Serious Eats: New York
Sugar Rush: Berkshire Bark
Stacked between credit card bills and piles of magazines I'll never get around to reading, I received something in the mail last week that had me truly excited. Chocolate. More specifically, a sampling of chocolate bars from Berkshire Bark. Based in (you guessed it) the Berkshire Mountains, the chocolate bars are found at a host of shops in our city including Bierkraft, Fairway, Dean & Deluca, and Bedford Cheese Shop. There's a flavor to please each craving, whether it be "Pretzelogical" (pretzels, sea salt caramel and peanut butter enrobed in dark & milk chocolate), or "Jumpin's Java" (roasted almonds, espresso toffee, caramelized cocoa nibs, and crushed coffee beans in dark chocolate). I found the single white chocolate bar to be the most tame and least appealing with a muted mix of cashews, ginger, lemon zest and sea salt, though my personal favorite (pictured above) was, "Tropical Heat," a dark chocolate bar with roasted macadamia nuts, mango, papaya, pineapple, and coconut. But oh, it wasn't the simply the mix of dried fruits and chocolate that sold me, for that alone would be terribly boring. Rather, it was the liberal helpings of cayenne peppers and ancho chile powder infused into the bar which called out like a siren, a spicy glow verging on smoky.
Note: Berkshire Barks will also be present at this weekend's Chocolate Show New York.