All the boxes are now claimed! Chocolates for Charity is closed. Thanks for your support over the years.
Yep, it’s that time of year again…with a twist!
The twist is that I’m getting ready to retire from chocolatiering. This year marks 30 years since I started cooking up chocolate bonbons in the kitchen of my college dorm. Since an Imperial ton is only 2,240 pounds (and a metric ton slightly less than that), I think I can safely say that I have made a ton of bonbons in the course of my gloriously excessive career as an amateur chocolatier.
Chocolates for Charity, likewise, has been running since 2003. Your generous sweet teeth have raised over $50,000 over the last 15 years for the San Jose Museum of Quilts and Textiles, the American Textile History Museum, the Susan G Komen Foundation, and the San Francisco AIDS Foundation. Thank you.
This year, Chris (who’s been one of my chocolate helpers for some years now) and I are teaming up to do Chocolates for Charity. Chris is pretty expert by now, and is thinking about possibly-maybe-perhaps continuing the tradition next year, so he and I are working together and we’re going to do the chocolatiering at his place. We’re splitting the planning and the work 50-50, so he can get an idea of what’s involved, and then he’ll decide whether he wants to carry the tradition forward. (I hope he does! It’s a marvelous tradition and I would hate to see it die out.)
Anyway….this is a long way of saying “Get your chocolates while you can!”
This year’s beneficiary is, again, the San Jose Museum of Quilts and Textiles. Chocolates this year are $120/box, of which $90 will be tax-deductible. I have 30 boxes available.
(All the boxes have been claimed.)
A few other tidbits:
- The chocolates are perishable, as good chocolates are wont to be. Eat them within a week or else put them in the fridge. If you put them in the fridge, my advice is to let the chocolates come to room temperature before eating them; you’ll get better flavor that way. (of course, I have never been disciplined enough to follow this advice, but maybe you have more willpower than I do!)
- You can see the chocolates (and flavor lists) for the last few years here:
A bit about my chocolatiering:
I’ve been chocolatiering for almost 30 years now, making about 90-120 pounds of bonbons every November for friends, family, and Chocolates for Charity donors. I spent one winter training with Richard Donnelly of Donnelly Chocolates (who frequently appears in Top 10 lists of American artisan chocolatiers – the most recent appearance was in National Geographic’s Top 10), so I’m pretty good at chocolatiering now. I’d put my work on par with some of the best artisan chocolatiers – though I don’t have the equipment to do some of the really fancy stuff, you won’t find better chocolates elsewhere. I also do a lot of exotic flavors that you won’t find elsewhere.
I have 30 boxes available this year. I’ll update this post when all the boxes are claimed. (Don’t wait – they’re usually gone within hours!)
Opened and closed before I saw it. Ah well they were a very lush treat I will miss. Thanks for all your work. It was a great way to turn somthing you loved into something we all loved. They will be missed by many!
Oh wait…FINAL…NOOOOOO!