The Mind of TCHO

I smiled.
I cried.
And then I wanted to buy the world a Coke.

And now why I love the internet:

Two Saturdays ago my friends Evan and Onnesha invited me to go with them to a special place on Capp Street: Oddball Film+Video. Every Saturday the director of Oddball, Stephen Parr, puts on screenings. He selects a handful of films for that evening from the thousands of reels he has stacked to the ceiling.

A fraction of all the stacks:

Still from “Dudin” (1955). “Find out how city folk vacationed in 1955’s America’s wild West.”

Evan and Onnesha on Capp Street as we leave Oddball Film+Video.

“You can play as well as you can imagine. Believe it then see it.” - Derek Robins

Being from Santa Cruz, I thought for many years that disc golf was just a Santa Cruz thing. For years many of my friends, as well as me, went up to De LaVeaga to play (for those of you who have not been to De La…

not exactly the best map, but you get the idea), and many of us were unaware that there were courses outside of SC. After moving to Austin Texas, I found out that there were courses all over.  I think there is something like five or so in Austin—and that it really had quite the following.

Now to present day, I’ve been finding myself enjoying the great outdoors—especially in the summer months—playing here in the beautiful course here in San Francisco. Granted, the course here isn’t quite like the one in Santa Cruz; the terrain is much more forgiving—many of the holes in Santa Cruz are well over 350’ (vs. 250’ in SF) and there aren’t any steep gullies to lose your disc in.  The weather is however quite similar (avg. temp for June is around 70 degrees). But the view from the “Top of the World” (the 27th hole) is quite the sight…on a clear day you can see all the way to Monterey.

My mother is Congresswoman Lynn Woolsey ( woolsey.house.gov ). She is pictured above (with the green lapels) with former Congresswoman Pat Schroeder (pink lapels) at a fundraiser for my mom this past weekend.

Indeed these two amazing women look alike, sort of. Silver white bob and all. But mostly they act alike. They are both total crack pots. My mom, still stopped now and then in DC by people who mistake her for the honorable Mrs. Schroeder, thought it would be a hoot to dress as twins and celebrate their collective fabulousness.

It literally brought down the house.

Pat Schroeder was in congress from 1972 until 1996 (thirteen terms!).

My mom has been in Congress since 1992 and is about to embark on her ninth term.

Another thing these amazing women have in common—stamina.

As the daughter of a congresswoman I can tell you—Congress is a drag. Imagine swimming up stream in the ultimate bureaucratic environment riddled with democrat wishy-washiness and republican heinousness (my words - not hers)—and you know what—my mom rocks it.

Amongst a billion amazing things she does and has done—she (as of July 2) has presented on The Floor 270 (her guestimate) 5 minute speeches on how and why to end the war in Iraq. This is a record. No member of congress has ever used the much unknown “take 5 minutes at then end of every session and talk about whatever you want” opportunity to make such a statement.

It is on the record—forever and ever. Just like how I love my mother—forever and ever.

The world of New Product Development at a newly forming chocolate company is a sweet but busy world. There is a huge list of yummy products to launch in the coming months — and they are all at various stages of development.

As the person wrangling all these products — I am constantly interacting with various teams to strive for timely launches. I say ‘strive’ because in actual fact, our two launches to date have not quite met our original schedule. I will say it has all been a learning process; everything seems to take so much longer than anticipated.

At times it can feel like an elaborate team dance and I am the choreographer, trying to keep each mover in motion and coordinating with the others. Or maybe it is more like a symphony orchestra; each team here is a different instrument section filling a critical role that contributes to the overall sound, playing at times separately or in unison, each dependent on each other for the end result:

• The Cacao Sourcing team brings in cacao bean samples and final orders from all over the world
• The R & D team tests all the cacao, recording and archiving all quality notes and deciding what is superior enough to purchase
• The Operations team ensures timely production schedules and accurate inventory records
• The Marketing team ensures we have effective product launches — with great packaging, a cool website, successful public outreach activities and good media buzz
• The Sales team sells it all

Of course every single person in our team in some way is contributing to any launched product (where would we be without our brilliant engineers who are building out the factory?) — but the peeps above are the ones I most commonly interact with.

A typical conductor’s score for a symphony orchestra can include the notes for 10 - 20 different “voices” all playing at once. The conductor’s role is to follow the music for each player, keep the tempo, communicate incessantly with everyone, listen critically, and respond constantly to keep all of the voices working smoothly together, thusly:

So, imagine Cacao Sourcing (violins), R & D (violas), Operations (cellos), Marketing (bass), Sales (horns) — and more — all working in unison to propel each launch.

There are certainly lots of interacting moving parts in a newly emerging chocolate factory — and when it works smoothly I bet it will sing; but we are still working out all the moves. If we were a symphony, I would say we are still tuning our instruments and learning how to play together. New protocols are constantly evolving and I am incessantly considering how everything can improve for the next launch. The sheet music is being written as we grow and learn.

For now, we are busily working to launch our new Fruity chocolate and there is an exciting crescendo of activity around here.

Enjoying chocolate should involve exploration, learning, and all of your senses. With that in mind, here’s our guide to help you to learn, explore, and taste chocolate like we do in the TCHO lab while teaching your palate a new trick or two.

Smell is 90% of taste. To smell your chocolate, you should start out by giving it a little massage. By warming up the chocolate, you release some of the scent that’s been locked in, and you also get your taste buds ready to receive the chocolatey goodness. Different smells can indicate different parts of the world, and even specific bean breeds. What do you smell? Let your brain make associations, even if they aren’t logical. Does your chocolate smell like Muir Woods? Your grandma’s cranberry sauce? A lavender bush? Go with it.

Look at the consistency of the chocolate’s color. Is it even? Is the chocolate shiny? The shinier a chocolate, the better it’s been tempered (tempering is the process that lines up the chocolate molecules into a crystal lattice). Is there any white, powdery-looking stuff on the top of your chocolate? This is called bloom, and happens when chocolate isn’t tempered correctly.

Listening to your chocolate is more important than you might think. And the sound your chocolate makes is also related to the molecules in it. When they’re all lined up (and shiny), it’s harder to break them apart. So when you break good chocolate apart, it should make a clean, bright, snapping sound.

Texture is a big deal, so how does the melting chocolate feel in your mouth? Waxy? Smooth? Gritty? Smooth usually means good, but there really is no right or wrong here; if you enjoy something, don’t listen to anyone who tells you it isn’t “good.”

On to the big question. How does your chocolate taste? If chocolate is overly sweet or vanilla-flavored, it more or less defeats the whole point of eating chocolate, which, ultimately, is to taste chocolate. So what does the chocolate taste like? Is it bright? Bitter? It might help to work your way from generalities to specifics. What other foods does the chocolate remind you of? How does the flavor change as the chocolate melts and dissipates? Do the flavors interact in different ways over time?

The taste of chocolate matures over a tasting session, and after the chocolate is gone there are still opportunities for taste. The length of a chocolate aftertaste, or “tail” as it’s called, is an indication of quality, as long as you enjoy the tail, of course. Is the aftertaste different from the way the chocolate tasted when it was present? Is it woodier now? Drier? Did the chocolate improve or deteriorate with mouth-time

Remember: every mouth is different, and there are no right or wrong answers in tasting. Discover your chocolate!

This week I traveled back to my hometown of Austin, Texas, and BOY! was it hot.  And wow, since I have been gone, so many things have been built up.  And I think it’s only been a year and a half.  Sheesh!  Pictured below is just one of the razed buildings downtown (the former home of Texas’ first brewpub—that will be making way for more high-rise condos):

While we were there we saw and did many things:

We saw cats…

And kids…

And rented a boat…

And ate duelling paellas…

And boy did we eat meat!

One thing that Texans are REALLY interested in is MEAT!  As evidenced by the meat-fest at Cooper’s Old Time Pit BBQ in Llano, Texas:

And, as always, everyone is interested in chocolate, and I enjoyed bringing some TCHO love with me to share with my friends and family. One thing I always had to remember, however, was never leave it in the car!!

Anyway, it was quite an interesting time I had there, reconnecting with friends and family.  I have to say, though, that I was quite happy to be back in good ol’ 65-degree SF!

Lately Chocolate seems to hogging my internal blog—between factory deadlines, chocolate making equipment, permitting issues and delays, production planning, ERP/MRP systems, packaging machines complexities, health department certifications, HAACP plans and on and on....

This weekend however, what is really top of mind is my great friend of 15 years and housemate of 2 years, Patrick. It’s Patrick’s birthday this weekend, and traditionally I would remember and celebrate his birthday a week or so after I would serendipitously find out it had passed. Even though Patrick lived with me he would never intimate in any way that his birthday was approaching. Two years ago I travelled 14 hours from Munich to San Francisco after spending 10 days at the world cup with him—not knowing it was his birthday.  I was so mad at him!  I am someone who highly reveres the sacred birthday, celebrating and engaging all of my friends in celebrating “ the 11 days of Laurel"—5 days before and 5 days after my birthday (really, it’s not as self-indulgent as it sounds!). Patrick has religiously served as the “11 days” organizer and chief roaster, relishing every bit. 

This weekend we planted a tree in remembrance of Patrick, who died two months ago of a massive heart attack…must stop blogging now, too emotional….  I guess writing it means it is real, and I still cannot believe he is gone.

OK, back online....  The tree, a tazmanian tree fern, is so very Patrick: its thick stocky trunk like him, unique and very, very Jurassic Park.  He would comment when we went to Golden Gate Park how cool and prehistoric looking the grove of tree ferns was.

I miss the constant professional dialog between us, as we served as de facto career consultants for one another for the last few years.  I toiled over my decision to take the job with TCHO or the job with Shutterfly, Patrick’s company at the time.  He wanted me to work for Shutterfly, but knew me well enough and listened carefully enough to me to acknowledge that “my heart was into TCHO,” and nudged me in my natural direction. 

I miss a million things about him—his void is profound—but most of all his insane laugh jolts me alive whenever I think of it, reminding me what a daily gift it is to be working, loving, and playing.  Happy Birthday, Padu!

In Germany, at the World Cup:

His mother’s favorite picture—seriously:

Juggling in Berlin:

At the Ice Bar in Poland: