on sale! I’m pretty sure she doesn’t know that I candy review, since the last time she called to check up on me, she asked me how I found the food in England before asking if I knew anything about UK candy or if I even ate that much candy in the first place.

The folks at Emily’s Chocolates wanted me to remind you that June is National Candy Month. As if I needed such an excuse to eat candy. They also wanted to mail me samples of their chocolates to review, but since I’m abroad, I won’t be able to receive any of them. Fortunately for you, dear readers, they’ve agreed to mail the free chocolates to one of you instead. Hooray!

I got to try their berry and nut holiday mixes and their decadent chocolate-covered sandwich cookies back in December and greatly enjoyed them. Leave a comment with a real email address (just for me to contact you if you win; I have no spam lists to add you to) by 5pm EST next Monday, June 9 for a chance to win their chocolate covered blueberries, strawberries, and cherries (products can be seen on this page; the cherries were my personal favorite). I’ll randomly select one commenter For The Win.

Good luck! And we’ll be back to your regularly scheduled reviews on Wednesday.

On Tuesday, while I was en route to England, Viva Chocolato was having a ribbon cutting ceremony back home in Austin. Mayor Will Wynn (isn’t that the perfect politician name?) was in attendance to help celebrate the 10 Austin female-owned businesses - the Viva Divas - that went into putting Viva Chocolato together and to raise money for the Susan G. Komen Foundation and the Center for Child Protection.

Why am I telling you about this after the fact? Because I missed an event celebrating chocolate and women in my hometown. Because there were truffle and wine pairings featured at the event. Because the last ribbon cutting ceremony I went to was for the MGM Grand at Foxwoods, and while that was supposedly far more glamorous (Catherine Zeta-Jones, Michael Douglas, P-Diddy, John Mayer, Josh Grobin, and Alicia Keys, who rode past us on a golf cart, were among the celebrities in attendance), we were there to perform, not to indulge in free chocolate.

Anywho, I can’t wait to revisit Viva Chocolato when I get back from England now that they’re seemingly through with their initial development phase.

This afternoon, I’m flying to London, then busing to Cambridge where I will spend the next two weeks (I get to be a research assistant for the Autism Research Centre. Hooray!). I’m excited, of course, since I’ve never been to Europe before.

Any particular suggestions for candy to check out while I’m on the other side of the pond? So far the only must-taste on my list is Thornton’s Chocolate Smothered Toffee, which Melanie Dunea of My Last Supper authorship told me she would have for her last supper.

From the New Yorker Goings On blog, an awesomely elaborate Rube Goldberg for smashing Cadbury Creme Eggs:

Edit: The embedded video screwed up my site layout, so here’s the link instead. I’ll figure out this technology thing, someday.