Back to School

Craving a break from chocolate and a chance to hone my other art skills, I signed up for classes at College of Marin. Ironically my first sculpture project is in wax which looks just like chocolate and feels just like caramel.

The food here is surprisingly mediocre, but I've managed to come up with some new flavor ideas nonetheless.

Flavor: Rum Raisin + Pretzel

Inspiration:

The school cafeteria has an interesting selection of German sweets, among them Ritter Sport varieties which I've never seen before. The wrapper was entirely in German (even the ingredients) but I deciphered from picture on the front that the flavor was rum raisin hazelnut.

As I checked out, the vaguely Persian cafeteria operator swooned, "that is my love; I hand pick all these sweets."

Opening the wrapper revealed a hunk of chocolate that had seen better days. Patches of bloom on already pale milk chocolate gave it a diseased look and I could already smell the rancidity of the nuts. Still, I bit in.

The rum raisins were surprisingly pungent; they actually tasted as though they'd been soaked in real rum (odd choice for a school cafeteria).  I ate around the rancid hazelnuts and would have enjoyed the rest if it wasn't so excruciatingly sweet. Luckily I had a bag of salty pretzels near by and a crisp bite of those was the perfect chaser for the mushy, pungent sugar bomb that came before.

With some decent dark chocolate, this has the potential to be a damn fine bar snack.

Flavor: Bacon Balsamic

Inspiration:
My aim at the cafeteria was to order something that's hard to screw up and will not likely carry a food borne illness, so I chose a BLT with oil and vinegar side salad. The meal was surprisingly good (probably due to my rock bottom expectations) and I quite enjoyed dipping my deep fried day old bacon into the vinegar to cut the grease and give it some tang. I can imagine just how good it would be if it was Niman Ranch applewood smoked bacon and 30 year aged balsamic.

I know the bacon trend is on it's way out (if not already gone), but part of me hopes it's more of a newly discovered classic than a passing fad. I love salt with my sweets and bacon, just like chocolate, is one of those things that makes everything taste better. They're made for each other.