For some reason, these two foods are crazily expensive here in Colombia. Everywhere that is, except the San Andresito market. This huge maze of shops and stalls covering several blocks in Bogotá's centre is divided into dozens of areas, each containing thousands of stores all selling exactly the same products. There's the liquor and wine hall, the paper and plastic bags plaza, the car stereo sector and the crappy clothing quarter.  And, of course, there's the nuts and dried fruit district, a happy happy place with giant containers of macadamia nuts, hazlenuts, peanuts and pine nuts, to name but a few.  

Fortunately, whilst San Andresito is a place I can't go to alone, it's not completely out-of-bounds. I simply need a companion, one who doesn't carry a giant neon sign on their head that screams "gringa". 

Enter La Mamita de Latino Man. With her five-foot-nothing stature, smart slacks, Chanel-style jacket and stylishly coordinated scarf, her every step says "I know this city and how it works. Don't bother trying to mess with me because you will fail." As my guide to San Andresito, she managed not only to find the fruit and nuts I was searching for, and help me buy them at local prices, she also found some potential wholesale dairy and packaging suppliers for Choco Q. 

This loot was intended for future experiments in chocolate bars, but delays in equipment delivery left them sitting in the chocolate workshop, uneaten and lonely. This is too sad a fate for affordable nuts and dried fruit, so I broke open a few packets and made some granola.

I wasn't a granola-eater until a bit over a year ago, when my Parma-housemate Emily made some after a class on health and diet, that heavily emphasised the benefits of whole grains. Emily's granola, loaded with said health-giving whole grains, was absolutely heavenly: crunchy, nutty, toasty and just ever so slightly sweet. Those breakfasts were some of the tastiest meals I ate that year in Italy, that's how good Emily's granola was. Now, realising how delicious whole grains can be, I put my faith in them to stave off a long list of diet-related diseases. That makes a bowl of granola for breakfast like going for a run first thing in the morning: you've done your day's worth of good deeds for your health before 9am! 

There are thousands of recipes for granola, and I've posted mine below, but you can just as easily make your own with whatever appeals most to you. Granola is basically a bunch of whole grain flakes, be they oat, quinoa or wheat, plus nuts and/or seeds. This is mixed with some honey and vegetable oil before being baked. Emily's special method was to then leave the granola uncovered for several hours, drying it out even further, before adding some dried fruit and other extras and putting the whole thing in a container. This way the oven doesn't have to do all the work, and you won't risk overcooking the mix!

Mean Streets Granola

2 cups of whole rolled oats
2 cups of quinoa flakes
1/2 cup sesame seeds
1/2 cup sunflower seeds
1/2 cup linseeds
1/2 cup hazlenuts
1/2 cup macadamia nuts
1/2 cup peanuts
1/3 cup of honey
1/4 cup of sunflower oil

Preheat the oven to 150 degrees celcius. Combine all the dry ingredients in a bowl. Warm the honey slightly to make it more viscous, mix in the oil and toss through the dry mix. Spread the mixture on two trays and bake for 45 minutes, turning regularly to prevent it from burning. 

When this mixture has cooled, add the following:
1 cup of dried cranberries
1 cup popped barley
1 cup popped amaranth
1 cup of popped rice 

Store in an airtight container. 

Eat this with a big dollop of yoghurt and some fresh fruit, and feel self-righteous for the rest of the day! 

Happy Valentine's Day, Latino Man.

At night before I go to bed I plot out my following day, down to the half hour. Upon waking, I check-in with said plan and only then can I get out of bed. I use iCal on my MacBook which syncs with my iPhone so I have a calendar of events wherever I go, and the very handy teuxdeux.com plots my actionable items by day, week and even “Someday”. These digital plans are supplemented with hand-written shopping lists, city maps, and addresses just to keep my day, and therefore my sanity, on track. 

My two greatest fears are being cold and being hungry, and my third by a narrow margin is existing without a plan. My whole body trembles imagining the horror of lost productivity, missed deadlines, chaos, mayhem and an all-encompassing black void, where instead there could be the immense satisfaction of crossing something off a to-do list!   

I hear you loyal reader, you’re asking, “Q, if you absolutely must organise your life this way, why-oh-why did you move to Colombia?” 

Yes, well, that wasn’t part of the plan. And for deviating from the plan I am being punished, harshly. So far from the plan is this outcome, that I find my worst fears have been realised: I am incapable of planning! 

Despite rigorous organisation and to-do-list-ing, I'm unable to schedule even a coffee date in Bogotá. Not only does this city simply refuse to be planned, it actively thwarts all attempts at organisation. “Think you’re getting to the hardware store AND the market today?” it jeers. "Think again." Then it throws a lake of rain on the city just as I’m trying to find a cab. “You dare imagine you will get your delivery of couverture on time?” it bellows. Then it seizes the city in gridlock so tight, my chocolate delivery guy moves a mere three metres in three days.  

Bogotanos know this of course, which is why they never plan anything. They decide at any given moment, based on traffic conditions, weather, road closures, their location, the location of the friend/colleague/office/restaurant/store/government department, the "minutes" left on their pre-paid mobile SIM and the probability of getting a taxi, whether or not to celebrate a birthday, arrange a business meeting, catch up for drinks or go into labour. Elaborate parties come together in mere moments, complete with band, caterers, wait staff and decorators, who are all available at a minute’s notice, because nobody else dared to book them any earlier.  

Businesses, I discovered, emerge under the same principles. In late November I was a student of Ecole Chocolat, about to graduate from their Professional Chocolatier course. By December 9, the day before Latino Man and I left for Australia, I was the owner of a chocolate business, complete with logo, website, packaging and delivered Christmas orders. Amidst the December rain, holiday craziness, collapsing roads and Latino Man’s ridiculous workload, Bogotá let me start Choco Q. 

Now, if I could just figure out a way to schedule those last-minutes… 

Sharing those chocolates makes other people happy. 

I was priveliged to add a dash of this happiness at the happiest of events, the wedding of my little brother and his awesome fellow-foodie bride. 

Thanks Ben & Bek. It was an honour to be part of your happy day. 

Almond & Milk Chocolate Gianduja Truffles

Whilst my chocolate creations may not meet the visual standards of professionalism, they were tasty enough to earn some money! Yep, I've been paid to make chocolates. Even better than that, my first paying customer submitted a Christmas order! I don't have a logo, or even a company name as yet, but these are minor details, because soy Chocolatera! 

Gracias Clau. Tu apoyo significa todo!

Popped Amaranth Truffles, hand-rolled in 65% single-region dark chocolate from Tumaco, Colombia

Granadilla, house-made fruit jelly layered with milk chocolate ganache

My beloved Minty Jr

Let's never part again.

It's enough to drive a girl to eat an entire tray of caramel! If only I could make caramel.

Perhaps it was my incredibly frustrated state of mind, perhaps the stove which has only three heat settings, perhaps the pots with their thin bases that can't distribute said heat. Whatever the excuse, the sad reality at the end of that day was that I can't make caramel.

Three times I tried and three times I failed. I used three different recipes from very respected sources and somehow I was defeated by each of them. The first batch were so hard I couldn't cut the caramel slab with a knife, so teeth would have no chance. The second batch turned into a giant crystalised lump. The final batch showed such great potential, but at the last minute I was distracted by the looming need to plan a wedding, and I let the sugar burn. 

But, like the little engine that couldn't bear throwing away so much sugar, cream, butter, glucose syrup and vanilla, I kept trying. I figured if sugar could melt once, it could melt again, so I took Hard As A Rock and put it in a pot of boiling cream. After much stirring and hoping, Hard As A Rock became delicious Salted Butter Caramel Sauce. Then I used half the sauce to fill these chocolates. 

The other half of the sauce is in the fridge, waiting for that rainy day when we have to connect internet, water and electricity. Oh the joys that await! 

How easy it is to write those words and how hard to actually enact them. My first week here was full of self-doubt and frustration. I mean really, what was I thinking those few months ago when I agreed to make this enormous, sprawling, third-world, Spanish-speaking city our home? Life is hard here, much harder than in countries where I speak the language fluently, have a professional network, can walk most streets without fear and know my way around. I'm all for a bit of adventure in life, but I wondered if this time I had bitten off more than I can chew.

Fortunately I have three things making this transition somewhat easier: 

1. My guide, translator, and Bogota local, Latino Man, and we all know he's worth everything this mammoth city might throw at me.

2. My cheer squad of loving and supportive friends and family members, not one of whom has said "Are you crazy?" even though they're probably thinking it. 

3. Chocolate. A lot of it.

I collected almost a suitcase-full of bars in my few months in Europe, representing some of the most interesting beans and producers from all over the world. The combination of amazing people and amazing chocolate is a guaranteed dispeller of self-doubt and poor spirits, so I organised a chocolate tasting to share some of these gems with new friends in my new hometown. 

Three Colombians, a Frenchman and myself tasted four chocolates to compare Latin American and European styles of chocolate production, including:  

• Casa Luker Huila, made in Colombia (a generous gift from Geert Vercruysse);
• Pacari Los Rios, made in Ecuador;
• Original Beans Piura Porcelana, beans from Peru, made by Felchlin, Switzerland;
• Valrhona Caraibe, beans from various Caribbean countries, made in France.  

Interestingly whilst the Valrhona was declared "easy to eat" the favourite amongst the international panel of tasters was Casa Luker. Everyone agreed that whilst bitter (at 85%, who's not?) and somewhat blunt in its aroma delivery, it was a true reflection of the bean and of the land which produced it. 

This is the land that I will call home, for a while at least. So if ever you hear me complaining, worrying, or wondering why I'm here, please remind me of these two things:

1. I live in a country that grows cacao and makes its own chocolate

2. That after only a few weeks in this place, I already have some great friends with whom to share it. 

Yes, I am a student again! Whilst paying the bills with my advertising skills, I've been in training to become a Professional Chocolatier with Ecole Chocolat. The first skill we had to master was hand-tempering chocolate. For those of you who watch Master Chef, you'll know this is an extremely tricky task at the best of times. I added an extra challenge by tackling this in a tropical kitchen. Instead of the ideal 20 degrees celcius, my Singapore training kitchen (aka my sister and bro-in-law's kitchen) was between 27 and 30 degrees. Fortunately it came with granite benches which I was able to cool using ice-packs in order to help quickly reduce the temperature of the melted chocolate to create the right formation of crystals in the chocolate's fat content. 

That's basically what tempering means. Most people imagine that one can simply melt chocolate and then go ahead and use it. If only it were so. Alas there are 6 possible combinations of crystals within the cocoa butter naturally found in cocoa beans, and only one of them (the 5th) will give you a final chocolate that has a lovely sheen and a good snap in the mouth. It is also the best formation to stave-off cocoa butter bloom, the nasty white substance you find covering the chocolate bar you carried around in your handbag for a week in summer. That's the cocoa butter fat rising to the surface of the chocolate because it melted. It's not dangerous, but it's unsightly and it changes the texture of the chocolate. 

The temper test: on the left an example of poorly tempered chocolate, on the right a glossy tempered success!

The process of "tabliering" is by far the trickiest but many chocolatiers believe it gives the best results. It involves melting the chocolate very slowly so it doesn't get too hot, then pouring most of it onto a granite or marble slab to cool. You have to keep swirling the chocolate around so it doesn't cool on the edges and remain hot in the middle, then you put it back in the bowl and increase the temp slightly to melt any bits that have hardened. The trickiest part is keeping the chocolate mix at that temperature while you work with it to create whatever chocolate treats you are making.

The many videos that demonstrate the technique show chefs starting the process in their crisp white chefs jacket, and completing the process with their chefs jacket still looking crisp and white. That's not how I worked. As hard as I tried, my ability to work cleanly was severely hampered by my complete inability to do so. I had chocolate up to my elbows, on the floor, splashed agains the walls and to the hilt of every piece of equipment I used. Which is why I had to temper late at night or during the day, when my sister and brother in law were not around to have a heart attack upon seeing the state of their kitchen.  

Alas I think my advertising skills still far outstrip my chocolate making skills, but at least the former give me some time to develop the latter. Last night I said goodbye to Singapore and right now I'm in Paris, en route to Bogotá where El Hombre Latino and I will settle for a while. Finally, after six months of living out a suitcase I'm going to find my own kitchen, one where I can put Latino Man, my KitchenAid, my Beijing-market-bought plateware, my Alessi Chin Family timer, and a big marble slab so I can practice practice practice until my chocolate skills are the ones to pay the bills.

The meat truck travails the towns of Burgundy throughout the week, and passes by the houses of Nicey any time between 11am and 9pm on Fridays. The butcher honks his horn to let you know he has arrived, and you can buy amazing quality French meat from the convenience of your doorstep. Brilliant! Now where's the mobile chocolate shop?