New York Chocolate Walk

Location: Liberty Harbor RV Park

Today was epic. My expectations were set pretty low, not thrilled about our camping situation or not knowing how our chocolate walk-about would turn out. Things could not have gone better. Here's the view from where we're camped. It just so happens to be right next to the water taxi to Manhattan. Perfect.

Mid morning we took the short water taxi ride from Liberty Harbor NJ over to Manhattan. It dropped us off at Battery Park. We strolled The Esplanade enjoying the city park and awesome views of the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island.

 

 

What a cool city parkway.

 

 

 

We walked to Pier 11, near the Brooklyn Bridge and then took another water taxi over to Brooklyn.

 

From there we walked to the Red Hook neighborhood of Brooklyn in search of Raaka Chocolate, a handcrafted bean to bar chocolate maker. They are one of my absolute favorites. They make virgin chocolate which means they don't roast their beans but conch at 150 degrees to develop some flavors.

 

My favorite bar is their Bourbon Cask Aged chocolate. I first encountered their chocolate at the Ferry Building in SF. I was really looking forward to visiting their chocolate making facility in Brooklyn.

Bingo...here I am at the source, standing in front of their bourbon barrels, tasting some of their chocolate. Sooooo good!

We met Peter, their Community Outreach Director, and he was so incredibly nice. He gave us an impromptu tour of their facility and also gave us some tips on making bourbon flavored chocolate. I love the openness of the handcrafted bean to bar community. Everyone is so willing to share information.

 

One of the unique things about Raaka Chocolate is they use an optical sorter instead of a conventional winnower to remove the shell from their nibs. Here's Ned checking it out with Peter.

This experience was so worth the walk!

 

Not too far away from Raaka is Cacao Prieto. Their claim to fame is they are both a distillery and a handcrafted chocolate maker.

 

 

They have a really interesting space with a gorgeous copper still next to some cool chocolate making equipment.

 

 

 

They have a great presentation of their bourbons and chocolate. You can do bourbon tasting as well.

 

 

 

 

Yes, we bought lots of chocolate at both places...research purposes.

 

We walked back to the DUMBO area. So far we logged a good 6 miles hoofing it. We couldn't believe it was near 4 o'oclock by this time! Where had the time gone? We decided to visit our all time favorite pizza pie place, Grimaldi's. There was a long line, but so worth it!

14 years ago, when we were dating, we had stumbled upon this place. So fun to revisit it again. (And even better to be still crazy in love with this guy!)

We were going to walk the Brooklyn Bridge back, but decided to save our legs for walking around Manhattan. Another water taxi ride back and then we stumbled upon this...

We went inside and talked to the security guard. It's just an office building now, but in 1904 it was the cocoa trading exchange. There's a mural on the wall showing the traders on the floor. Very cool.

In keeping with our National Park theme, we walked by the first American Government Building, where George Washington was officially sworn into office.

Unfortunately, it was past closing hours by this time so we couldn't go inside.

 

Next stop was the World Trade Center Memorial. Such a beautiful space.

 

 

We continued our walking tour of Manhattan, but at about 10 miles of walking we finally called Uncle. We took a water taxi back to our $100 a night parking lot space.

 

 

 

But don't feel too sorry for us about the "camping" situation. We are parked at the Liberty Harbor Yacht Club. What a better way to top off the evening than having beers and Manhattans at the Surf City Yacht Club bar watching the boats come in with the NY skyline in the backdrop. Epic Day indeed.

 

 

 

 

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Philadelphia Freedom

Location: Cheesequake State Park, NJ

Continuing the theme of our trip, "The National Parks and Monument Tour", we thought it only fitting to spend a day in Philadelphia. What a better way than to head right for Independence Square. (The last time I saw this was with my family in 5th grade.)

We had about a mile walk there from where we were parked and got absolutely drenched in a downpour. Yes, I was glad to see the Liberty Bell and yes, I was glad it was in a covered building. You can see Independence Hall in the background.

 

By the time we headed for a tour of Independence Square the sun had come out. It was just a hop, skip and a mud puddle or two away. We took a tour and saw the original room that housed the Supreme Court from 1791 to 1800.

 

 

Across the hallway was Independence Hall, originally called the Assembly Room of the Pennsylvania State House. This is where delegates met and created the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.

 

Good thing about being short is I get to be upfront with the school kids:). Great for taking pics and learning a thing or two.

 

 

 

Next on the tour was Congress Hall, where both houses of Congress met from 1790 to 1800.

Here's the House of Representatives...

 

And here's the Senate. Yep, these are the original colors of the room.

Some Interesting facts: the Senate and Congressmen only got paid when they actually showed up so there was never a gov't shutdown. Also, there was never a seating chart. All members sat together, unlike today where they sit along party lines. Wow...what a concept. And look how much they accomplished!

 

The skies had turned sunny and blue so we used the opportunity to walk a bit around town. Here's Betsy Ross' Home.

I liked the entrepreneur who had an international flag shop across the street. Good one.

 

 

Here's the oldest residential street in the U.S. - Elfreth's Alley. It was established in 1702. It was very charming with the brightly colored doors and shutters, brick walk way and cool lanterns, but I couldn't imagine living here with everyone peeking into all the windows and courtyards.

 

 

 

 

We had fun walking around the different neighborhoods.

 

 

Ned embracing his inner Rocky.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

One of the best parts of the day was exploring Reading Terminal Market. Wowza, it's about a football field size old train depot crammed with every type of food you could imagine. Delis, bakeries, Dutch, Indian, Thai, Amish, Jewish, Italian foods to just name a few.

 

Every nook and cranny is used from diners to cookbook stalls. The longest line was for the hand rolled donuts served by Amish girls. And no, I didn't have one.

 

Perhaps you'd like a whoopie pie

 

 

 

Or a pretzel dog?

 

 

 

Ah...a Philly Cheesesteak!! Of course.

 

Thanks Philadelphia for a fun day.

 

 

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Pennsylvania - Land of Chocolate and Pretzels

Location: French Creek State Park, PA

Today we felt like a sell out. None of this handcrafted, small batch artisanal chocolate. We went right to the industrial behemoth -- Hershey's Chocolate World!! Oh NO!

I remember being about 6 yrs old and visiting here with my family. My memory was driving down this quaint street with big Hershey kiss lampposts. I also remember taking a tour of the real chocolate factory. Afterwards, my folks bought a ton of chocolate. They put it between them on the front seat. My brother Gary and I hung over the front seat and stuffed our faces with chocolate until we were sick. Great memories.

Today's Hershey's is nothing like that (except for the eating chocolate till I was sick part). Now it's a huge amusement park, theatre, sports complex, train trolley, and chocolate extravaganza candy store.

 

Ned, getting ready to embrace the chocolate onslaught.

 

The first thing we did was take the fake chocolate factory store. It's now an amusement ride, complete with singing cows, animated chocolate bars and fake equipment making chocolate.

 

Here's our ride...let's do this!

Think of this attraction as riding "It's a small world" at Disneyland, but with animated talking chocolate bars explaining the process. Ned particularly enjoyed the pumped in fake chocolate smells. I was laughing too hard to notice.

 

 

After this warm-up, and getting our free Hershey bar, we signed up for the Chocolate Tasting Experience. We weren't expecting much, but we're actually pleasantly surprised.

The class started out with how cacao is grown and chocolate is made. Very factual, interesting and felt a lot like the beginning of our chocolate classes. Nice job Hershey!

The oddest thing about the class is that dark chocolate was not only down played, but expected to be a bitter, unpleasant chocolate to eat. Go figure.

Here's Ned tasting the nibs. The facilitator actually warned everyone to only eat a tiny bite. Ha! We roast them and sell them in 12 oz bags. Hershey's is definitely not playing to the dark chocolate crowd.

Here's us proudly holding our Hershey's Palateer certificate.

A cool feature in the class, was that as everyone tasted the chocolate they voted on a real-time touch screen what flavor they were experiencing. The results were displayed on the screen at the front of the class. Loved that! I'm going to try and find a way to plagiarize that for our chocolate classes. Stay tuned as I put on my techie hat and figure that out.

We opted not to take the "make your own bar" chocolate experience. We got that down. However, I did get a kick out of seeing what things little kids were putting on their chocolate bar. Red, white and blue sprinkles anyone?!

 

 

If the chocolate tasting wasn't enough we topped things off with a Hershey's Special Dark Cappuccino and a cookie. Yum!

Believe it or not, Hershey's actually had a theobroma cacao tree growing in the middle of their Food Court. Well done Hershey.

 

We decided to leave the amusement park, chocolate world craziness and go into downtown Hershey. Good choice. We found the best part of exploring Hershey Chocolate - it's the Hershey Museum called The Hershey Story.

Here I am reliving my experience of 50 years ago and feeling a bit sick on all the chocolate I've eaten. Time for more chocolate!

 

This museum was awesome!!! It was all hands-on. You got to experience what it was like to work in the factory during the early 1900's.

Here's Ned roasting beans.

 

Here I am experiencing what it was like to push a 900 lb. bathtub full of chocolate. (Minus the chocolate).

 

 

Ned trying his hand at demolding the chocolate bars.

(In reality, I think Ned has demolded about 20,000 bars in the 3 years we've been in business. He had this down.)

 

This museum did a nice history of Milton Hershey from caramel maker to philanthropist. I have a lot of respect for what he accomplished. His school for underprivileged kids continues today. Listening to the students personal testimonies was quite moving.

I also really enjoyed seeing the old packaging and

the vintage posters.

 

 

We continued East thru Pennsylvania driving thru the Amish country. The farms, barns, buggies and rolling hills were so beautiful. We came into the town of Lititz. Oh look there...the oldest hard pretzel making company in Pennsylvania! How could we pass this up!

 

As luck would have it we were just in time for the late afternoon tour. Here's Ned making the most perfect pretzel ever. So jealous!

 

 

 

I have a very distinct memory of taking a pretzel making tour when I was younger. I think this was the same place, in the heart of Amish Country.

 

Ned getting his second certificate for the day. A very productive food science day it was.

 

 

Great tour. Hard to believe the amount of hand labor involved it took to make pretzels. This company used the same hand labor process until the 1950's. Kill.me.now. The room temperature was well into the 100's, people had to hand twist 60 pretzels a minute and they started at 2:30 in the morning.

Dinner this evening? Wine & pretzels. Not my healthiest eating day.

 

 

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