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One cannot talk about Chocolate and popular culture without talking about Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. From my former post, you can see that over thirty three thousand of you are looking for either the book or the movie.

The Book
When I was a kid, my mom gave me a copy of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Daul (same cover as below - the 1964 version). It was one of the first books I read from cover to cover (and still have on my bookshelf downstairs). His descriptions were lively and playful, and you could tell that he was thinking like a child would. I read all of his books and even attempted a “Georges Marvelous Medicine” of my own. It didn’t really do anything “marvelous” to me, but rather made me sick to my stomach. Now that I think about it, I probably shouldn’t have drank that solution in the first place.

The Movie(s)
I loved the movie as a kid - the tales of a somewhat crazed chocolate maker who let a few children into his chocolate factory and divulged his somewhat strange secrets on making chocolate and other candies. As I’ve read the book “Emperors of Chocolate” over the past couple months, it’s interesting to see how much of the secrecy of the Hershey and Mars Families inspired this kind of literary work.

Over the past couple weeks I’ve gotten the inkling to see the original Charlie and the Chocolate Factory again, and haven’t been able to locate it in any of the local video rentals or department stores. (They seem to be overflowing with the newest version) So I ordered it on Amazon. While I thought Johnny Depp’s portrayal of Willy Wonka was a lot of fun, and the visuals to the show were quite superior to the original, I didn’t like what they had done to the storyline at all. In the original the whole story surrounding the “bad” guy who wanted a sample of the everlasting gobstopper carried me through the movie and gave it a deeper story line. In the remake it seems that either Willy Wonka was the bad guy, or perhaps his childhood upbringing, but either way I didn’t lack the thread that I was looking for to hold the somewhat tragic occurrences to each child.

I ran across this link the other day that I found interesting. Hand it to Wikipedi to have a whole section on the differences between the book, and both film versions of Charlie. It’s a fun read of your a Charlie buff.

The Lost Chapter?
I also ran across an article talking about the “lost chapter” that intended to be in the book which featured Miranda Piker, but was cut by the publishers of the book. The chapter dealt with implied cannibalism and was cut due to the character’s grotesque ‘elimination,’ which was more violent than those of the other naughty children. The chapter recently resurfaced, and is located at the Times Online.

So which is your favorite version of the movie? And favorite treat? Do rivers of chocolate flow into your life occasionally? Or do you wish you could have a whole meal in one piece of chewing gum?

Did you know that 144006 of you searched for Chocolate in September? Chocolate is on my mind lately, so I got curious to see how many others were thinking about it. In creating the greatest sweet shop of all time, I think it’s important to know what people are interested in right now, (chocolate) and what they’re tastes are right now, (chocolate) and with the Internet so full of stats it makes it easy to find out (about chocolate).

If you don’t do any keyword optimization for search engines (or even know what that is, for goodness sakes) you’re probably unaware that Overture (Yahoo’s company for adding paid search) has a little tool that tells you how many times a certain terms/words were searched for on Yahoo for a close-in-proximity previous month. (If you click on that little tool link, please note it takes a LONG time to appear and do searches.)

So according to this tool, how many of you ARE looking for chocolate?

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Are you looking for Glazie’s Donuts in Provo or Orem, Utah? Well, it seems that others are looking as well. Below are the 2 locations I know of, and addresses and directions. Since I’ve already noticed a couple hits from people looking for them (there is no page for them online - not even on Hogi Yogi’s website) I thought I’d put this information up. I’m a big fan of Glazies, I like their thick bread-like donuts (it’s a nice change from Krispie Kreme which is really light and very sweet).

Glazies Donuts (in Provo)
“The Corner” (Across from Provo High School, next to Fat Cats Bowling Alley)
44 E 1230 N
Provo, UT 84604
Google Map
(801) 373-0358

You’ll find Glazies in side a large building called “The Corner” which includes a Hogi Yogi and a Teriyaki Stix. This building was built in 2003 where an old Winchells stood. (Nice to see they replaced a donut place with another one, isn’t it?) Parking here is pretty tricky, and tight.

Glazies Donuts (in Orem)
“Parkway Crossing” (Just west of the University Parkway exit, enter off Geneva Road)
1270 W. 1130 S.
Orem, UT 84058
Google Map
(801) 789-3765

You’ll find this Glazies included in a student housing complex called Parkway Crossing. The development is only a couple years old and viewable from the freeway. Turn right on Geneva just past the Chevron, and then take your next right into the complex. Glazies is on the South Side.

So Halloween is less than 2 days away - have you got your costume ready yet? Well, here’s some interesting facts about Halloween Candy from the National Confectioners Association:

• Bite-sized chocolate candies are the post popular type of candy to be included in Halloween activities (76 percent), followed by bite-sized non-chocolate candies (30 percent).
• Twenty-six percent of households will include full-size candy (chocolate and non-chocolate) in their Halloween activities.
• Kids tell us that their favorite treats to receive when trick-or-treating are candy and gum. Eighty-four percent of kids said candy and gum are their favorites.
  • Chocolate preferred by 50 percent
  • Non-chocolate candy, 24 percent
  • Gum, 10 percent
• Kids’ least favorite items to get in their trick-or-treat bags were fruit and salty snacks like chips and pretzels.
  • Fruit, 1 percent
  • Salty snacks, 1 percent
  • Toys, 2 percent
  • Baked goods such as cookies/granola bars, 2 percent
  • Other, 2 percent
  • Don’t know, 5 percent
  • Don’t trick-or-treat, 3 percent
• Ninety percent of parents admit to sneaking goodies from their kids’ Halloween trick-or-treat bags.
• Parents favorite treats to sneak from their kids’ trick-or-treat bags are snack-size chocolate bars (70 percent sneak these), candy-coated chocolate pieces (40 percent), caramels (37 percent) and gum (26 percent).
• Parents least favorite goodie to take from their kids’ trick-or-treat bags is licorice (18 percent).
• When kids ages 6-11 years old eat candy, they prefer chocolate candy two-to-one over candy that doesn’t contain any chocolate.
• Kids ages 6-11 years old say if they were given lots of candy, they would
  • Share some with their family, 66 percent
  • Share the candy with their friends, 64 percent
  • Give some to their teacher, 26 percent
  • Keep it all for themselves, 7 percent
  • Don’t know what they would do, 2 percent

Halloween candy

Originally uploaded by qmchenry.

So I was over at Walmart tonight (a place I call affectionately “Wally world” since it sounds as circus-like as the store itself) and picked up a big bag of Halloween candy (Holy cow man, $8?). For the costumed kiddies come this Tuesday you might ask? Well, actually no, it’s for me. Since last year I got ONE trick-or-treater at my door, I don’t expect to get too many this year. I plan on consuming at least half the bag myself.

Mmmm. Swedish Fish… (as I dig into the bowl of candy)… Yum!

BTW, do kids still trick-or-treat in 2006? Or is it just my neighborhood that seems to have boycotted it? I remember that the local mall use to have a trick-or-treat, and the kids would go from store to store to get all their goodies. Perhaps giving away candy on Halloween could be encorporated into Tweet Sweet’s event plans?

So I’ve been hearing about Fried Coke quite a bit, as a break-out fair food for those who love their sweet fried treats.

Abel Gonzales, 36, a computer analyst from Dallas, tried about 15 different varieties before coming up with his perfect recipe — a batter mix made with Coca-Cola syrup, a drizzle of strawberry syrup, and some strawberries.

Balls of the batter are then deep-fried, ending up like ping-pong ball sized doughnuts which are then served in a cup, topped with Coca-Cola syrup, whipped cream, cinnamon sugar and a cherry on the top.

Even at nearly $5 a piece, Gonzales ran two stands at the State Fair of Texas and sold up to 35,000 fried Cokes.

Read the article on Yahoo News.

1,241
Number of U.S. manufacturing establishments that produced chocolate and cocoa products in 2004, employing 43,322 people and shipping $12.5 billion worth of goods. California led the nation in the number of chocolate and cocoa manufacturing establishments, with 136, followed by Pennsylvania, with 122.

515
Number of U.S. establishments that manufactured nonchocolate confectionary products in 2004. These establishments employed 22,234 people and shipped $7.2 billion worth of goods that year. California also led the nation in this category, with 76 establishments.

26 Pounds
Per capita consumption of candy by Americans in 2005; it is believed a large portion is consumed around Halloween.

For more fun facts, visit their Facts for Features Halloween 2006 page.

Have you started to see numbers and percentages appear on some of your chocolates and don’t know what they mean? Yup, American chocolate makers have begun labeling their bars according to cacao (pronounced KA-cow) content, a blend of cocoa solids and cocoa butter that combine to make chocolate, according to The St. Paul Pioneer Press in St. Paul, Minn.

Already common in Europe, this system brings to the industry a uniformity praised by bakers and chocolate experts. But they also worry that too few people understand it and are being misled by marketers pushing bigger-is-better attitudes. The article includes a guide to what cacao labeling can and can’t tell you, and what it means for the home cook.

In brief:
For eating, stick to less than 70 percent cacao. Because sugar tempers and enhances the flavor and texture of chocolate, bars with higher ratios can taste bitter and chalky.

For baking, chocolates be-tween 40 percent and 70 percent will work best in most conventional recipes. Chocolates above 70 percent may have textural problems in some recipes, such as a chocolate mousse cake.

If you can’t resist high cacao chocolate, use recipes specially formulated for it. Scharffen Berger, for example, has recipes on its Web site developed for its bars, including double chocolate cookies that use the company’s 99 percent cacao chocolate.

Don’t want to think about numbers? Stick within the 40 percent to 50 percent range for a good all-purpose chocolate.

For the full story click here.

So I get the newsletter from the Utah Chocolate Show people, and here’s something that sounds pretty fun that they just announced in the recent edition:

Registration Open on the Showpiece Class!
We recently announced one of our big new offerings at this year’s Utah Chocolate Show—a private, 3-hour chocolate showpiece class, where even beginners can learn to make chocolate sculpture.

Space is limited, and registration is officially open NOW!

Raymond Lammers, our award-winning instructor, is appearing on ABC4’s Good Things Utah this morning, showing the types of things he’ll be teaching in the class.

Because an entire sculpture cannot be created from the ground up in only 3 hours, students aren’t making their own sculptures, but they will observe every step of the process and sometimes even participate.

Even better, at the end of class each student takes home a complete kit with the tools needed to make their own sculpture at home!

As if that weren’t great enough, our kitchen sponsor Orson Gygi Co. is including in every student kit nearly $30 WORTH OF CALLEBAUT CHOCOLATE to get you started. (Just be sure to use it for a sculpture; you can always eat the good stuff later!)

Register for the class online at www.UtahChocolateShow.com or reserve your seat by calling Emily: 801.856.6599.

Here are some of the other amazing chocolate show pieces that their website links to.

MiraCuLos CHoCoLaTe…. MariAn ImaGe at a ChoCoLaTe

Originally uploaded by friendsofsanroque.

Now if you haven’t heard this story running around the web over the past couple months, then you aren’t a true lover of all things chocolate. (No I’m not going to blog or link to the fella that got stuck in a vat of chocolate - just not appetizing.)

Workers at the luxury chocolate company discovered a 2-inch tall column of chocolate drippings under one of their vats that bears a striking resemblance to the Virgin Mary. Can you see it? Look closer…

Makes me wonder if that same online gambling place (something “palace’ to give you a hint) that did some strange things during the Olympics and then bought the Virgin Mary grilled cheese sandwich that would never rot will snatch this little jewell up. And unlike the chocolate boyfriend who I mentioned in an earlier post, please leave Mary’s head in tact thank you very much.