Tien Chiu

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You are here: Home / All blog posts / Presenting the 2013 fall collection
Previous post: Chocopalooza, Days Two and Three: Food Porn
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November 4, 2013 by Tien Chiu

Presenting the 2013 fall collection

Ninety pounds, two ounces of chocolaty goodness:

The 2013 fall collection
The 2013 fall collection!

I’m pleased to say that we finished the final chocolates at 4:30 pm on Saturday, which is a new record – last year I was making chocolates into the wee hours! The last day of chocolate-making was uneventful, except for two minor disasters. The first was me spilling an entire freshly-poured tray of caramelized banana ganache on myself while trying to juggle two big sheet trays. (Which, in retrospect, was a really stupid idea, but it was 4:30 am…) By some miracle, 90% of it fell back into the bowl, leaving only about 10% splattered over my shirt, my jeans, and my hair! Time for a trip to the washing machine, and a second shower.

Astonishingly, I did not have feline help for that particular disaster: I did it all by myself! However, the second minor disaster was entirely feline: the kittens discovered toilet paper. What a mess! I replaced the roll, making sure there were no sheets hanging off the bottom, and fortunately they have not rediscovered it. Kittens!

Anyway, yesterday was the annual chocolate-packing party, and six friends came over to help me pack. First we packed all the chocolates into candy cups:

cupping the chocolates
cupping the chocolates

Then we spread out all the containers of yummy chocolates onto the table, so we could pack them into candy boxes:

 

packing the boxes!
packing the boxes!

In the end, we packed sixty-nine beautiful boxes of chocolates:

 

box of chocolates!
box of chocolates!

Fifty-five of those got packed into shipping boxes, and will go to the post office this morning.

And here is a beautiful shot of a few trays of chocolates, courtesy of my friend Lieven (who also took the other photos and did my flavor inserts – thanks Lieven!):

trays of chocolates!
trays of chocolates!

And that’s it! Chocopalooza is over for the year, except the cleaning.

Finally, here is Tigress, investigating one of Lillian Whipple’s beautiful fine-thread samples:

Tigress investigating woven samples
Tigress investigating handwoven samples

And Fritz, observing on my desk:

Fritz, observing
Fritz, observing

It’s funny – people who were over for the packing party looked at them and exclaimed, “Wow! They’re so tiny!” Whereas I’ve been looking at them thinking, “Wow! They’re so big!” But of course I remember the tiny little balls of fluff that came home with us six weeks ago, and they are thinking of adult cats. I guess it’s all a matter of expectations. Regardless, they are infinitely adorable, even if they have discovered toilet paper. 🙂

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Filed Under: All blog posts, food, chocolate Tagged With: cats

Previous post: Chocopalooza, Days Two and Three: Food Porn
Next post: A sense of scale

Comments

  1. Deanna Johnson says

    November 4, 2013 at 5:49 pm

    You should raffle one box and donate the proceeds to your favorite charity. And I’d be the first to buy raffle tickets. 🙂

  2. Sue Seymour says

    November 5, 2013 at 5:41 pm

    Re T paper. Our house used to be an “over” the top. After the very same disaster you experienced, we became an “under” quite quickly, and, while several generations of cats have since left their claw prints in the paper roll, they only have to try it once to become discouraged,
    –Sue in MA

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