{"id":4072,"date":"2014-01-14T17:05:08","date_gmt":"2014-01-15T01:05:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chocolatebythebay.com\/magazine\/?p=4072"},"modified":"2023-11-29T13:34:23","modified_gmt":"2023-11-29T21:34:23","slug":"saved-by-kelly","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/chocolatebythebay.com\/magazine\/outsidechocolate\/saved-by-kelly\/","title":{"rendered":"Saved by Kelly"},"content":{"rendered":"

Our annual trip to the East Coast was full of missed chocolate opportunities. We tried to visit SPAGnVOLA<\/a> <\/strong>in MD, but we stopped by a few days before Christmas, and the place was packed. Not ideal for chatting up the vendor or even getting some snaps. It would be like trying to snap a photo of the Mona Lisa: All backs of heads with the subject too tiny to discern in the distance.<\/p>\n

Their bonbons and truffles looked pretty, and I am intrigued by their story: They aren\u2019t just bean-to-bar, they own their own chocolate plantation in the Dominican Republic, so they control the whole chocolate production process. And the plantation came first, then the classes in chocolate-making. Maybe next year I can report on them.<\/p>\n

Is there a chocolate shortage?<\/h2>\n

We then stopped by Fleurir Chocolates<\/strong> in DC\u2019s Georgetown on Christmas Eve as a light snow fell, and they were CLOSED. What chocolate shop closes on Christmas Eve? I can only imagine that business was so good that they sold out of their \u201chand grown\u201d chocolates, so they had nothing left to sell that day. They have an overall 5-star rating on Yelp, so we will try again next year.<\/p>\n

In Pittsburgh after Christmas, our bad luck continued. We tried to visit an old-school chocolate shop, Sherm Edwards, in the suburbs, but not only was it closed, it\u2019s now an Edward Marc Chocolatier<\/a><\/strong> shop. Which would\u2019ve been OK too \u2014 they are also a local old-school candy maker \u2014 but again will have to be explored next year.<\/p>\n

\"Chocolates<\/a>
Chocolate gift that was much appreciated. And I like the rubber stamp aesthetic of their gift bags.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Southern chocolate<\/h2>\n

By the time we got to Richmond, VA, New Year\u2019s Eve, we\u2019d given up on checking out local artisan chocolates this trip. But as luck would have it, a friend gave us a box of Chocolates By Kelly<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Hooray! Local artisan chocolatier we haven\u2019t tried before!<\/p>\n

The shop is just down the street from our friend\u2019s house on Southside, and she wisely got us a box with 2 of each piece. No sharing required.<\/p>\n

Kelly\u2019s chocolates are very good: Quality ingredients and smooth, well-tempered chocolate. It seems like she does a lot of seasonal chocolates, and it looks like her website hasn\u2019t been updated in a while, so most of the chocolates we tried aren\u2019t listed there. But if I were to recommend some to check out, I\u2019d definitely include the Bittersweet Chocolate Melt-Away with Cinnamon Sugar. It\u2019s an upgrade to cinnamon toast: Instead of butter and bread, it uses a round ball of chocolate. Simple, but great.<\/p>\n

I also liked the Sea Salt Caramel with Almond. It\u2019s your standard artisanal sea salt caramel, but before she enrobes it, she places a whole almond on top. It added a nice crunch to the chewy caramel.<\/p>\n

The rest of the chocolates were equally good: a delicate champagne truffle, a big cherry almond bonbon (again the chewy\/crunchy combo but this time with more chocolate), a liquid-y maple creme bonbon that had a good maple flavor and wasn\u2019t too sweet (I\u2019m always leery of cream fillings because they are often sickeningly sweet), and a vegan cherry pomegranate truffle (I confess I didn\u2019t taste pomegranate so much as cherry + berry\/wine, but that\u2019s probably my lack of familiarity with pomegranate).<\/p>\n

So Kelly saved the day. We got to sample chocolates from at least one new-to-us East Coast chocolatier. And I am happy to report it\u2019s a good one.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Who knew it would be so hard to find local, artisan chocolate during the holidays?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":4085,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[58,13,169],"tags":[415,419,418,416,224,417,72,331,161],"class_list":["post-4072","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-american-chocolate","category-outsidechocolate","category-reviews","tag-cinnamon","tag-dominican-republic","tag-gaithersburg","tag-maple","tag-pittsburgh","tag-pomegranate","tag-richmond","tag-sea-salt","tag-washington-dc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/chocolatebythebay.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4072","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/chocolatebythebay.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/chocolatebythebay.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chocolatebythebay.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chocolatebythebay.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4072"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/chocolatebythebay.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4072\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":40824,"href":"https:\/\/chocolatebythebay.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4072\/revisions\/40824"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chocolatebythebay.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4085"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/chocolatebythebay.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4072"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chocolatebythebay.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4072"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chocolatebythebay.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4072"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}