I’ve never had a reason to even step inside the Bellagio, so I haven’t seen this in person, but the videos give you an idea of how large this thing really is.

Standing 27 feet tall, the machine, created by Chef Jean-Philippe Maury, circulates 2100 pounds or about 120 quarts of white, dark and milk chocolate per minute.

While fully functional, the fountain is not “open” for public consumption.

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An early pivotal scene finds Julie (played by Amy Adams) standing outside a Scharffen Berger chocolate storefront. It’s in this instant that she makes the connection between cooking and pleasure, which inspires her to cook every recipe in Julia Childs’ (played by Meryl Streep) cookbook within one year and blog about it. (I found an interesting IMDB message board thread stating that Julia didn’t approve of Julie’s undertaking!)

Scharffen Berger chocolate was created in 1997 in San Francisco, California, and began garnering national attention soon after. The bean to bar premium chocolate bars are now considered one of the world’s finest, and the proprietary bean blends come from up to nine different cacao-growing regions throughout the world.

The movie, which is based on two stories — Julie Powell’s Julie & Julia, and Julia Childs’ My Life in France — hits theaters tomorrow, August 7th.

[image: flickr]

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Arguably one of those most popular comedy bits of all time, the 39th episode of “I Love Lucy” featured Lucy and Ethel working at a chocolate factory, wrapping chocolates as they came down a conveyor belt. The episode is technically titled “Job Switching” but is better known as “Candy Factory.”

It was filmed May 30, 1952 and entails Ricky and Fred thinking that housework is much easier than earning money. Lucy and Ethel feel the opposite so the boys try doing the housework while the girls attempt to hold down a job at a candy factory.

[info via Lucy Library]

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The Consumerist had a great article yesterday on how to determine if M&M’s, Mars or Hershey candy is expired:

“For M&Ms and Mars candy, there’s usually a 10 digit code of numbers and letters, but you only need to worry about the first three. The first number is the last number in the year (8 means 2008, 7 means 2007, etc) and the next two numbers stand for the week of the year (so, a number like 804 would be the fourth week of 2008: February 2008).

“For Hershey’s candy, there’s a 2 character code for the month and year. The year is like the other code, with the number being the last number in the year, the second character is a letter that represents the month. A = January, B = February, and so on. So a code like 9A would mean that the candy expires January of 2009.”

I grabbed a bag of M&M’s to check this out, and as you can see in the picture above this one apparently expired in December 2007, which is lame because I bought it in February 2008. But as several commenters in the original post pointed out, though, expired candy likely won’t make you sick, it’ll just taste off. I haven’t noticed anything funky about it so I think I’ll live!

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Chocolate goes well with many holidays, and for good reason! But sometimes I wonder why it’s bigger for some holidays (Valentine’s and Easter) and not others (Fourth of July or Thanksgiving). Anyway, I dug up a little history to explain why chocolate and Easter go so well together:

“It was at about this time (early 1800’s) that the first chocolate Easter egg appeared in Germany and France and soon spread to the rest of Europe and beyond. The first chocolate eggs were solid soon followed by hollow eggs. Although making hollow eggs at that time was no mean feat, because the easily worked chocolate we use today didn’t exist then, they had to use a paste made from ground roasted Cacao beans.

“By the turn of the 19th Century, the discovery of the modern chocolate making process and improved mass manufacturing methods meant that the Chocolate Easter Egg was fast becoming the Easter Gift of choice in the UK and parts of Europe, and by the 1960’s it was well established worldwide.” ~ A History of Easter

What are your favorite chocolate Easter treats?

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“I was thinking recently as I watched some of these ‘lifestyles of the rich and famous’ type shows, what would really be the ultimate in extravagant, unnecessary opulent indulgence? After some thought, (maybe because I was hungry) I put together the ‘The Most Expensive Days Worth of Food Possible.’“

You know there’s going to be some damn good chocolate in there, right?

This is called a Golden Opulence Sundae and is sold at Serendipity 3 (home of the famous Frrrozen Hot Chocolate) in New York City for $1000. It was created to celebrate their 50th anniversary in 2005 and they sell about one a month:

“Made with 5 scoops of the richest Tahitian vanilla bean ice cream infused with Madagascar vanilla and covered in 23 carat edible gold leaf, the sundae is drizzled with the world’s most expensive chocolate, Amedei Porcelana, and covered with chunks of rare Chuao chocolate, which is from cocoa beans harvested by the Caribbean Sea on Venezuela’s coast.

The masterpiece is suffused with exotic candied fruits from Paris, gold dragets, truffles and Marzipan Cherries. It is topped with a tiny glass bowl of Grand Passion Caviar, an exclusive dessert caviar, made of salt-free American Golden caviar, known for its sparkling golden color. It’s sweetened and infused with fresh passion fruit, orange and Armagnac.

The sundae is served in a baccarat Harcourt crystal goblet with an 18K gold spoon to partake in the indulgence served with a petite mother of pearl spoon and topped with a gilded sugar flower by Ron Ben-Israel.”

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- The botanical name for the cacao tree is “Theobroma Cacao” which means “the food of the Gods”. Cacao trees have also been discovered in Asia, Africa, and the South Pacific.

- Inside of the green pods are purple seeds surrounded by white cushiony pulp. Chocolate is made from the purple seeds, more commonly known as cacao beans. The white pulp can be eaten but doesn’t taste like chocolate — according to Market Manila they taste like a fruit called mangosteen.

- The Mayan Indians were the first known group of individuals to utilize the cacao bean: They traded the beans for jade, cloth, and feathers, and they ground up cacao beans with chili peppers to create a new beverage.

- The Aztecs also created a cold beverage they called Chocolatl by combining the cacoa powder with chile water, vanilla, flowers, and honey. They also used the beans as a form of money. In 1502, not knowing what or how valuable they were, Christopher Columbus dumped an entire canoe of beans overboard to lighten his load. He later found out how valuable they were after one was dropped by a sailor and then reverently picked up by members of the tribe. Columbus brought chests of them back to Spain but the Spanish king was not convinced of their worth.

- 20 years after Columbus, Hernando Cortez also brought back chests of beans to Europe and was able to popularize them among the people, who developed a taste for them. “The Dutch, English, and French started growing cacao in their own colonies. In England, teahouses became chocolate houses. At first, sugar cost so much that the drink was expensive. Than a Spanish chef substituted chili for sugar and then even ordinary people could afford a hot chocolate.”

Huge thanks again to Jennifer!

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There are some things you just can’t imagine living life without. For some it may be their computer, or indoor plumbing, or their car. But for many of us, it is difficult to imagine life without chocolate chip cookies.

But there was a time before chocolate chip cookies were invented. Yep, I kid you not. And it wasn’t even all that long ago. Mankind existed for centuries without tasting even one smidgen of chocolate chip cookie.

It seems that sometime in the early 1930’s, a lady named Ruth Wakefield was baking regular chocolate cookies. Wakefield was the owner of the Toll House Inn in Massachusetts. She didn’t have any baker’s chocolate, so instead she used small pieces of semi-sweet chocolate, thinking that it would all melt and blend in. Well, we know what chocolate chips do in cookie batter – they don’t melt and blend in, they remain as delicious chunks of chocolate.

Being the wise women she was, Wakefield knew she had a winner. A few years later she sold her recipe to Nestle. Her payment? A lifetime supply of chocolate chips.

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Centuries ago chocolate was nothing like what we know it as today. It was not a sweet concoction enjoyed by anybody, but rather a bitter drink used in many ceremonies.

Chocolate originated with the Mayan civilization in South America somewhere between 250 and 900 A.D. They would make a paste from roasted cacao seeds which they then mixed with water and spices. The result was a spicy, bitter drink. While most of their people did indulge in this drink on occasion, when it was later adopted by the Aztecs they reserved it for their rulers and priests. In fact, the Aztec ruler Montezuma supposedly drank 50 goblets of this chocolate beverage every day.

Once the Spanish explorers discovered this drink, they took it with them back to Europe where they added sugar. Over time it evolved into a sweeter taste.

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I’m sure you all love these posts telling you about more ways you can waste time online…

Lindt, the Swiss chocolatier, has come up with the Gold Bunny Hunt Game. You can search through photos from four major US cities to find the bunny, then answer trivia questions about chocolate and about the cities themselves. Highest scores win prizes of chocolate, of course. Unfortunately, only US players are eligible for the prizes, but the game can be played by all. Be sure to register first so your score can be counted.

Like the chocolate, this is strangely addictive, and not to be played at work.

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