Only the Best for That Special Valentine

The Sweetheart Box ($49) from Chuao Chocolatier contains 22 assorted bonbons and tuffles. Chuao products are available online and at Whole Foods. Photo courtesy of Chuao Chocolatier.


VALENTINE’s Day is only two days away. No worries, procrastinators and slow pokes still have time to pick up a nice box of chocolates for their significant others as a symbol of their affection.

In this increasingly globalized and complicated world, with its myriad choices and upgrades, shopping can be as mind-boggling as a new smart phone. Gladly, when shopping for chocolate one need only consider buying healthy and, buying fair trade.

By now, the myriad health benefits of chocolate have reached the ears of chocoholics everywhere. Credit, however, goes mainly to dark chocolate, not milk chocolate. According to the World Atlas of Chocolate, the United States is the 11 largest chocolate-consuming nation in the world. A huge portion of this $15 billion to $20 billion is spent on milk chocolate, a key ingredient in the chocolate bars and chocolate frosting/cake that arouses our collective sweet tooth.

But most any doctor with a certificate on the wall will tell you that dark chocolate is better than milk chocolate mainly because it is far less processed. It retains significantly more of the nutrients of the cocoa plant (from which chocolate is made). Do confirm these claims with your personal physician if you have any doubts. My favorite doctor is not the one forced on me by my health plan, but Mehmet Oz (and his posse) of “Oprah” fame and most recently of his own popular “Dr. Oz Show."

To the question on Dr. O's Web site, “How does real chocolate — not milk chocolate — benefit the brain,” Dr. O's colleague, Michael Roizen wrote, “Real chocolate raises dopamine levels and provides flavonoids, which keep arteries young and the brain healthy. Enjoy 1 ounce a day (to replace milk chocolate) and your RealAge will become 1.2 years younger."

Flavonoids are naturally-occurring compounds found in plant-based foods with potent antioxidant properties. They are in a vast range of foods and beverages, including cranberries, apples, peanuts, chocolate, onions, tea and red wine. Flavonoids also get credit for lowering blood pressure and lowering the risk of cardiovascular disease.

Another consideration in procuring chocolate is the source. Allow me to explain, but first a little background. All chocolate begins with cocoa beans, the fruit of the cocoa tree (aka cacao). It is commonly believed that the tree comes from somewhere in South or Central America. The cacao tree is a tropical plant that can only thrive in hot, rainy climates like those found in Brazil, Costa Rica and Venezuela. And Cameroon, Cote d’Ivoire, Ghana and Nigeria.

Unfortunately, there is a problem of labor abuses around the production of the cocoa beans. Western Africa accounts for most of the world’s cocoa bean production, while Europe and the United States account for most of the world’s cocoa consumption.

In some of these cocoa-producing countries, particularly Cote d’Ivoire – the world’s largest single producer of cocoa beans, there have been accusations of child labor abuses and child slavery. There is also the issue of tariffs imposed by cocoa importers, which is a detriment to farmers and to the economies of their producer countries. A number of organizations and groups, including the United Nations and Stop Chocolate Slavery, has been working to ensure that these practices be illuminated and eradicated. Stop Chocolate Slavery, for instance, lists on its Web site chocolate-producers that deal in Fair Trade chocolate, organic chocolate, or chocolate otherwise believed to be slavery-free. Alas, the biggest chocolate producers in the United States – are you listening Hershey, Mars and Nestle? – are not on the list. It seems they are not on the forefront of these movements despite paying lip service to the atrocious practices.

Chocolate buyers beware and Happy Valentine’s Day.

Visit Chuao Chocolatier at http://www.chuaochocolatier.com; World Atlas of Chocolate at http://www.sfu.ca/geog351fall03/groups-webpages/gp8/consum/consum.html, and the Web site of Mehmet Oz at www.doctoroz.com. Learn about some of the companies producing fair chocolate at the Web site of Stop Chocolate Slavery at http://vision.ucsd.edu/~kbranson/stopchocolateslavery/goodchocolateproducts.html

Porch for the People in Park for the People

At the opening party the crowd enjoys The Southwest Porch at Bryant Park. Photo by Diane Bondareff.

ON the way out of The Southwest Porch at Bryant Park opening party, I am saying goodbye to “Top Chef” host Tom Colicchio and his ’wichcraft partners, Sisha Ortuzar and Jeffrey Zurofsky. I’d just risen from a power nod in a comfortable Adirondack chair and I’m telling TC how I appreciate that it’s dark and there are no mosquitoes messing about me or the porch.

Instead of concurring, he crafts a tall tale of myriad menacing mosquitoes in New York, especially in the neighborhood of his high-rise on the far west side of Manhattan. “It’s been raining a lot here, and the mosquitoes are gonna be really bad,” says this New Jersey boy to Yours Truly, a Louisiana belle. He’s my co-host, so I show deference. But, really. By the time I leave Himself, however, he is conceding that perhaps the mosquitoes, in say, the bayous and swamps of Louisiana are a tad more worrisome than any that exist in New Jersey or New York. Incidentally, during our tête-à-tête neither of us is bitten. Nor do we bat away anything.

So it goes on the Southwest Porch, so named for the airline that built it. The outdoor lounge is the means by which the Dallas-based air carrier chooses to inform anyone who cares to know that circa late June 2009 it is flying in and out of LaGuardia Airport (to Chicago and Baltimore). Aptly, it is located in the southwest corner of the park. Ingenious! Why post garish billboards all over town when you can simply construct an outdoor space complete with wooden beams, swings, chairs Adirondack and rocking, trellises, cacti, power outlets, complimentary honey roasted peanuts, as well as a sign bearing your name, lest anyone thinks s/he’s at a fanciful sandwich emporium? Those marigold-colored cushions, though, are going to need regular laundering.

In case you’re wondering what sandwich purveyor, ’wichcraft, has to do with the porch. Simple: “Southwest approached us about partnering with them because we are in the southwest corner of the park,” TC said about an hour before that mad riff about mosquitoes. “They asked us to create a menu that captures the spirit of their new service ... It’s a natural collaboration.” Besides, it doesn’t do to have a porch/lounge without food and drinks.

Down South, the front porch is for genteel consumptions like sipping mint juleps and iced tea with lemon and maybe a little too much sugar. Conversely, the back porch is for doing the unmentionable to watermelon and such. But at the Southwest Porch it’s OK to consume anything on the menu that ’wichcraft built, including one of four sandwiches that makeup its centerpiece and that also pay homage to Southwest destinations.

The Meatball Parm is New York’s own; Bratwurst for Chicago, the Soft Shell Crab for Baltimore. And for headquarters, the Southwestern Pork, which self-described foodie Elizabeth Lieb took a liking to. “You think of barbecue sauce as something you get in South Carolina, but this is different,” she says, referring to the flavors she susses out: cinnamon, clove, Morodcan spice rub, etc. Not bad, EL. TC says the pork is seasoned with chiles, cinnamon, cloves and cayenne pepper. No doubt, he left something out.

In any case, the wiches are there for the ordering. But porch visitors can sit all day and not order a thing. They can even bring their own eats, because here anything goes as long as it’s legal and within the confines of decorum and decency. The porch, ’wichcraft’s SO gives me to know, is for anybody and everybody.

And its builder agrees. " ... we are incredibly proud to be bringing the signature Southwest spirit to all New Yorkers at The Southwest Porch at Bryant Park ... We hope everyone will come to relax and have fun ..." says CEO Gary Kelly.

“It’s very democratic; it’s for the people of New York,” SO says, repeating a main talking point of the Bryant Park Corporation, which operates the park.

The BPC is big on democracy – of the people, by the people, for the people. Bryant Park, including the porch, is one place in Gotham where the huddled masses enjoy an open invitation – even the homeless. “You deal with them as you would anybody else,” SO declares. “As long as nobody bothers anybody, they’re welcome.”

And so they are. A few days after the party I am sitting on the porch with the Crazy Jordanians (see 5 July post/“On the Yellow Brick Road with Crazy Js”). To our right, lounging and dozing on a large ottoman is a homeless man; every now and then he takes a nip from his half pint of vodka. No one shoos him away.

Gotta love democracy.

The Southwest Porch at Bryant Park (@6th Avenue b/w 40th and 41st streets) is open to the public during park hours. Through mid-September, food and beverage service is available from 5 p.m. to 9 p.m. on Monday-Thursday, and noon-9 p.m. on Friday.