Chocolate Confections

I have been thinking a lot about chocolates lately. It is mostly because that is what I was asked to talk about at TED (www.tedxcambridge.com/blog/how-do-you-eat/ ). But what really got me going was a box of chocolates we (my sous, Bryan Graham, and myself) made last spring (09) in honor of Ferran Adria's visit. I wanted to find a way to honor him through a box of chocolates. And as weird as that sounds, what came from it was pretty fantastic. I basically showed me a different way to look at chocolates. Meaning, they don't always have to be filled with ganache, caramel, marzipan, fondant, pate de fruit, etc. There are so many possibilities that is slightly overwhelming. Based on some of his dishes from when he took over the restaurant (el bulli... just in case you didn't know) in 1987, I took one dish that I though was representative of that year, but whose flavors could be translated into a chocolate. There were twenty pieces in total which were developed (up until 2007). And this is part of what I talked about: flavor combinations that seem unusual but are very good together. I will be posting more about these chocolates in the future. But here is one: litchi jelly and orange.