Mmmm, chocolate.
Food of the gods, although such food was unknown to all but the ancient people of what is now Mexico and Central America. And they drank the bitter powder mixes with water, but cherished it just the same.
All that changed after the arrival of the Spanish, of course, especially after a series of European innovations created an industry producing solid, smooth, edible chocolate.
Think Hershey’s, think Nestle, think Cadbury.
Better yet, think Queen, Yokota, Hamlin-LeMaster, Michele and Hughes.
The modern chocolatiers are among those well-known in the North Olympic Peninsula’s boutique chocolate industry, offering their own individualized version of the taste treat in the same way that small brewers, vintners and coffee roasters have carved out a localized niche for their products in the much larger mass market.
Chocolate, though, is more hands-on than most artisan food.
Lynn Hamlin-LeMaster at Lehani’s deli in Port Townsend makes nearly every piece she sells by hand — every truffle, every piece of chocolate bark, every filled chocolate mint cookie.
Molds are used only for large specialized pieces.
Her caramel is her own private recipe.
“It’s definitely a craft. I think it fulfills a creative need in my life,” she said on a busy Thursday morning, set aside each week for chocolate making in the back of the deli in the same block as the Rose Theatre.
Hamlin-LeMaster didn’t set out to become a chocolate maker. It came with the business she and her husband, Bill LeMaster, bought six years ago, and it was a 25-year tradition.
Since Bill’s the cook in the family, “Bill said, ‘OK, I’ll do the food and you do the chocolate,'” she laughed.
The former chocolate maker for what was then McKenzie’s trained Lynn, but she’s been working on her own for several years.
She has changed her base formula from a chocolate brick base to the little coins of chocolate she now gets from a Belcolade, a Belgian maker reputed to be the last to practice traditional manufacturing practices.
She’s branched out into specialized flavors for specific partners, offering a cheese truffle at Mt. Townsend Creamery, a port truffle for Fair Winds Winery and a blueberry product for Finnriver Farm.
And her new website for Port Townsend Chocolate Co. went up Dec. 14.
Jim Queen rents the commercial kitchen at Suncrest Retirement Village where his mother lives in Sequim.
Nearly every night, he turns it into a one-man chocolate kitchen, promising customers for his Chocolate Serenade made-to-order freshness from a variety of hand-dipped truffles and one caramel.
It’s not as messy as it may sound with the right equipment, the right ingredients — Queen’s chocolate base also comes from Belgium — and the right technique.
All chocolate must undergo a tempering process of heating and mixing in specialized machines.
Queen turns on an overhead fan to ease the chocolate into melting to the right temperature at a gentle pace, and can tell just by looking at degree of graininess when it’s time to alter the process and begin.
“We’re getting the molecules to reform,” he remarks.
Queen sells hand-dipped, bite-sized truffles, chocolate-coated caramel, toffee and nougats at a several local outlets including Damiana’s Best Cellars, Sunshine Lavender and farmers markets.
As the big pot of creamy-looking chocolate reaches its peak, Queen teases a ball of ganache — a soft chocolate filling — onto what looks like a tuning fork with two 8-inch tines and dips, swirling the settling top into a character designating the specific flavor of the center.
Once a computer techie, later a golf instructor, Queen said he’s learned over the course of the last half-dozen years of commercial chocolate making that chocolatiers must keep it local.
“This is a relationship business,” he said.
Dungeness resident Yvonne Yokota’s so local that she’s not even on the Internet.
“It’s mostly word-of-mouth,” she said, and apparently thriving since she recently invested in commercial equipment and left behind a woodworking business in the process.
Yokota, who offers 30 different flavors of truffle, has a special relationship with Renaissance in Port Angeles, for whom she developed some specialty bars.
She also makes stunningly beautiful molded chocolates, on display next to Queen’ truffles at the Red Rooster in Sequim.
“We call them the art chocolates,” owner Lisa Boulware said.
American’s palates have changed during the 15 years Yokota has been making chocolate, she said, and there’s a growing appreciation for dark chocolate.
“I think the reason more people aren’t doing it is because it’s not a big money maker,” she said. “You have to love it.”
In Forks, hand-made chocolate goodies are created by Janet and Tom Hughes, who sell the treats in JT’s Sweet Stuffs at 80 N. Forks Ave.
“I am trained to do regular chocolates, cremes and with nuts, the caramels and coatings,” Janet said, adding that her husband, Tom, makes chocolates, too.
The mom-and-pop operation has “really grown,” she said, hinting that the two may expand.
“We have a few secrets up our sleeve,” she said. “We are looking at two potential locations elsewhere.
But, she said, “this would always be our home base.”
Jennifer Michele is the new kid on the block, just moved this year to Port Townsend and with one season at the local farmers market under her belt.
She brings a trained chef’s eye, a taste for unusual combinations and chocolate-making ability honed in Oregon.
Her Web site, www.jennifermichelechocolate.com, is offline during reconstruction, but customers who might like to try her salami du chocolate studded with fruit and nuts, or other offerings displaying her self-described passion for pairing savory with sweet can check what’s available at Port Townsend’s Mt. Townsend Creamery or Wild Sage tea shop.
“The flavors change with the seasons,” she said.
Michele also makes molded chocolates, layering in different flavors of filling in personalized combinations.
The pancetta/walnut toffee and Amarula liquor, for instance.
Mmmm, chocolate, how you have changed.
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Managing Editor/News Leah Leach contributed to this report.
Julie McCormick is a freelance writer and photographer living in Port Townsend. Phone her at 360-385-4645 or e-mail juliemccormick10@gmail.com.
