Clay Gordon is a man I’ve been long looking forward to meet. With his great book ‘Discover Chocolate‘, Clay claimes and justifies is title of ‘Chocophile’. He’s also running the community “The Chocolate Life” and that’s where Clay reached out to meet me during his visit in Europe. So here’s the very first of a coming video interview series from Le Salon du Chocolat 2009 in Paris!
This US based evangelist for fine cacao was currently doing a chocolate tour in Europe, including the London Chocolate Week. I arrived at his hotel to meet him in the lobby, and after our first real life hello, we strolled towards the Salon area at opening time. After I registered and picked up a press card (hey, I blog!) we sat down wih a good coffee in the lounge and continued talking on all things chocolate. During this very inspiring chat Clay Gordon passionately talked about the chocolate industry, people enjoying chocolate, people having fun tasting & trying pairings, the required craftmanship to achieve great tasting bars, and some of the secrecy behind the cacao scenes. Clay truely knows every angle to cacao!
After more than an hour we ended the personal talking and I could -ahum- do my first video interview ever. I rapidly had big fun holding my Sony HD cam and I feel it’s a great synthesis of our meetup. Enjoy and you will sure grab for a good chocolate bar after his thoughts on passion, inspiration, and sharing fun.
So here’s the 10 minute interview with Clay ‘The Chocophile’ Gordon! I’m curious for your reactions as well.
As you may have noticed, this year I’ve been eagerly looking forward to my 2nd visit to the Salon du Chocolat, and it surely was a long day full of inspiring encounters. And though this celebration of chocolate is primarily a consumer fair, I went much less for touristy reasons than last year…
Before entering the expo, I was impatiently looking forward a meetup with Clay Gordon. Clay is the author of Discover Chocolate, runs the community The Chocolate Life, and is a standing evangelist of fine chocolate. The rather funny thing is that both Clay and I got hooked on luxurious origin chocolate bars about the same time in the early 90’s, by the same brand, being the French chocolate maker Stéphane Bonnat.
We had a long lovely talk about our shared passion, I was certainly impressed with Clay’s dedication to the food of the gods, and to him, chocolate ultimately is “his lens to look at and understand everything in the world”.
Our initial ‘couple of minutes’ was round up only an hour and a half later, and I ended up with me taking my first video interview ever – armed with my Press badge . So soon on Choqoa.com, a passionate video talk with Clay, one to watch!
Pralus
Over at Pralus, it was a warm encounter again with Valerie the export manager, who really encouraged me last year to ‘do something’. This year I also talked with Francois Pralus himself about his passion and vision, and it was wonderful to hear him explaining his angle on the quest for particular cacao beans and developing its characteristics. Also with him, I have a nice video interview to post soon.
Bonnat
In these competitive times it was heartwarming to learn that Bonnat and Pralus really get along with each other. Both boots were only a few steps from each other. I felt really charmed by the fact that Bonnat’s sales agent remembered me from last year, being “that guy that bought almost all of our bars”. Stéphane turned out to be a very accompanying man, who proudly boasts a 125 years old family tradition. Watch the coming video interview here too, and enjoy Bonnat sharing chocolate memories from his childhood.
AMMA
One of the last persons I met was no less than Frederick Schilling, former founder of US based Dagoba Chocolates, a famous organic cacao company which he recently sold. With the new AMMA Chocolates brand, Frederick launched another spark from the vibrant US chocolate scene, though his adventure is now based in the Amazon region in Brazil, where his partner Diego owns 3 cacao plantations.
Frederick contributed a good twist on the earlier video interviews, and gave a good point on the differences amongst the more traditional European scene and the fresh initiatives in Northern America.
The Domori sales rep unfortunately wasn’t there though, and I also missed the French artist Carol Gillot, which I got to know through ParisBreakfasts.
A quick hello at Michel Cluizel returned made the friendly rep offer me bags of unroasted beans from their various single plantation beans, great to discover a taste.
The only real ‘downside’ of my visit was to find out that none of the brands were eventually prepared to meet my Choqoa Sampler orders: they simply were not able to sell me my large amount of orders – even on their stock for this mass fair! Being a little bit a victim of your overwhelming demand, I however settled some well worthy arrangements with them, opening up a lot of exciting future possibilities, and contributing a lot of learnings on distribution particularities.
With love from …
This year’s salon was full of superb moments meeting my chocolate heroes. Interviewing Francois Pralus, Stéphane Bonnat and Frederick Shilling gave thrilling sensations being so close on the chocolate scene. Especially the time spent with Clay Gordon left a lasting impression on me, all synthesized in some great footage to share with you soon!
Your Sampler is on its way and I’m hoping your little bit of extra patience will be rewarded with you finding –and sharing- new pleasures in chocolate sensations…
Amongst the huge pile of chocolate books available, these clearly stand out since they are not limited to recipes again, but dig deeper to the roots of this wonderful fruit.
“Discover Chocolate” touches the new ways of appreciating chocolate, by illustrating a lot of insights, connoisseur’s experiences and debunking myths along the way. US based Clay Gordon is a ‘chocolate critic’, who also runs the fun website The Chocolate Life.com. A creepy though inspiring secret I’ve found out about Clay Gordon and me is that I myself got the chocolate virus almost at the same moment as he did, in the early nineties, but on top of that through the same brand: Chocolat Bonnat!
It was another book, Real Chocolate from Chantal Coady, that led me to the “The True History of Chocolate“. Chantal Coady is a real crusader of chocolate: in the late 80’s she launched the “Campaign for Real Chocolate”. She is also the owner of Rococo Chocolates, a specialty chocolate shop in London, and on top of that co-founded The Chocolate Society. Her mouthwatering book contains exquisite cacao recipes, she introduces also a little the background of chocolate, but eventually referred to “The True History” book.
Both books are mouthwatering, have great photos and illustrations, and both the design and size are very elegant. Happy reading!
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intense love for origin cacao, indulgent tasting experiences and original insights on premium chocolate brands.
Since long I'm very, very passionate about dark chocolate. I have chocolate business ideas as well, and I'm more than open to be contacted and partner up.
. So soon on Choqoa.com, a passionate video talk with Clay, one to watch!
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