The Chocolate Master Visits the Omega Festival
I recently drove to San Francisco to attend a “chocolate festival.” My sister lives in Berkeley, she took me to the Scherfenberger chocolate factory the last time I visited, so I thought this would make a nice sequel.
I was expecting a sampling of fine world chocolates. Perhaps a master formula of belgian dark, or some nice Bolivian blends. The concept of the festival was that you paid $20 for a ticket book, then you hop from chocolate booth to chocolate booth, trading tickets for chocolate samples– better than a carnival!
My sister and I took the tram in on Saturday morning fully expecting the lines to be long for the best chocolates. We walked the final ten blocks to the festival, turned the corner and…
We faced a handful of stands set up in a semi-circle in an ill-traversed part of the tourist area near fisherman’s wharf. There were no dutch, no french, no Bolivian chocolates. There was Hershey’s, Lindt, and Nestles instead. The samples were bite sized junk candies, the kind you give kids for halloween. They sat in jars, the kind of jars you put candies in at halloween. Instead of chocolate connoisours displaying their finest, there were teen employees from the local candy marts.
But hey, at least there were no lines.
On the bright side, I did find a neat vitamin store in the area which led me to find some fun websites including a blog on omega 3 benefits.
