TasteTV SF Chocolate Salon 2007 Awards Announced

image courtesy of the Daily Feed

TasteTV Salon welcomed over 2,000 Chocolate Aficionados

For Immediate Release

San Francisco — July 18, 2007 — The San Francisco International CHOCOLATE SALON today announces the 2007 Award Winners of its Chocolate Tasting Panel. The Salon, sponsored by TasteTV and TasteTV.com, welcomed over 2,000 chocolate aficionados, fanatics, buyers and journalists who enjoyed 27 of the finest artisan and premium chocolatiers, in addition to wine, beverages, and Vermeer Dutch Chocolate Cream Liqueur.

Because of the success of the first San Francisco International CHOCOLATE SALON, TasteTV also announces that it will be sponsoring the Salon again next year in July 2008, as well as in Los Angeles in October 2007. In addition, it will be launching an annual series of publications known as The Chocolate Guides, showcasing the chocolate makers, chocolatiers, bakeries and matching wines of four North American regions. The first Chocolate Guide, the Western Edition, is scheduled for publication in Fall 2007.

The Chocolate Tasting Panel presented awards in categories such as Best Dark Chocolate, Top Artisan Chocolatier, Most Artistic Chocolate Designs, Most Luxurious Chocolate Experience, Best Organic Products, and Best Comfort Chocolates. Winners include Amano Artisan Chocolate, Charles Chocolates, L’Artisan du Chocolat, XOX Truffles, Poco Dolce and The Xocolate Bar. To see the full list of awards, go to http://www.SFChocolateSalon.com

Organic and Fair trade chocolates were well represented at the Salon, and speakers included chocolate perfumer Yosh Han, blogger Emily Stone of Chocolate in Context, Global Exchange’s Adrienne Fitch-Frankel and conceptual chocolate artist April Banks, Seneca Klassen of the Bittersweet Chocolate Cafe, food writer GraceAnn Walden, and New York’s Reverend R. M. Peluso, who demonstrated how to use chocolate in spiritual meditation.

For more information about the San Francisco International Chocolate Salon, go to http://www.SFChocolateSalon.com.

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USA TODAY mention of TasteTV and TiVO


Today there is a brief but useful mention of TasteTV in the USAToday daily newspaper, in relation to its analysis of the TiVO service. It’s very cool to be in a national newspaper:

You can stream music and photos and upload home movies to your TV, too. TiVo also has Web video content from CNet, iVillage, TasteTV and others that can be recorded and viewed on your TV (free with subscriptions). “This is the first of the set-top boxes to allow Internet content to show up on your TV like that,” McQuivey says.


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TasteTV Toasts Chef Melissa of 2 for 10


TasteTV is on a bit of a roll

We just want to take a moment to congratulate Chef Melissa of “2 for 10” on her recent success.

Chef Mel decided to promote her TasteTV affiliation by issuing a press release about her program being part of the TasteTV TiVO Launch, and then her fortune took off.

  1. First, she was featured on YouTube’s front page,
  2. Next, she was the featured topic of a newspaper article
  3. Then, she became a favorite ‘celebrity chef’ on mySpace!
  4. And below, as she is featured on the tv news in Philadelphia doing her thing

All within a three week period. How’s that for New Media?

We hope to see more great news from her, and of course are happy to have her be a part of TasteTV when it goes national this summer with a weekly 30 minutes television program to local stations nationwide in over 70 cities.

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A Source for Gilmore Girls Chocolate Quotes

Gilmore Girls is ending this season, but Cocoajava has immortalized some of their best quotes about Chocolate. Good to know that the CW’s television writers have kept in touch with the simple pleasures in life:

1.04 – The Deer Hunters

MRS. KIM: What’s that? [points at Snickers]
RORY: Oh, that’s mine.
MRS. KIM: That is chocolate covered death.
RORY: With a creamy caramel surprise.


1.07 – Kiss And Tell

[Inside Doose’s Market]

CASHIER: Oh, you girls having another movie night?
LORELAI: Yeah…It’s Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory.
CASHIER: Oh, that’s nice. Isn’t that the one with Gene Hackman?
DEAN: Uh, Gene Wilder.
LORELAI: You’re a Wonka fan?
DEAN: Yeah.

[Later…]

RORY: Got it!
LORELAI: Score! You know, on the one hand I’m glad it was in but on the other hand what kind of world do we live in where no one has rented Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory?
RORY: Well we rented it.

1.10 – Forgiveness and Stuff

[Taylor and carolers enter Luke’s diner]

LUKE: Whoa, what’s going on?
TAYLOR: Well we were caroling around town and we got a bit chilly and we thought maybe we could trade you a song for some hot chocolate.
LUKE: You want free hot chocolate?
TAYLOR: No no, we’ll sing for it, any tune you like.
LUKE: And then I give you free hot chocolate.
TAYLOR: Yes.
LUKE: Tell you want, you can have your hot chocolate, and pay for it, then go next door and sing for the marshmallows.

1.12 – Double Date

SOOKIE: [giggling] It was so funny. Oh God! Do you remember?
LORELAI: I remember.
SOOKIE: What was Rory, eight?
LORELAI: I believe she was.
SOOKIE: Oh god, that mud pie fiasco haunted me for a year! I mean, hers looked just like mine. Of course I used you know, homemade chocolate cookies, bittersweet ganache and she used well, mud. You know, but they did look damn similar.

For more, go to Cocoajava

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Marines Give “Iron Chef” Marching Orders


What can we say? An army fights on its stomach, or the old saying goes something like that. Anyway, this Food Network star is more like an Iron Chef than any out there…

WASHINGTON – When Chef Robert Irvine discovered his “mission” was to feed 850 Marines after they’d completed 30 days of desert warfare training at Camp Pendleton, Calif., his reaction was what one might expect.

“Shock and, gasp, horror,” Irvine, host of Food Network’s “Dinner Impossible,” and a former chief petty officer cook in the British Royal Navy, said.

Part of the shock came from the fact that Irvine, who also spent 10 years cooking for the royal family, didn’t really realize where he was or why he was there.

“The reason I don’t know is because they don’t tell me anything. The premise of this show is so secretive,” he said. “I didn’t even know what the challenge was until I literally met the master gunnery sergeant and then he actually gave me the mission, which was to cook the warrior dinner for 850 Marines.”

Irvine accepted the challenge, which gave him seven hours to prepare a meal for the 1st Battalion, 2nd Marines, which was preparing to deploy to the Middle East. He was provided a field kitchen with an oven he was told had the power of a jet fighter’s engine. He quickly discovered that Marines have a sense of humor.

“Let me tell you this, if any Marine or air service person is flying a jet with that on it, they’re not going very far,” Irvine said. “It took me 45 minutes to saute an onion!”

The meal he prepared required 104 pounds of onions.
To read more, go here

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The World’s Coolest Breadbox Design

The TasteTV team asks whether anything stylish in the kitchen really has to be smaller than a bread box? Answer: Not when it IS a bread box, especially the Eva Solo breadbox bin, made of folded stainless steel with a plastic cover. According to the firm, it is the “optimum” place to store bread… as in ‘pane,’ ‘pain,’ and ‘panino,’ not “money.” Of course, if you have enough money, you could buy these as gifts for all of your friends.

And just in case it seems like we missed there other sexy products, check out these:

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