artisanal thinking

My body is addicted to the craft of chocolate making. Unfortunately, I haven’t been able to make chocolate, and haven’t had any personal chocolate in my possession all week. I was supposed to receive 25 lbs of Panamanian, 10 lbs of Peruvian beans, plus a needed increase in my molding capacity on Tuesday, but it seems the boxes were slow to ship, and I am only just receiving some beans today, and more molds on Monday… With proper timing, I can roast several batches of beans this weekend, begin grinding them Sunday, and be tempering as the new molds (hopefully) arrive Monday. Previously my batches have been about 3 pounds each, but with more molds, I can increase to about 6 pounds. As I scale up, each phase of the process will eventually become a bottleneck and I’ll have to augment each in turn—this weekend, I’ll be going to buy another steel bowl for winnowing, and more baking sheets for roasting.

On another front, a friend of mine may be interested in doing some wrapper design! It will be good for her portfolio, because the design will actually be used, good for me of course, and we will all end up with more chocolate in our coffers. For all the designers reading this blog, if such a deal would interest you too, please get in contact! Finally, many friends have been expressing interest in being involved with part of the process. Though it would be wonderful, I’m not exactly sure whether people want to sit around with me, say while waiting for beans to cool so we can crack them into nibs and then perform the somewhat labor-intensive process of winnowing… So we’ve hit upon (well stole) the idea to hold some chocolate wrapping parties. After demolding the next batch of bars, we’ll invite over friends, unscrew some beer and wine, and get together to clothe our bars in foil and love.

Concluding Projections; Now, Reflections

At a potluck yesterday, it was noted that from ‘artisanal’, we can deduce that:

as in, anal retentive—an OCD manifested in craft as: concern with detail, with perfection in process and with the quality of the outcome. A nice observation I think, which left me wondering what else this title could inspire? With some enumerative help…doggerel:

As an artisan, I, begin my poem, alias, rant. Like Dickinson, truly, I sing an aria, slant. A pall covers all, a salt rain, that is industry. The disrupting bullet, a slain art we revive. Craft! In the Satan lair we cause a anal stir, a alter sin, our crime. For, we reject standardization, diversity of flavor and experimentation, our end. We produce quality achievable only in slow, small batches: the mascot of our art, a snail. Opposite that is a liars tan, branding those obsessed with economies of scale. Of craft, I may not be a natal sir, but slow comes illumination, the will to take part in a nasal art. I, though thin, I snarl at a king. This is my artisanal thinking.

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