Title Defense: Snackdown 2022

I have come to terms with the fact that I don't win awards even though I feel like I deserve them.  I try to tell myself that I don't need a trophy to tell me that I am a success but the fact is, a little trophy here and there validates my efforts to me. I remember someone telling me that the coach only notices the first guy and the last guy. As compelling as that is, having won so few awards, I have managed to celebrate my shortcomings and to pat myself on the back hard enough to propel myself forward. 

But two years ago things changed. Woodblock Chocolate was invited to compete in an event that would lead to one of the greatest accomplishments of my life and change the course of history. The event was called Snackdown and it took place at the end of Portland Beer Week, June somethingth, 2019,  a rowdy celebration. The WWF themed event teamed 10 local breweries with 10 local chefs with the goal of creating a tasty pairing that would garner the most votes from the participating public. The winner gets obnoxious bragging rights and the honor of being in possession of the most sought after, iconic and coveted trophies in all of Beer Week. The Belt! Like the lesser known Stanley Cup, The Belt is to be defended or passed on, for it know no allegiance but to the reigning champion.

We were fortunate to be teamed up with Great Notion Brewery. We were late to the game and had little time to prepare but managed to come up with a stellar offering. It was a dish of Woodblock Chocolate's signature chocolate pudding with a malted whipped cream, dusted with ground cocoa nibs and a disk of Meridian hop enfleuraged 70% dark chocolate. This was paired with Jammy Pants, a red hued, berry forward kettle sour beer. The complex but accessible combination of the flavors took everyone by surprise. It was a case where 1+1=3. The combination of flavors and textures was bigger and better than the individual components. It was a symphony, an orchestra on the tongue. 

The result was a coup. We walked away with the belt held high above our heads to protect the patina from the salty tears of the weeping losers. To the jolting shock all of those culinary school cowboys, we won! This was no small feat! We were up against extremely accomplished culinary superstars but their tears are as salty as their food and the belt is mine. 

But then came the global pandemic.  

To many, this was a bad thing but to me it was an opportunity. If the pandemic we horrible enough, maybe Beer Week would be cancelled! Maybe I could keep the belt FOREVER! But Beer Week has prevailed and we are ready to defend! We have a plan and we are not screwing around. We have called in the ice cream geniuses at Fifty Licks to assist on the recipe development and have had many deeply intense meetings with high level people throughout the multiverse. I feel the target on my back and it is the closest thing I have had to a massage in years! Look out Snackdown 2022! The belt is ours and we intend to keep it.

The 92%

It's been a while. I wish I had a better excuse but the fact is that I couldn't find my password. It took me 9 years os searching and guess where it was! In my jacket pocket! No, I'm kidding. It fell down the 1/8" gap between range and the counter in the kitchen. The other day I cracked an egg and rather than making it into the pan, followed the same path as my password did 9 years ago. I went to clean the egg up, there it was, old and battered but it still worked. So here I am, 9 years better. 

My plan is to use this platform mainly for chocolatalk. I should probably start a new blog dedicated only to that effort but I have to give credit to everything I have done before because that has lead me to where I am. Chocolate is a design problem as much as a kid's chair or a furry van is.  It is all creative problem solving and that is essentially what I am blogging on about. Chocolate is now my main problem.

Take dark chocolate, for example.  Make that very dark chocolate. 100% cacao is about as dark as it gets and there are a lot of them out there. Some are really good and a lot are tough to eat. The problem is that the less sugar you add, the fewer places you have to hide. As you get closer and closer to 100%, the more the cocoa bean itself and the skills of the chocolate maker are revealed. If you choose the wrong cacao, if you goof up the roast, If you don't sufficiently aerate the chocolate, you may well be responsible for an astringent, harsh mouth mess, unworthy and regretful. Nobody wants that. 

WRONG! There is definitely a group of 100% chocolate lovers that has a bit of a cultish air to it. They eat 100% like someone who eats ghost peppers. They don't do it for flavor, they do it because it separates them from everyone else. I am pretty sure that if Woodblock Chocolate made a 100% bar, there would be a devoted clan that would eat it and praise it only because it is 100%. To me that is like wearing a badge of honor for something of questionable honor. It feels disingenuous. That is fine but I am driven by flavor and if the experience of eating chocolate is less than amazing, I don't want to have any part of it, even if I could sell the hell out of it. Integrity is a costly burden, right up there with ambition.

The truth is that I would love to make a great 100% bar but I haven't been able to make something that meets my standard. I did make a chocolate a few years ago that was 98% cacao and I added 2% whole milk powder. That little bit of milk added an amazing amount of creaminess and sweetness for its tiny presence. It was The Darkest of Milk. The darkest milk chocolate bar in all of the land.  

Alas, many super dark chocolate eaters are also very anti-milk so it wasn't viable.

I have been chipping away at the sugar content and although I am not yet at 100%, I am very happy with a new chocolate bar I am calling The 92%! It is a blend of cacao from Tanzania and the Dominican Republic and it is sublime. It is fruity and bright but without too much acid. Its sweetness comes from the cacao as much as from the sugar. The melt is magical with the thin format allowing the chocolate to reveal its flavor with the bawdy fluency of a burlesque dancer. It is truly a thing that you want on your tongue. The 92 %! Its the darkest chocolate we make. 

The right to bear arms.

Things are so huge and complicated!

I am a head-in-the-sandist as far as the huge, complex questions go.  Maybe it is my ancestral connection to Missouri's impact on my personal evolution or something but I am distracted by things I can directly effect. I enjoy buzzing what is left of the hair on my head because when I am done, I am instantly rewarded with a dome that looks like a badly fertilized, well groomed golf course. Posting a bumper sticker about Monsanto on Facebook yields a less tangible impact than pissing into the wind so I choose the latter.

Take, for example, this guy. His job is to mow the landing strip at the Tingo Maria airport with a push mower. There are aspects of his job I would love.

The Peruvian Sysiphus

business as usual

It is important that you maintain a clean working environment, neutral buoyancy and a healthy temple if your intention is to make amazing chocolate.

In our chocolate lab, we isolated a metamorphosic flavonoid found in cacao that seems to have the ability to transform psychic energy into palatable flavor! I couldn't believe it either but it turns out that you can taste things like glum in finer chocolate.

'the chocolate is a little sullenly and dejected but it has good fruity acid' they might say.

So when I have something to do, I make sure I have fun doing it, for chocolate's sake.

In the recent past I might have put an exclamation point after 'for chocolate's sake'. I am trying to ween myself from those. I have found that I am putting way too many !!!s in my emails and such. I want sentences that leave the taste of ! in your mouth without actually leaning on the ! button. I want the flow of words to insinuate punctuation. You would just know where the dots and squiggles go.

1995 Toyota SR5 extra cab truck for sale.

I have walked among the luckiest on earth.

I was a man with a loving mother, a loving wife, and a loving truck.

I am no longer that man.

Justified Crapsmanshiptitude

Perfection is elusive in the best possible circumstance. I practice the art of justifying the imperfect by necessity. Like a blind guy who has an enhanced sense of smell, I have developed the ability to explain my shortcomings as a craftrsman in such a way as to somehow make them acceptable, at least to myself. It is a survival technique. Nothing of which to be proud.

Slippery Slopeasode

I've really done it this time. How long has it been? A few months? Clean and free of all things furniture and then Boom!
This:

A FRIGGIN' TABLE BASE

I tried to abstain. I chained myself to the heater and slid the keys across the floor when it got bad. But that pile of junglewood taunted me from beneath the tarp, beside my house, in and under the reign of the rain and the rain.

I cracked.

I made another cool piece of furniture long before the year was up. I said I wouldn't but I did and I did it like a jackvegan pounds bacon.

Well, I hardly really did anything. I didn't even mill the wood. Just hacked out a couple of notches here and couple of notches there and ruthlessly dumped resin all up in there to fill the massive gaps, that's all. 

The anticraftsmanship I now practice for backyard projects is an attempt to find the line where imperfection is no longer beautiful, where Wabi is no longer Sabi. It isn't passive aggressive artisanry as much as it is aggressive aggressive hackjob whackmanship. It isn't limited to where my hand touches the wood either. It is the decisions I made. I was sticking my tongue out at my square and my tape measure as I hacked away at the rain soaked wood. Then at the last minute I try to reel it back in just a little bit, to keep it cool.

Like how Bode Miller skis: He says that if he isn't just about to crash, he isn't skiing hard enough.



Whereas Bode seems to have a sort of magnetic assistance and a defiant focus that blows my mind, the big drips of epoxy running down the legs of my table base are no ballet. I might have taken it too far this time.

Those epoxy drips aren't funny. Them ain't beautiful. They are the manifestation of something deep within me that I don't intentionally agitate. This table base is the bitter fruit of my aesthetic exhaust pipe.

So I went to the mountain.



It was just what I needed.

usb ports are the new castors.

Where was I?

I was making chocolate.

That is what happens when Ikea decides to sell a side table for $3.99. People like me start doing things like this.  Thank you Ikea!! After making chocolate the other day, as I licked the back of my neck clean, it struck me that I could never do that with epoxy and sawdust! Chocolate may well be the best medium in the world.  It sounds impossible for one medium to be better than another medium by definition but chocolate has pleasantly defiant aspects and this is one of them.

I know a thing or two about medium. One semester in college I got my report card and had five 'C's. No pluses and no minuses. I couldn't believe it either. Someone once told me that the coach only notices the first guy and the last guy but without the 'C', greatness and failure are like the walls of a deflated balloon: Undefined and flapid. 

As I make the transition from whatever I was doing before, to making chocolate, I realize that my departure might not have such a huge effect on things. So little so, as a matter of fact, that it inspired a proposal.  I propose a moratorium on all furniture design and manufacture! Enough is enough! Unless you have something really sick to add to the pile, go do something else. Put a usb port in it and call it done. 

No more interestingly paired materials and surprising transitions. No more architectural stacks and broken planes. No more coldhouse porn regurgitated Dwell stainless furry fastened knockdown ice cube cozy cowhide bullshit! Enough!!!

My advice to you is to go to the vintage store and buy some used furniture. Get something good. There is plenty of good furniture out there and we don't need more. 

I am including stuff made from reclaimed wood or recycled materials. No nothin'. 

People who are good at furniture would also be good at other things. If you know anyone like this, encourage them to figure out what that is and to go do it. It will be better that way. Come on, no new furniture for one stinkin' year. 


Are you with me? 

Where Can I Get My Giddy Switch Tightened?

I got a call from a buddy and he set me up with a tiny gig. Get, crate and ship a painting for a guy back east. This guy's x wife had this painting that he painted back in the 60's. I think they have been divorced for a long time and she has had the painting for something like 30 years.  He likes it and wants it back. There used to be another one that was green and said something like "red red red" on it in green but it got lost. I know. How do you lose a painting that big?

It is a big 6'x6' red canvas with the word 'green' written in red on the red background. 

I grabbed  the giant painting and got it home like Jed Clampett meets Sanford and Son. You try driving on the highway with a giant 6'X6' floppy ass kite covered in cardboard boxes that had been patched together with 30 year old tape in a little Japanese sewing machine pick up truck.

It turns out that the guy who painted it is involved with a  fancy gallery in NYC and this crate was going to his house.

I made the crate for it and I stepped back and thought about this opportunity. I called Ruppert and told him the story and said that if he wanted, he could come over and paint something on the crate but he had to do it instantly. He rode his bike over and knocked this out with the dregs of paint we found in my garage (not bad pickin's) and some borrowed colors from the woman who lives across the street. The brush he used was fashioned from a tuft of dry aged nostril hair, gum and a doll arm.

Conception Execution Celebration: 2 hrs.

Nailed it.
This is what it was like:

I Shook The Baby!

I did, I shook the baby, the little bastard.  It was the turbidity that made me do it. My numbers were high, my resources are low and I have a school of fish a floppin' that need to be fried. What am I talking about? Good friggin' question. I am not saying that I have bitten off more than I can chew but I am definitely talking with my mouth full.

Last week I pushed my precious Garnier Merlot through a two penny rental filter and now I am feeling guilty.  I swear I could almost hear baby Baccus cry as I basically disassembled the wine that had a year and a half of pampered barrel life. Then I throw it into a tub and expect it to find itself again. In an ideal world, I add no sulfur, I use no pumps and I let gravity assist the wine as it flows through unhindered lines from the vine to the toilet. Unfortunately, in the words of the venerable Ice T, "shit ain't like that."

Life throws you curve balls and what you have to do is adjust your swing. I would still consider this wine a base hit. Don't discount the Texas leaguer. If it weren't for mediocrity, greatness and lowliness would share a thin wall and I am not a proponent of that.  Some things are actually better than other things and if I have to fill the space in between, I'll do it. There is a lot more room to play between the end points. Besides, extremes get too much attention.

I should get my own turbidity tested.

tur·bid

   [tur-bid]  Show IPA

–adjective

1.

not clear or transparent because of stirred-up sediment orthe like; clouded; opaque; obscured: the turbid waters nearthe waterfall.

2.

thick or dense, as smoke or clouds.

3.

confused; muddled; disturbed.

When Yer Hot Yer Hot!

I was just checking the google stats on my blog and the data is truly remarkable. There was a wild spike in my visits on May 12th and I am trying to find out why. From May 1- May 12 there were no visits, then all of the sudden on May 12th BOOM! 2 visits! Out of nowhere I'm going friggin' viral! and I don't know why.

mom?

Well, whomever you are, I thank you because I truly believe that you are at least partially responsible for this great contact I made in China. Linda from Duchy Group. They have ways of finding out who is hot and a spike in visits like the one I experienced on May 12th really opened doors for me. It is very complicated but on graph paper it looks a lot like a tsunami.

tsu·na·mi

   [tsoo-nah-mee]  Show IPA

–noun

an unusually large sea wave produced by a seaquake, a spike in blog visits or underseavolcanic eruption.

Other designers are probably going to wage  jihad on me for posting this but my gratitude outweighs my fear. I haven't used these guys yet but if their product is half as good as their presentation I am sure they will do a bang up job. Please tell them I sent you. I am guessing you will get the VIP treatment if you do. Let me know how it goes.

this is Linda

and she works for Duchy 

 It's got to be a wonderful company 

Splain me this

I don't know why I did it but a while ago I started posting vids on youtube. It is an extension of my prairie scream. I have no agenda, I just want to create an opportunity to thank the academy and I don't know how else to express my gratitude. (Not that I have actually hardly even seen a whole movie at once in the past fuckteen years.)

You never know what is going to please people. At least, I don't. I aim to please but I am not always accurate. Case in point: magic jewelry box videos. You would think people would love a 48 second movie featuring an interesting box and some legitimate Belgian yodelhumming. Well, if you thought that, you would be at least two things; in agreement with me and wrong.

Of all my 26 antivideos, why has this one struck such a cord? Why are people so inclined to take all the effort to click thumbs down? Do those 6 people want me to take the video down? Would the 5 people who gave it the thumbs up stand with me if it came down to a bare knuckle affair? With me on the thumbs up side, that would be 6 on 6.  Let's meet in Nebraska or somewhere and have it out.  (I am a coaster so for the sake of convenience, I assume that all the people who dislike the video live on one coast and all the likers live on the other.)

I will take the vid down if my side loses. That is my promise. And what the hell, I will give t shirts to all who attend and two shirts each for the winners.

What's Not To Love?

Is it so wrong for a man to love a sign? Not a sign like a Sign From God but an A-board sign you might see on the sidewalk in front of a business.  I am making some signs for a new restaurant that just opened on Alberta here in Portland called Natural Selection.  One blade sign that will hang above the entrance and one A-board that will age gracefully on the sidewalk.

The materials and the design are built to accommodate the weather and to change with age. Metal will rust, rough cedar will green/gray, colors will fade and history will be recorded.  Looking forward to decay does not sound optimistic in general but in this case, it is. These signs are going to look better and better and better.

The frame for the A-board is made out of one piece of the famous junglewood.  I sawed it on the '56.

I had been trying to get my beautiful wife to consider accepting this sign into our family as a member. An intimate member. I was surprised that she seemed warm to the idea when I first brought it up. You can imagine how awkward it was. We both decided together that it would be too hard to explain to the kids and let it go.

These messy, through tenons are the physical embodiment of the loose, overshot lines of a quick sketch. To me it indicates an infinite, unfinished, hopeful element. It adds life to inanimacy because it invites inquiry.

Everything is not so defined that it closes the door on subjectivity. Rather, it is a subtle, aesthetic catalyst for an emotional interaction between someone and something.  It is neither discrete nor exclusive.

good old Ruppert oil slapped the turnip and cabbage summa cum-laude

Even the refuse generated by this project please me. I am a sucker for a trophy, having won very few. But tell me the powers from beyond weren't shining on me when I generated this off-cut when I plasma cut the "S"s for the blade sign. I humbly accept this great award.

And here is a piece of metal I was testing some milk paint techniques on. I'm keeping it.
Extra added bonus!

All in all it was a bountiful project. Thank you, good night.