Chocolate festivals, museums, shops, cake and online kits

Chocolate Brands You Can Buy and Try Worldwide
I have been researching chocolae for days. The famous names in chocolate have spread worldwide. I recently gave a speech about chocolate to two toastmasters clubs in Singapore. The first time I visited Eminent at Dell business, an inhouse club, whose members travel a lot.

I had looked around Valu$, the cheapest shop for chocolate in Singapore, just near Changi airport, and near Dell's office. In Valu$ I saw several of my favourite brands. I wanted to pass around some chocolate. I was worried that I would not have enough chocolate and had a secodn bar ready. However, when I passed around a bar which could be broken into small pieces, it was sufficient for under 20 people. I think one or two people did not eat sweet items. Dieting, diabetics, whatever.

Next I gave a similar talk at Braddell Heights Advanced speakers' club, whose members knew a lot about chocolate.  When I asked, "Does anybody have a favourite brand?", one woman immediately called, "Godiva!" Two of the men shouted agreement.

Singapore is a hot country. But chocolate is still popular and the European and American brands are known..

 I checked the various brands countries of origina and made a list:

BELGIUM

•Godiva, Brussels, Belgium.

•ENGLAND

•Cadbury World, Birmingham, England, UK.

•https://www.hotelchocolat.com/uk

•FRANCE

•Contact details:

•Le Salon du Chocolat
70 Rue de la Tour, 75116 Paris, France
Phone: +33 1 45032126
Fax: +33 1 45034004

•Contact Email:

•contact@salonduchocolat.fr

•Le Salon du Chocolat website

•

ITALY

•18-27 October 2019 Eurochocolate Festival in Perugia, Umbria, Italy. The opening weekend starts with a giant sculpture of chocolate. Entry is free for the public. Expect lots of temptations! The local chocolate is Baci, containing a nut.

SINGAPORE
I enjoyed a great chocolate brownie containing nuts with creamy chocolate topping in the Sheraton Towers hotel. It was served at the Toastmasters International club TMCS, which meets the first three Mondays of every month, except sometimes dates very due to public holidays. Arrive at 6 pm for the pre-meeting buffet, 20 SGD (Singapore dollars) a rotating menu and one of the three meetings will have cake.

If you must eat chocolate, now. Try one of the chocolate shops for a variety of cakes containing chocolate.

Singapore Chocolate Shops
Awfully Chocolate - several branches including.
At Tampines, near Changi Airport

Awfaully Chocolate. Photo by Angela Lansbury. Copyright.

In Europe I immediately think of Alprose. We went there from lake-side Lugarno on a train which has a face on the front.

•SWITZERLAND

•Alprose, Switzerland.

Alprose Chocolate museum in Switzerland

They have a giant shop. Even if you visit at the weekend when the factory is not working, the static machines with long conveyor belts are impressive.

RUSSIA
Chocomuseum

Statue of the chocolate fairy outside the museum in Russia.

USA
I stopped at a chocolate shop in New York. It was not a museum, but so many types of chocolate, it was like a museum.

•Photo from Wikipedia of the Hershey Museum, Pennsylvania.

•The Hershey Story. The Museum on Chocolate Avenue.

•63 West Chocolate Avenue.

•http://www.fieldmuseum.org/

•https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_chocolate_museums

CHOCOLATE TREATS
What if you can't wait for your next trip and want to order chocolate now? You can order a chocolate kit online, or organize an evening to try chocolates at a shop in London (several do this - just check the notice boards in chocolate shops or ask the staff.)
Or organize a chocolate  making party. 

China Mug Resembling Chocolate

•https://www.amazon.co.uk/Chocolate-Chunk-Cadburys-Styled-Coffee/

•UK chocolate egg by choc on Choc and lollipop kits from 12 pounds from yuumbles.com free delivery

•Chocolate layer cake. Chocolate cakes in a mug.

•https://www.yumbles.com/artisan/chocolate%20makin

•USA DIY ChocolateHouse

•https://www.amazon.com/Hersheys-Chocolate-Cookie-House-Kit/dp/B01MFC75ZI?th=1

•https://www.ebay.com/itm/3D-DIY-Christmas-Cake-House-Fondant-Chocolate-Mould-Xmas-Cake-Cutter-Mold-Decor/

•

•Silicone Mini Chocolate Spoons Mould £3.99 from Lakeland.co.uk

•Alphabet letters Silicone Chocolate Mould from Lakeland  £2.99

•USA

•Edible Bra

•https://www.ebay.com/itm/Edible-Bra-Chocolate-1-Adjustable-Bra-Playful-Romantic-Lingerie-Gift/323774

Kits
Hobbycraft UK posts worldwide.

Also consider

Chocolate parties.

Useful Websites
singaporeair.com
Useful Websites
umbriatourism.it
http://www.italia.it/en/home.html

About the Author
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker. See my other posts including Chocolate cake at Sheraton Towers Hotel Toastmasters International buffet. Please share links to your favourite posts.

Chocolate Factory Visit Valrhona In France, or take classes in the USA

Problem
Valrhona - oops - how do you spell it? Where is the Valrhona chocolate factory visit in France?

Answer
Val as in valley or Valerie, Valerie in the Valley, then rhona as in the river Rhone. VAL-RH-ON-A. Yes, Tain-Hermitage in the southeast of France is on the river Rhone, near the gastronomic city of Lyons. (We went to the Kir factory.)

Chocolate tours seem to be multiplying worldwide. I've been to chocolate factory and shop tours all over, the biggest and best known in England being Cadbury. Chocolate shops with tastings are multiplying in London. We booked an evening chocolate and wine matching evening. More chocolate factory tours and events are in York going north, which I heard about at the annual long weekend chocolate show in London at Olympia. If you want a tour, you must book.

Over in the USA I saw the Hershey shop in New York, not a tour, but enough information posters and entertaining animations to provide amusement.

In Europe we took the train to the museum of Alprose in Switzerland. In Italy, Umbria has an annual chocolate event. France has more.

Valrhona chocolates on a stand at ProWine Asia in Singapore April 2018. Photo by Angela Lansbury. Copyright.

I learned about the Valrhona chocolate factory visit in France when I was at ProWine Asia exhibition in Singapore. Valrhona also have a branch in Brooklyn, New York, USA, memorably on Water Street by the Brooklyn Bridge, where they hold classes for non-professionals.

Useful Websites
https://www.ardeche-hermitage.com/en/catalog/activity/cite-du-chocolat-valrhona-403003/

https://www.facebook.com/Valrhona/?brand_redir=215088746562
Video of chocolate making at the top of their Facebook page.

https://www.valrhona-chocolate.com/pastry-classes 
(Brooklyn, USA)

https://www.cellartours.com/blog/france/guide-french-chocolate Wonderful website about chocolate shop and factory visits all over France, including the Jews fleeing the Inquisition in Portugal taking their chocolate making skills to the south of France, then having to move on, but leaving behind the tradition of chocolate making.

https://www.valrhona-chocolate.com
The factory's website showing the different colours and flavours of chocolate, brown, cream and pink ovals of nutty and fruity flavours such as passionfruit and almond. You can order Valrhona chocolate online to be shipped from France to all over the world.

Author
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker. See my other posts on chocolate.

Translating Italian From A Chocolate Bar

It's easy to find word for word translations of another language on products such as food. For example, I just had a piece of chocolate from a bar bought earlier this year from Gelupo, an Italian ice cream shop in London, England.

Chocolate from Sicily
The chocolate was kept in a freezer so it came out hard and crunchy, which made the first bite like sandpaper. So I cannot tell or recall how it would taste or the texture when you eat it fresh or on a hot day when it is maybe starting to melt.

The texture and flavour seemed to me closer to American dark chocolate made by Hershey, less like the milk chocolate of England's Cadbury's. The range of flavours is more like Green and Black's chocolate bars (widely available in UK supermarkets such as Tesco).

The packaging had warned:
Conservare in luogo fresco e asciutto
They translate as Store in a cool and dry place

Conservare - conserve/store
in - in
fresco - fresh / cool (in this context)
e - and

Cioccolato alla vanighlia
translated by them as Dark chocolate with vanilla.

cioccolato - (dark) chocolate
vaniglia - vanilla

peso netto - net weight
netto - net

ingredienti - ingredients
zucchero - sugar
massa di cacao - cocoa mass
aromi naturali (they translate as vanilla flavour) - aroma natural
cacao - cocoa


tipica - typical
preperazione - preperation
tradizione - tradition
diretta - directly
discendente - descended
populazione - population
introdotta - introduced
Europa - Europe
spagnoli - Spanish
secolo - century
metodologia - methodology
antiche - ancient
culture - civilisation

They translate Best before end as
Da consumarsi preferibilmente entry la fine.
consumarsi - consume
preferibilmente - preferably
fine - finish/end

How delightful to learn Italian as well as eating chocolate, or to eat chocolate as well as learning Italian.

You can order chocolates and biscuits (biscotti) online and watch a video. And if you are interested in translating Italian, their website is in Italian with translations into England and several other languages.
www.bonajuto.it











If you want to try the Italian ice cream and other products in London, go to
Gelupo
7 Archer Street
London WID 7AU
tel: 020 7287 5555.
www.gelupo.com
They are open 11-11 Monday to Thursday
Friday and Saturday 11 to midnight
Sunday mid-day (noon) to 11 pm.
Go to their website to check the list of gelati and sorbets.

Photos by Angela Lansbury
Angela Lansbury B A Hons
Travel writer and photographer, author, English teacher, speech trainer, speaker.
See Angela Lansbury author and like my page on Facebook, connect with Angela Lansbury author on LinkedIn, watch videos of Angela Lansbury author reading comic poetry and teaching English grammar and spelling on YouTube, and look at and perhaps buy books from Angela Lansbury on Lulu.com and Amazon.com

Chocolate guide worldwide, and a real chocolate teapot

At last, a worldwide chocolate guide.

My favourites:
Alprose, Switzerland. You take the smiley train to this little village with a chocolate factory.

Chocolate Teapot
My picture shows one you can eat.
Cadbury, Birmingham. (See my earlier post.)

A real chocolate teapot which makes tea has been made by Nestle in New York for a TV programme. As you can imagine, the tea pot does not last long before it melts, either into the water - or in the mouth.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2747700/The-chocolate-teapot-IS-useful-Scientists-create-sweet-crockery-brew-tea-two-minutes-without-melting

tripadvisor has a page on all the chocolate factories in Switzerland.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/travel/travel_news/article-2773369/Love-Home-Swap-infographic-reveals-world-s-destinations-chocoholics.html