I left my heart there...

...or at least any hope of wearing summer clothing again this year. The blueness of the sky was incredible. I would wander around San Francisco's audacious slopes fairly pinching myself to be there, in it, amongst it - revelling in having suddenly transported myself to one of my favourite cities in the world - all on a stomach pulsing whim.

They catch you sometimes, these gut-fuelled desires. Whether it's sensible or feasible or not, that part of your instinct will not hush up until you obey it. I like obeying it. Makes me feel like I'm on course. Keeps me alert.

The last one I had was on a rock in India where I became consumed by the need to return to Uni and study Urbanism. I'm fascinated by how cities work, by how we all negotiate the space that we occupy within them. How every city has a different personality, like people, and functionality akin to the human body. And how public spaces, with a little imagination and vision, can provide a city and its people with a vital aspect to this personality.

So it is that Choc Star + eat.st + my upcoming Masters amounts to a deep interest in the question of how instrumental street food is to the animation and integration of urban public space. When I heard that over in Fog City La Cocina were holding a street food festival and two day conference on this very subject I got all hot under the collar and was on a flight in a matter of days.

You can read about the festival here and I'll be writing about the conference shortly but, for now, here's a little round-up of the sweetness coming my way during my San Fran Express trip.

Pud number 1 in La Dunya on Polk St. Settled into my hotel and then headed straight out in pursuit of my first glass or two of some really good zinfandel. I love a cheeky zin. And they always give you the most enormous glass to quaff it from in Cali. For fear of falling off my perch I ordered some food, culminating in the owner wheeling out three different puddings for me to try. The brownie was perfectly fine, the Tiramisu nice enough, but this lemon situation above had me all up in my clover. A great buttery layer of tangy lemon curd atop a crunchy base of ginger biscuit. It worked for me - I felt perfectly normal the next morning, like I'd been on Pacific Time for weeks.

This:

Soon turned to this:

and I was off into those streets like four dogs on a three-legged cat.

Bi-Rite Creamery ice cream (Salted Caramel and Malted Vanilla for me).

Rocking.

Tartine friand, cacao nib rocher and Mexican sugar cookie (there was something else in there which was way too good to wait for its pic to be taken). I love Tartine. There's something almost apothecal about imbibing from it. Feels like it'll help you to live a long and prosperous life.


Equadorian, hi-camp jellies at the street food festival. I've never seen anything like it. Reminded me of those T-shirts you grow in water.

I'd heard so much about the Creme Brulee Cart and was devastated not to be able to try the Mexican Chocolate. They were dishing out frozen ones to the people a few in front and then torches down, party over.

But I did get to have this as consolation...

Hot off the press, slippy-slidey, melting choc/mallow, squidgeable, crunchable hot mess. Thanks to Kika's Treats for the light relief!

Then someone hawked me this Alfajore (Peruvian dulce de leche cookie) for $2, which I ploughed into before remembering to snap. That keeps happening to me lately.

Oh, and these cheeky little Madeleines were sat winking at me - all sassy and keen - as I passed by Delfina on my way out of there. When it comes to pure comfort cake this has to be up there. And you just feel so damn special with one of those in your hand/mouth/tummy.

Speaking of Delfina, if there was one thing I needed from my San Francisco express visit it was meatballs, California style. I took myself off for a cosy dinner a une (such a luxury) to the Pacific Heights branch and got well stuck into those polpette. I mean seriously stuck in - to the point that, along with a dozen or so other memorables, I swear I'll be recalling them well into my granny years. Anyway, of course I needed dolce after and opted for a moreno cherry sundae with bitter chocolate sauce and toasted pistachios. I did have something of a waddle to my walk home that night.

Brunch at Americano the next day - ahead of the conference - was knock-out. Along with empenadas, panzanella, corn frittata, beef satay, a whole world of Bloody Marys and other deliciousness, they hit us with some sweetness too.

This was a Malaysian porridge:

Nice but perhaps a little too wholesome for me.

More up my strada were the homemade 'pop tarts' - ricotta and blackberry compote:

and the mini cupcakes:

Pink lemonade, Guinness, spiced and Red Velvet. I banded around the idea of the 'cupcake backlash' to the people I was sitting with and they thought it was the most hilarious thing ever. No visible signs of this phenomenon hitting US shores as far as they were concerned.

Later I hit the Humphry Slocombe/Big Gay Ice Cream truck party in the Mission (but not before getting an education in real bourbon from a ripped guy in a low-down dive bar round the corner). What a contrast it was between that and this:

The cake was fine but what really got me inspecting the back of my head was the much raved about Humphry Slocombe ice cream. Hot diggity. My eyes pulsed with fever as I surveyed the list. The queue was ridiculous, I had to be ready with my order. In the end, despite stiff competition from the Salt & Pepper and Balsamic Caramel flavours, I went for Malted Milk Chocolate and Secret Breakfast with hot fudge sauce and frosted peanuts.

I nearly keeled over, straight into the arms of an enormous Tranny. People - it was that good. Not French cleverness, nor Italian velvet, but a pure creamy, delicious pleasure with an almighty flavour that I haven't experienced in London so far.

The next day my hangover (after a heavy duty session with Southern food legend John T Edge) prevented me from exploring sweetness much further. It was all about the tacos, the Po'boys and the empenadas. Except these did catch my eye and I did have to try.

Organic doughnuts. Who knew? This vanilla cookie one did actually feel like it was doing me good in a fairly wholesome way. Not wholesome green pulsey porridge, more soulfood wholesome - my favourite kind.

Time Flew!

Hello y'all! Greetings from the midst of a rather interesting and experimental epoch in the Choc Star experience: Brighton Fringe Festival....

For almost three weeks Jimmy will have been parked up in the central concourse of the town's marvelous one-way system as part of the Free Range event.

A massive red and blue dome rises up in the midst of this micro festival within a festival and puts on wonderful performances every night. The highlight so far has been the physics-defying kids from Circolombia. Pure magic. If you're anywhere nearby in the next few days you must witness this!

Other fun times - both in and out of the van - have been found at...

The Kingston Food Festival.

I feel a little bit in love with Suburbia that weekend.

The brilliant Food Junctions. UCL have collaborated with local food adventurers to pull together this event in the rambling and off-piste location of Camley Street Natural Park.

I was asked to go along and give a tasting and you can imagine my delight when I was offered up this teepee as the possible location.

That's it! I squealed, and then set about transforming it into a little chocolate den (no pics, sorry - I got mobbed!)

There have been a lot of chocolate tastings at schools lately too. The local press even came along to the last one in Kent to take pics of the excited kids. (If I ever figure out how to post a scan on here I'll insert it toutes suite). I love going to primary schools and showing everyone the cocoa love - it's a whole fresh sheet upon which to lay down the stories and magic of chocolate for curious minds.

And this wedding last week was fun - a Scottish knees-up right in the heart of Dulwich. God, talk about a sure-fire way of ensuring everyone has a damn good time. I LOVE all that prancing around and getting out of breath and being spun around and it certainly worked up their appetites...


New sweet encounters also have been fun. A visit to Hawksmoor for their legendary burger was given a dash of extra pleasure by a scoop of their Cornflake ice cream for pudding. It was delicious - like crushed up Crunchy Nut Cornflakes in the most purely churned vanilla ice cream. It actually reminded me a bit of those crazy ice-creamists at Momofuku Milk Bar.

Then, while doing some pavement pounding in Hackney the other day, I finally got to see my friend Claire's new bakery. After almost five years as the most popular cake stall on Broadway Market, Violet has now added a bricks and mortar string to its bow.

It's so great to see someone with Claire's taste transform an old building and offer up a spot that you just don't see in this country very often. Very Bay Area with an E8 twist.

Now can we start seeing some more of this please? I have a patio that needs inhabiting...

Chocolate Thoughts from India

In February I escaped from here. Accompanied by my darling mum and her narcoleptic friend, we high-tailed it off to India and a warmth that had seemed unimaginable in London. I retrieved some ghastly old gear from one of my charity shop-bound bags and swiftly gave it away on arrival in Mumbai - at once shedding not only winter encumbrances but all feelings of wanting to hibernate as well.


In between dealing with narcoleptic 'crashes' (quickly resolved with a ready lit cigarette) in busy places, pokey G&Ts and cramped, saddle-sore taxi rides, I threw myself into that city with zeal. It engulfed me with its thick heat, each noise and smell that rang out and clamoured towards me felt somehow cushioned.

Safe. I felt safe. I felt like I could've gone anywhere and, though surrounded by so much and so many, I was just caught up in the horizontal life that everyone else was rumbling along in too. India for me was about a life lived in the open air - with all the grimness and magic that this entails.


In Crawford Market at the end of the day, there is the meat enclosure - dangling pieces of fraying red flesh providing a tennuous curtain for the bathing butchers in the background. Each one delighted to be washing clean the days blood.

On Chowpatty Beach we picked past the burrowing rats and the soggy plastic bags to find families bedding down in smog-worn bivouacs, street hawkers plying bhel puri, itinerant chai-wallahs serving up beachside nectar and a whole swathe of neon-lit food shacks competing for your rupee by promising the best pau bhaji on the strip.


I rode the trains from the Northern Mumbai suburbs to the gut of the city's established order in the South. How the view changed - from sprawling organised chaos to unfinished concrete structures; disused buildings, over-used chawls, armpits in my face, warm sticky skin next to my warm sticky skin; hot breeze, funky odors, oiled hair, Bhangra ringtones...


In Bandra chickens pick around in fresh soil under the shadow of Swarovski's Indian flagship and super handsome men serve scamorza risotto in a/c dominated cafes. And down at Oval Maidan are a hundred separate cricket matches being played by teams of varying size and ability - from full whites and trophy tent to sandals being used for wickets.

And then there are the long distance trains! Nudging up against accommodating neighbours, the whole carriage seems animated. At each stop comes another opportunity to snack: vegetable cutlets, bhajis, pakoras, banana fritters, chai, ice cream, bhel puri...and then there's lunch - a 35rp feast of vegetable biriani, curds and soup. Luckily those locomotives are long and I could walk it off by striding from carriage to carriage.


There is much to say about India but what can't be ignored is the eating! From the land of impeccable, relentless service comes food - at all times, in all ways. We barely came up for air. In Goa we nyammed fish curry, millet fried mussels, tandoori Kingfish and real-deal pork vindaloo. We ate masala omelettes for breakfast, Goan bread, butter and jam, fruit salad, pancakes...

Spicy, fragrant, rich and meaty, what I began to crave - and very quickly - was my beloved CHOCOLATE. Sometimes it just wasn't available save for a little pack of cookies bought from the shop. But I did what I could in the name of sweetness - here are some of the results:


I knew it was never going to blow me away but I had to try Trishna's take on the brownie sundae. Best things about it were that it was sweet and warm, otherwise a bit on the Grade D side of things.


Train sweets - peanut clusters, bars, brittle. Kept us quiet for a bit.


La Plage on Aswem Beach right at the top of Goa was such a nice surprise. Despite threats from encircling Russians and protection demands they are still turning out French-style desserts. This crepe with Nutella and toasted walnuts went perfectly with the 'vanille fraiche' Chantilly cream.


But it was nothing next to the Captain Morgan flambeed bananas with iced white chocolate chaser. My God - I was in my clover!


Less successful was Monginis cake shop in Panjim. I loved Panjim in all its dusty, noisy, withered Colonial glory but this bakery didn't really cut it. I'd been sold the place as somewhere that made proper English biscuits so was pretty geed up. The mistake was taking this literally. I had a massive cake craving though so set about devouring as much of what was on offer as possible: dry, vanilla packed fairy cakes and some seriously plastic looking frosted layer cakes...


We had about seven cakes between us, three bottles of Coke and it still only came to about 75p. I certainly sprang back onto those hectic streets with renewed vigor after that little session.


After a Thali that had no end we were nigh on spherical. Our distinguished looking head waiter with the lustrous white hair looked so crest-fallen when I declined the sweet option so I went for it. It was strawberry ice cream - lurid pink, bubblegum fruity. He was pleased anyway.


Aah, the pancakes! I'd forgotten how much I love and need pancakes. The best ones of the whole trip were above, at Casa Susegad in Loutolim (honey & banana) and the Nutella smothered beauties on Cola Beach. Sometimes I'd have three a day.


Margao market, end of the day. Who will buy these bouquets of buttercream?


Gujurati sweets given to my mum on her birthday. We looked at them, took them out of their box, took pictures of them, carried them round with us and eventually they were infiltrated by some particularly determined ants in our Rajasthani tent on the beach.


Off in the interior, living on a purely South Indian diet with no cookies or pancakes for gimmicks, I tucked into this Kheer most heartily. It's a kind of rice vermicelli take on rice pudding: Warm, buttery, cardamon scented it was welcomed after the fiery gobi curry. I think I had about three helpings. (The bowl was quite small).


Hampi and backpackers' central. Quite a rude awakening after coasting between the lines for so long. Right along the river and through the moonlit drenched banana groves lay this barrage of reassurance for the homesick traveler.





Back in Mumbai we headed for the Salt Water Cafe in Bandra and none of us could resist the opportunity to eat flourless chocolate cake, chocolate and hazelnut torte or dark chocolate truffle cake. It was all a bit Sara Lee if we're being honest here but after tying a few Margaritas on none of us cared.


It's a bit embarrassing to admit this but, joined only by my Cola Beach pancakes, the most satisfying desserts for me on the whole Indian voyage were these two souffles from Indigo and Indigo Deli. For savouries there is no contest - I went wild for all that that country was dishing up - but for sweet things, for chocolatey things, the prize has to fall here: Vanilla souffle with bitter chocolate sauce plunged in by night; by day the bitter chocolate souffle with creme anglaise and a warm peanut butter cookie.

I don't remember having better souffles for years.