The Restaurant Guys' Regulars

TEASER! John Scharffenberger: Winemaker to Chocolatier

Subscriber Episode • • The Restaurant Guys • Episode 1100

Share episode

This episode is only available to subscribers.

The Restaurant Guys' Regulars

Exclusive access to bonus episodes!

This is a Vintage Selection from 2007

The Conversation

The Restaurant Guys talk with John Scharffenberger about his premium line of chocolate which is the first “bean to bar” chocolate made in the United States. John talks about the history, sourcing and the crucial details in creating some of the finest chocolate in the world!

The Inside Track

The Guys were fans of John’s sparkling wine and are fans of his chocolate. This is how John describes his on-the-job training after his career shift. 

“ I think we were just stupid when we started and the only way we knew how to do things were the way I had done things in the wine business [which] was just to be really careful about flavor. So we treated the beans like we used to treat grapes. We did blind tastings, we did lots of blind tastings, and only accepted beans that had flavors that we liked,” John Scharffenberger on The Restaurant Guys Podcast 2007

Bio

John Scharffenberger started Scharffenberger Cellars known for their world-class California sparkling wine. He left the winery and started Scharffen Berger Chocolates in 1997 with Robert Steinberg. 

Info

John’s cookbook

Essence of Chocolate: Recipes for Baking and Cooking with Fine Chocolate

By John Scharffenberger and Rober Steinberg


Scharffen Berger Chocolate is no longer owned by John Scharffenberger and Robert Steinberg. It was acquired by Hershey in 2005, went back to private ownership in 2020 then acquired by Harry and David in 2024. 


If you want John’s Hot Chocolate recipe, email TheGuys@restaurantguyspodcast.com



If you'll be in New Orleans on July 22, join us for a LIVE show with Jeff "Beachbum" Berry and Annene Kelly at Latitude 29! Tiki talk and tiki drinks. Email theguys@restaurantguyspodcast.com for more info. We hope to see you there!

Our Sponsors
The Heldrich Hotel & Conference Center
https://www.theheldrich.com/

Magyar Bank
https://www.magbank.com/

Withum Accounting
https://www.withum.com/

Our Places
Stage Left Steak
https://www.stageleft.com/

Catherine Lombardi Restaurant
https://www.catherinelombardi.com/

Stage Left Wineshop
https://www.stageleftwineshop.com/

Reach Out to The Guys!
TheGuys@restaurantguyspodcast.com


Francis:

Hello everybody and welcome back. You're listening to the Restaurant Guys, mark and Francis of Stage Lusting Katherine Lombardi Restaurants in downtown New Brunswick, and today our guest is Mr. Chocolate himself. John Scharffenberger, who founded Charfen Berger Cellars, one of the premier sparkling wine cellars in the United States. He, uh, sold his interest in that, uh, the winery in 1996. he, together with his partner Robert Steinberg, started, Scharfenberg Chocolates. If you haven't had Scharfenberg chocolate, you've been living under a rock somewhere because it's one of the preeminent American chocolates. And he is also written a book called The Essence of Chocolate Recipes for Baking and Cooking with Fine Chocolate.

Mark:

John, welcome to the show.

John:

It's great to be here.

Mark:

So, so John, why couldn't you make champagne and chocolate? Why did it have to be one or the other? Man?

John:

Uh, you know, it's, it's, it's good to try your hand at, at different things, you know, and, uh, I got to the point in the, in the wine business where my partners, figured it out, that they wanted to go on with things. They just wanted me to kind of help sell it. And I said, oh, forget it. I'd rather help make something uhhuh. And so I moved on and was looking for another project and ran into an old friend of mine, Robert Steinberg, who had this great idea about making chocolate. And I said, oh my gosh, it's just the same kind of thing I did when I was in the wine. I said, you know, why? Why? Why does all the good champagne have to be French? Um. And so I worked on, on California Sparkling Wine, and I did the same with chocolate. And, and I think we've done pretty well with our chocolate.

Mark:

Well, you've really become one of, certainly one of, if not the preeminent American, uh, chocolatier as far as somebody actually making a. Find chocolate.

John:

Well, you know, you know, there aren't too many people actually making chocolate in the United States. I think there's 13 companies in the, in the

Francis:

country. Chocolate. Well, let's, let's make that distinction right up front. Let's talk about the difference between, you know, being a, a Bon Bonier and a, and a Chocola Laier. Someone who makes. Candy out of chocolate and someone who makes the chocolate itself talk to us about making chocolate.

John:

Yeah, actually, so, so what to make chocolate, you, you have to buy beans, uh, which are co cacao or cocoa beans. we import these beans from all kinds of different countries than Venezuela, um, Ghana, Dominican Republic. Um, they all have really interesting flavors. We, we put them together in, in different blends to make different chocolates, uh, actually to, and then to, to actually make the chocolate. We have to roast the beans, take the shells off, grind them down with sugar. you know, it, it sounds simple, but it's, it's, um, a lot of machinery. A a

Francis:

actually no, no, it doesn't. It sounds like it's, it's a heck of a lot more complicated than buying chocolate in bulk and making candies out of it.

John:

Yeah. So, no, a lot of people will do this. They'll, they'll actually buy co match or, or cocoa liquor from one of the big companies and they'll mix up the liquor and then, and then, uh, basically, uh, already. Partially made chocolate. Um, and then they'll add in their own sugar and milk and all that stuff. So that's an, um, a lot of candy bars, a lot of chocolate bar companies. I

Mark:

think you better tell people what chocolate liquor is.

John:

Chocolate liquor is actually, um, it's also basically chocolate. It's already been, you know, um, made. So basically somebody who buys the beans. and grinds them down. Um, and, uh, and then sells it that way. and that's the way most chocolate makers are. So, uh, the only people who work with beans are the, about the 13 companies I talked about.

Francis:

Why, why go to all that trouble to, to make chocolate from the bean?

John:

Because that's where the flavor is. You know, we, we really had to go all the way back, uh, to, to the bean. And, and, and that's where we're finding the real difference in flavor is, uh, we work with different, uh, growers and the growers tend to be villages or cooperative. Uh, you know, either in Venezuela or, or in Dominican Republic So they're very small sources of, of, of really exquisite flavors that, uh, we buy and, and then can, can use. And I don't think you get that, um, when you, you know, you're buying somebody else's liquor.

Francis:

Well, now do, is it that you, you are able to source superior beans or is it what you do to the beans after you get them that makes Charfen Burger chocolate different than, you know, some chocolate from a big, big company?

John:

You know, I think we were just stupid when we started and the only way we knew how to do things were, the way I had done things in the wine business was just to be really careful about flavor. Um, so we treated the beans like we used to treat grapes. You know, we, we did blind tastings, um, and we did lots of blind tastings, only accepted beans that had flavors that we liked. Um, and so I think Robert and I both. You know, kind of developed this system together where we, we were just very careful about it, and I think it shows in the eventual chocolate

Mark:

in the food business and in the wine business, we do a lot of, uh, things that we call blind tastings. And what, and what a blind tasting is, is, is just what it sounds like. We don't know. From, from where the products come from. And we'll taste 2, 3, 4, 10, 20 different, uh, products and decide which one we like the best without necessarily knowing from, from where they come or, or the origin. And then, and then make our, our purchasing decisions from that.

John:

Right, right. And it, it, it's a great way to go because you know, in a sense you're, you're just. Really honing in on, on, you know, what the, what, you know, what, where the rubber meets the road. And that's really, uh, the experience of flavor

Francis:

in the, in the finished product with the flavors. How do you think the flavors of Charfen Burger Chocolate are distinct and different from the other chocolates that are available on the market?

John:

I, I don't know how they are, they just are. We, we have, you know, we have the flavor of caca in art, in our chocolate. Um, we also don't process very heavily, so, uh, we don't have to use a lot of sugar. We have of not very sweet chocolate. Um, uh, in, in general, our chocolate doesn't have a lot of sweetness,

Mark:

Which means you can do anything you want with it. Sweet. Not sweet. You know, sugar is, is is something very easy to add.

John:

E Exactly. And, and also not having a lot of sugar, um, means that the other things have to taste good. Mm-hmm. So, you know, sugar sort of

Mark:

covers that. Sure. Sugar can be a be a mask.

John:

Yeah. Yeah. So, uh, so basically you end up tasting a lot more chocolate.

Mark:

The same exact same thing in wine too. People use sugar as a mask.

Francis:

Our guest is John Scharffenberger. Now you know the name Scharffenberger from Chocolate that you see all around. John also has a book out called The Essence of Chocolate Recipes for Baking and Cooking with Fine Chocolate. Now, this is a recipe book for chocolate, which is a, a great holiday gift, I think, or for anyone who likes chocolate, which is everyone I know. Um, but it's not just a recipe book. There's really the story of chocolate in here. What story are you trying to tell with the book besides just giving people recipes as to how to use your chocolate?

John:

Well, we're, we're trying to, you know, tell the story that, you know, all the stories we've learned, uh, over the last nine years. Because having come to it, to us, everything was pretty new. So we want to let people know, you know, what we've learned about where, what chocolate is, where it comes from, um, and how we got to do what we're doing. So it's, it's sort of all in there. We interspersed it with. Uh, 130 or so, uh, great recipes, uh, using kind of, uh, these sort of modern intense chocolate labors that we have in our, in our, in our chocolate.

Mark:

One of the things and the, just your, your, your book obviously is a great recipe book, and a also a great coffee table book, but also a good cookbook at the same time, But one of the things in the book that I, that I found fascinating, just a, a, a silly little fact is, uh, the cacao beans, they don't fall naturally. They need an animal or something else to come and, take them off of the tree, or, or they'll just sit there.

John:

You know, it's, it's interesting though. I think the plant, uh, you know, evolved in a very special way. It's this, it's this fruit that grows basically in a tropical rainforest. and they're bright red and, and bright orange and bright yellow. So they're amazing colors. Um, and, uh, they really, you know, it take a monkey or a taper or whatever. They evolved with a later man, obviously. To figure out, uh, to pick these fruits and, and to eat them. The pulp inside though is delicious. So once you get onto the pulp, um, I think animals really got onto it. I think the beans didn't taste good. They spit them out and spread them around the, the, the jungles, and that's how chocolate spread throughout Central America. I.

Francis:

well as it spread throughout Central America. One of the things that I think is most interesting in your book, and one of the things I wanna talk with you more about after the news is, the origins of chocolate and chocolate is a ritual drink. I mean, it's kind of like coffee, chocolate is a, a is isn't, it isn't exactly intuitive that we would get from the bean to, to what we see. You know, in the finished product and how we have chocolate today. Our guest today is John Scharffenberger. He is, uh, the owner of Scharffenberger Chocolates, together with his partner Robert Steinberg, and they've written a book called The Essence of Chocolate, where you've collaborated with John some of the, the best chefs around, like Jacques Pepin and Thomas Keller. And I wanna talk more with our audience about some recipes that appear in this book and, and ways that we can use it today. But one of the things I like about this book is how you delve a little bit into the history of of, of how it came to be. Used as we used today. Today we, it started as a, as a ritual drink and not necessarily sweet. You wanna tell us a little bit about how we got from there to here?

John:

Well, yeah. It's interesting. One of the, the places I buy chocolate from in Guatemala, they're still drinking it this way. They, they consume chocolate as a, as a ritual drink. So they take these, uh, caca beans. They, uh, wrote them and, uh, grind them down with chili and vanilla and all kinds of things. They put a little fruit paste in it, so it's a tiny, a little bit sweet. Um, and then they drink it. It's got a, a stimulant in it, similar to coffee. Uh, though it's not as strong, I. Um, and so that, that's pretty much the way it was consumed for the last 10,000 years, and it still has been consumed that way in Central America. And

Mark:

how I see a new cocktail in one of our restaurants coming from this site, John, maybe we'll need to send, you'll need to send us some cacao beans.

Francis:

Now. How does it, how do we get from there? How did the chocolate, as we know it, evolve to, to, to the way we think of chocolate as a candy?

John:

Well, it was brought to Europe, um, you know, basically because of the stimulant. You know, back, back in those days, they didn't have coffee or tea yet. And so the Spanish court started drinking the stuff just the way they had seen it in the Aztec court. Um, they started drinking it and then I think, uh, one, I think Charles, I third or somebody in about the 15. 40 or so, um, had some sugar added to his, and I think he told his chef, you know, that's the way I want it from now on. Mm-hmm. It could taste pretty darn good. The combination of sugar and chocolate together really, uh, comes from the Spanish and so they still consumed it as a drink, but, uh, it had the sugar added to

Francis:

talk to us about the difference between chocolate and cocoa.

John:

So cocoa. Um, actually cocoa is a, it's a powder and it comes when you actually make chocolate. You make a, a rough chocolate, um, in the factory, and then you put it in a press and you press out the fat. so you're left with a, with a powder that, uh, then you can make hot chocolate with. Um, and then you use the, the COA butter. Um, they can make white chocolate out of it, which we don't want to go into. but, uh, um, and, a lot of cocoa. Butter is used in cosmetics. And so, the cocoa powder you buy in, you know, in those packets and stuff, is basically mixed with sugar and, and made into a drink. The, the, the best cocoa basically is though, not, you know, is made specifically to be drunk. Um, and it's great flavors and it's really quite good.

Francis:

So talk to us about drinks today. I mean, I like to make hot cocoa. My girlfriend likes hot chocolate. What's the difference between the two?

John:

Well, the, I, the first time I went out to a, a bar in, in Barcelona, um, you go back to a bar about two in the morning and you get home around six, um, in the morning. And I went like, I was coming home at six with a pile.

Mark:

Doesn't everybody do that?

John:

I guess it seemed like the thing to do.

Mark:

We're a restaurant, guys. That's, that's our, this is our life.

John:

So, so everyone said Let's go get choros and chocolate. Chocolate it. I figured, you know, what the heck that I'll go with these guys. So. You get in this car and then everybody ends up at this little place. And, and we had things kind of like donuts, um, uh, or ros. And uh, and then they served as hot chocolate. But that hot chocolate wasn't made from cocoa powder. It was actually made from chocolate itself. It was actually, uh, like a take, you take a chocolate bar, you break it up the little pieces and you, you, uh, put hot water over it and you mix it up really carefully and make a really. Thick, uh, drink out of it. And boy, that was the perfect thing to have after a late, a long night of, uh, you know, barcel on a night. That's

Mark:

how my French grandmother used to make it. I loved it.

John:

And so, really, that's the way if you like, uh, hot chocolate, that's the way you should really consume it. And by the way, for a holiday drink. Um, it's great with a little rum in it or a little, uh, you know, brandy. and it's a really sort of non cholesterol, your alternative to eggnog?

Francis:

Would you mind if we threw your recipe for hot chocolate up on our website restaurant guys? No. Dot com.

John:

No. Put it, put it in there. It's, it's a, it's a good one.

Francis:

Great. We'll, we'll do that and we'll, and we'll credit John Scharfenberg. Now some, something that I see around a lot now is I see a lot of, um, well, a, a product called, uh, nibs. And I wanna talk about those. And I also see more and more in fine restaurants, people using chocolate in savory applications, like people using it in the main course, people using it in the main dish. What are your feelings on that? What do you, what do you think about that?

John:

Well when chocolate, you know, chocolate has been used for, for, you know, millennia in, in Central America, and then it was used early in, in Italy early on. They didn't know to make candy out of it. They, they put little bits of it in their bowles,

Mark:

right. It was savory. So

John:

there's lots of sogo with tiny bits of chocolate in the chocolate actually helps link the flavors between the tomato and the meat together. So it's a, it forms a really, it's a good ingredient. I wouldn't want it to be a main ingredient, but it's a real good kind of spice. Uh, as you were or, or a co player in a lot of dishes. and it fulfills a good role there, giving a darkness to it. I, I use it as a, a cocoa powder, as a rub on, um, on flank steak and, and, uh. On lamb and things like that. And it's a delicious thing. It doesn't taste like chocolate, it just tastes great

Mark:

as a savory ingredient. I, I think that you're, you're right there. It does make a nice background flavor for, to, to kind of in a mix of other spices.

Francis:

If you're just joining us, we're talking with John Scharfenberg, uh, the owner of Scharfenberg Chocolate. So, and we're talking specifically about his book, the Essence of Chocolate. Now, what are nibs? I see these around, I, I, I've been Christmas shopping recently. I've been handed, uh, free samples of nibs, uh, around what are nibs.

John:

Well, nip nips are actually a cocoa, a cacao or cho cocoa beans that have been roasted ha and had their shelves taken off. And they're, they're kind of a little smashed up nuts, but they're the nuts that we make chocolate out of. So it's, it's one of the, you know, uh, steps in our, in our, in our, uh, in our chocolate making, um, that the cocoa beans are turned into nips and they're really great. Great flavor there. It's a nut that has chocolate flavors, but remember it's a walnut or

Mark:

something. Yeah, it's a nut. It's not sweet. It's not, there's no sugar at it. A nib is the, is the bean.

John:

Yeah. So if you're, if you're gonna coat it with chocolate or, you know, put it into a, into a bii or something like that, it's a really great combination of flavors. And because although it hasn't been ground down and process the way chocolate is, they also have flavors, um, in addition to the flavors that chocolate has. So they're really quite interesting.

Mark:

So John, you know, there's a lot of, uh, talk about how similar, and Francis alluded to this earlier in the show, about how similar cocoa farming and, uh, or cacao farming and coffee farming are, do now. Do we see things in happening in the, in the chocolate world, in the, in the, in the cacao world that we're seeing happening in the, in the coffee world as well?

John:

It's, it's, it's a bit different in some other, in some ways there that you, you grow coffee in cool, cool places in the tropics and you grow, uh, uh. Cacao in the hot steamy parts of, of, of the jungle, they both need to be shade grown. So that's, that's one of the similarities. But the, the other difference is that most cacao is actually grown by really small farmers. Mm-hmm. I think 80% of the world, cacao is grown on farms of like 10 acres or less. So in, in, unlike coffee, which tends to be larger farms, um, cacao tends to be family farmers

Mark:

and, and they tend to be people with not a lot of money.

John:

People would nod a lot of money. Exactly. So what we're trying to do is work more directly with, with farms or, or actually farm village groups, to make cacao for And so, uh, work with them more directly and if we can work with them more directly, we can, you know, obviously they make a lot more money. We get a lot better cacao. And everybody wins in the end. And that's pretty much what I'm working on.

Francis:

Well, again, that goes back to, uh, to, you know, the grape farmer where the grape farmer grows better grapes. And if there's a direct relationship between the guy who's making the finished product and the guy who's making the raw, uh, the, the agricultural product, um. It's not sold as a commodity. You can have a, an old fashioned business relationship that works better for both people. Isn't that,

John:

Yeah. Yeah. It does. It does. And it's interesting in a lot of parts of the world where, uh, where chocolate's actually grown. People don't even eat chocolate. It's not, it's not in their culture. Um, whereas in Guatemala, you know, they've been consuming it for, for, you know. It's happened a thousand years. So it's real fun to, to go down there and give, to give them my chocolate. They like it. Um, and then they give me their chocolate, which is these drinks, which is completely different, but it's really interesting. So, so it's kind of fun to sort of put, put our, put our ideas together and, and, and learn from them.

Mark:

Seems like a pretty good deal for both parties.

Francis:

Do you ever think you'd bring those drinks to the United States? Do you think they, they'd have a market here.

John:

Um, you know, they would have a market here and you, you can make'em here. Um, they're just a little, uh, I think it's hard to find some of the other spices that, that they're getting. And I think the taste for, for chili and chocolate is, is perhaps growing, here a little bit more. Um, they're a really nice Turkey soup that I, I get a lot of times when I go down to my, the village I work in, God bone has got a little. Put a little bit of chocolate in. It's really delicious.

Francis:

When, when we, when we come back, when we come back on the break, we're gonna talk more about how you can make your Turkey chocolate soup. I, I don't know that you're gonna wanna do that, but We'll, we'll, we'll talk more about that with John Sheen Burger, author of The Essence of Chocolate and Owner of Sheen Burger Chocolates. In just a moment, you're listening to the Restaurant Guys, Hello everybody and welcome back to listening to Restaurant Guys, mark and France. This is Stage Lust and Captain Lombardi. I. Restaurants in downtown New Brunswick. We're talking with Mr. Chocolates, John Scharfenberg, uh, owner of um, Scharfenberg Chocolates and author of the Essence of Chocolate Recipes for Baking and Cooking with Fine Chocolate. If you wanna find out how you can get a copy of this book, you can go to our website,

Mark:

There's a quality of the chocolate that we use when we cook, really matter that much, John.

John:

Yeah, because cooking, cooking, just like, um, you know, any ingredient, um, you use a good ingredient, you get a great, uh, result. And I think that's what, uh, is happening these days is people are spending a little less time at home cooking, but when they do cook, they wanna make better stuff. And I think that's really our biggest, um, product is our, is our baking chocolate is, uh, because you make our, your old fashioned brownie recipe out of, out of good chocolate and you really know the difference.

Mark:

I mean, basically, uh, uh, what, what I think John's getting to here is the same thing that we say so frequently in the show. You know, you start with ingredients. If you start with the best fruit, you're gonna make the best cobbler. If you start with the best chocolate you're gonna, or the best cocoa beans, or the best chocolate, you're gonna make the best. Chocolate

Francis:

chip cookies. And I want y'all to think about this for just a moment. If you're used to making brownies out of a box and it's all together and you add water and an egg and you make the brownies and you know what, they can be pretty tasty. Think about your brownies. If you buy this book and it's not that much more difficult to just throw some sharpen burger chocolate or some other good chocolate in there, use this book and make real brownies, blow your mind. Well absolutely do it.

John:

And you know those, those recipes. Um, that we have in our book really are still one, you know, one bowl recipes.

Francis:

Yeah. It's all, that's the thing about it. It it really is very simple. All this stuff.

John:

that's what we've tried to do with our recipes is, is not grandstand with chocolate, but actually, you know, make, make re put in recipes you can make at home. Make

Speaker 5:

real food.

John:

Yeah, exactly. Now

Francis:

real, real stuff. Let me ask you about treating your, when you get your chocolate home, it does, do we need to, when I buy Sharpen Burger chocolate in the store, do I need to use it in a certain amount of time? Does it need to be kept fresh? Does it go bad? Does it get stale? Does it lose flavor?

John:

No, I, I think it, it's good for about a year. Mm-hmm. And, and then after that it will lose a little bit of flavor. Um, it won't go bad. Um, but, uh, yeah, I think chocolate, like a lot of things you just don't want to, you know, well, it probably won't stay around. You'll probably end up eating it if you don't cook with it. Mm. So that's, that's the good thing about it is you can buy my baking bars and actually eat them.

Francis:

You have a number of people that collaborated with you on this book, A number of, of, of really top quality chefs. I mean, guys who've been guests on our show before, Thomas Keller and, and folks like that. What, how, how was it working with those guys and, how did you get them involved in the project and what, what was it like working with them and seeing them use your product?

John:

Well, you know, because we're. Kind of a, you know, a, pretty, um, special American chocolate baker. A lot of these people use our, our products in their, in their restaurants and stuff. And so a lot of it was just going to them and saying, Hey, what do you, what do you do with our stuff? Can we use that recipe? Um,'cause we wanted to get, uh, some good ideas from, from, you know, uh, some other people are professionals. And so there's two or 300 restaurants from the United States that use scharfenberg or chocolate and, uh, you know, find out what they're doing with it and, and, um, put the recipes that are appropriate for home use in, in the book.

Mark:

All right, John, I I want to ask you a question. Uh, now, obviously they're, they're not Charfen Burger Chocolates, but there are other chocolates out there now that are, that are, uh, some of the mainstream chocolate makers, the, the Hersheys of the world are, are putting out these, what they're calling super premium chocolates. Um. I guess they're not super premium, they're, but premium chocolates. I guess what the niche they're trying to fill is is a slot below the scharfenberg, chocolates, for instance. Um, how do you, how do you rate those kinds of chocolates?

John:

Well, you know, I think they're all doing a pretty darn good job. And, and the nice thing is, is the bar is raising for everybody. and I think that, that,

Francis:

so they're, so, they're so, they're raising the chocolate bar. The chocolate

John:

bar is raising, and they're, and they're putting the percentages on them. Which is also really quite nice, you know? Yeah. To see other brands, uh, you know, coming up with, with, percentages on them. Those of us in the No Note, we Flavors are improving as well.

Mark:

We know they're just copying you though,

Francis:

though.

Mark:

Don't worry about that. Joe.

Francis:

a, I have a comment on putting the percentage on things and I like, uh, I do like. To see the percentage of cocoa'cause you wanna see how, you know, a lot of people have different preferences and it's not like necessarily the higher the percentage of cocoa, the more you like it. It helps you determine a style of the chocolate. But I have found that a lot of, or that. I'm thinking of a couple of name and I, I won't name the brands, but there are a couple of'em that have a high percentage of cocoa. They seem to be responsibly made, but I just don't like them. I don't think the chocolate is well crafted as uh, it doesn't have a good mouth feel and it's, it's very one dimensional. Whereas, you know, Charfen Berger chocolates and a number of others that I respect are, are multidimensional. I mean, do you find that that's the case? Just a percentage of cocoa doesn't? Necessarily correlate to the quality.

John:

I, I, I really like the chocolate we make, let's put it that way. And I'm pretty picky about what I consume. So the, the nice thing is I can get all the Charfen burger I can eat, and so I stick to that.

Mark:

Yeah. I can get all the Charfen Burger I can eat too. Luckily, John. And that's, and that's why we look the way we do.

John:

You know, that's the nice thing. I'm really skinny, so, uh, I'm, I'm always trying to gain weight and, uh, the problem is if you eat a little bit of chocolate all day, you're not hungry. Um, so, uh, you know, it's actually a good, a good diet. dark chocolate all day? Um, you, you're not, you're not hungry for other stuff. Um, I'm not talking about bon bonds. I'm talking about just having a piece of 70% chocolate here and a paid thing of an 80% there and a 60% there. And by the end of the day, you know you're starving for vegetables.

Mark:

Yeah. But chocolate really does make you feel better, John, doesn't it? The, the true, the true statement. I, I don't think anybody's ever, ever said a true statement. I have a very good friend named Theresa, and it's just like, you know what? It doesn't matter how my day is going, chocolate makes me feel better. And and it truly, it truly does. And when you're having a

Francis:

bad day, my, my phrase is, I run to chocolate. Anyway, John, thank you so much for taking the time to talk with us about your book and your wonderful chocolates. They're great. Okay.

John:

It's great to be with you guys. Thanks

Francis:

again, again. Uh, John Scharfenberg. His book is the Essence of Chocolate Recipes for baking and cooking. Uh, with fine chocolate, you can pick it up. You're listening to the Restaurant Guys, Hello everybody and welcome back. You are listening to the Restaurant Guys, mark and Francis Stage Loves and Cafe on the Body Love Sharpen Burger, chocolate. Love it.

Mark:

The and the book is really terrific. Although I, I, you know, I didn't wanna pick on him while he was on the, while he was on the show. Why would you pick on John Charfen Berg? Well, he, the book is, is really terrific. But there's one recipe that I had a, a slight issue with. What's that? It was the, uh, chocolate and peanut butter panini. And so I said, you know what? Peanut butter and chocolate. Awesome. Together, everybody knows that. So I had chef file the, peanut butter and chocolate panini recipe and all I could help thinking and, and it's pretty much a, a, let's call it a grilled cheese, except the center of the plate is, is chocolate and peanut butter. And I, I just said, you know what? The chocolate and the peanut butter are better without the bread and the, and the frying process.

Francis:

I, I don't know. It sounds great to me.

Mark:

It was, uh, you know, it, chocolate and peanut butter are great. It's one of the ultimate conceptions of our time. You know what's funny? Okay. Two great tastes that taste great together. Do you know what I recall? What do you recall?

Francis:

I recall a, a gesture occurred to me now. Making s'mores with scharfenberg chocolate or other fine chocolate really takes your s'mores and you go, oh, now that's what they're supposed to taste like. Wildly ingredients. Amazing. And I will remember one of the classic Francis moments where you looked at me like, you are so Francis. We were out at Whole Foods Uhhuh. And when, when we went, they have the, the peanut butter maker there. Mm-hmm. Like they, they turn it on and it grinds. Oh yeah. Peanuts into peanut butter. And they had honey roasted peanuts to make honey roasted peanut butter that you could buy. And I bought some. And you bought some And you were shopping for your family of four. You had like nine bags. I helped you, I had one little thing I had, and it was a, a thing of, of a high cocoa content. Charfen burger chocolate bar.

Mark:

It, it was, I think it was sharpen.

Francis:

The peanut butter that we had just made that was still warm from the mashing of the nuts. And you're like, oh, whatcha gonna do with that? And I took the Charfen burger chocolate and I dipped it in the fresh made honey roasted peanuts. And you're like, oh, you're so decadent. And you said that, but then you ate half of my peanut butter. And I'm half your chocolate. And half of my

Mark:

chocolate. Yes sir. That's me in the parking lot. I want you to understand trumping Francis, that I thrive on your decadence. Okay? I, I love your decadence though. I mock you for it. I'm gonna always eat half your peanut butter and

Francis:

half your chocolate. All I am is someone for you to blame. I hope you enjoy the hour with the restaurant. Guys. I'm Francis Shot. And I'm Mark Pack. We are the restaurant guys, central Jersey 1450. The time is 12 noon.

I.