What does Bill Monroe (the Father of Bluegrass) love more than bluegrass?…CHOCOLATE!!! And where can you find both?

Come Sunday from 12-4pm to a pop-up parklet outside Dandelion! Caitlin, our fearless production manager, will be playing with her string band, The Twin-Not-Twins (or TNT for short), from 1:30pm until 2pm. At 2pm, we will have a chocolate tasting! Hope to see you all there!

We know that chocolate and Valentine’s Day go very well together, so we created a box of our favorite treats for you to give to your loved ones this holiday.

Our boxes include some of our favorite items from our new factory and cafe on Valencia Street. We included each of our own single-origin bars, from Ambanja, Madagascar; Elvesia, Dominican Republic; and Rio Caribe, Venezuela. In addition, our box also features treats from two local chocolatiers who use our Rio Caribe chocolate to make delicious confections for our retail space. We have chocolate covered nibs and caramelized almonds from Feve and chocolate covered shortbread cookies from Kika’s Treats. Shawn at Feve and Cristina at Kika’s Treats were two of our favorite neighbors in the Dogpatch. We’re very happy to collaborate with them now that we’ve moved to the Mission. And, they make our box of Valentine’s Day goodies that much more delicious!

This box is available for pick-up only. You can preorder a gift box in our online store until Wednesday evening. If you do place an order, please come pick up your box at 740 Valencia Street on February 14th, from 11 AM – 6 PM.

And! If you’d like to tuck a special note inside your box, Pam from Shotwell Paper Mill will be outside our factory and cafe from 12 PM – 5 PM on Thursday letterpress printing custom valentines on paper made from our cacao sacks! Her notes begin, “I love it when,” and you can finish the sentence with a message to your loved ones. All together, it should be a very special day here at Dandelion.

It seems like just the other day that we were telling you about our collaboration with 826 Valencia, a non-profit writing center founded in San Francisco that offers, among other things, free tutoring and writing workshops to students ages 6-18.

Now we’re excited to tell you about a new collaboration—this time, with McSweeney’s Publishing. McSweeney’s is an independent publishing house that was founded by author Dave Eggers, who is also the co-founder of 826 Valencia. (You can listen to Dave Eggers talk about 826 Valencia, their mission, and their connection to McSweeney’s in his 2008 TED talk.) Just like 826 Valencia, McSweeney’s is one of our neighbors in the Mission, and when they asked us to contribute to their annual holiday party, we were happy to oblige!

In celebration of new December publications by McSweeney’s, which include Lucky Peach issue 5 (a journal dedicated to food and writing), Timothy McSweeney’s Quarterly Concern issue 42 (an award-winning literary journal) and Beck’s Song Reader (Beck’s newest music album), McSweeney’s is hosting a holiday bash on Thursday, December 6 from 7-10 pm, at the Makeout Room in San Francisco.

They’ll have a live reading by author Paul Legault, whose newest collection, The Emily Dickinson Reader, was recently published by McSweeney’s. The reading will be followed by karaoke and dancing. There will be free holiday treats to enjoy, including our chocolate!

McSweeney’s has been kind enough to provide us with a limited number of complimentary tickets to the event, as well as gratis subscriptions to Lucky Peach magazine. We’ll be giving these away at our retail space with the purchase of $40 worth of chocolate starting this Friday, November 30.

Here’s the catch: You’ll get first dibs on your choice of either option (a pair of tickets or a year-long subscription to Lucky Peach) if you (1), include a copy of our 826 bundle in your purchase, or (2), casually mention to us how much you enjoy karaoke.

So whether you’re a McSweeney’s enthusiast, a Lucky Peach reader, or just a chocolate lover looking for a good time, please consider stopping by our space to get some holiday shopping done and receive some McSweeney’s goodies while you’re at it!

You can find a link to the McSweeney’s holiday party here.

In addition to our free ticket giveaway, tickets to the event can be purchased here.

For more information on all things McSweeney’s-related, please click here.

I hope you’re all thinking about turkey and pumpkin pie as this week winds down. But, when the festivities end, we have another reason to celebrate! We’ll be next door with our neighbors at Mission Cheese on the night of November 26th, pairing chocolate, cheese, and wine from Sutton Cellars. You’ll each be able to play and discover your favorite combinations, while we share some of our own picks. It promises to be a delicious night and we hope you’ll join us!

Here’s the event information: http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/296794. The Night Cheese tasting will take place on Monday, November 26th from 6:00 – 8:00 PM at Mission Cheese, 736 Valencia Street.

We’ve got a few fun events coming up pretty soon:

First, we will be at the Eat Real Festival this Friday – Sunday at Jack London Square in Oakland. Our booth will be at the Craft Marketplace and we’ll be doing a chocolate-making overview on Saturday. Lots of our food vendor friends will be there too. Check it out here.

And the weekend after (September 29th and 30th), Cam, Alice, and Lisa will be up in Seattle for Northwest Chocolate Festival. They’ll also be visiting our friends at Chocolopolis for a Meet the Maker tasting on Friday 9/28 from 2:30 – 4:30.

Here’s a video from last year’s festival, see if you can catch a quick glimpse of Cam:

Yesterday, I was lucky enough to give Cynthia a ride to and from the Mission Community Market. I stayed for a minute and quickly realized that she has a whole set of regulars who know her by name. She does a fantastic job at the market, meeting the people who will be our neighbors when we move to Valencia. Apparently the staff of MCM thinks so too. We were the “vendor of the week” yesterday, and the folks of MCM posted a really sweet note about Cynthia. They also published her recipe for strawberry nib salad. Personally, I’m excited to know that Cynthia bartered our chocolate for roasted almonds and promises to make her chocolate-covered almonds for snacks at the factory!

We’ve been pretty busy for the past few weeks making lots of chocolate for a very large order. But, we’re done(!) and looking forward to the rest of the summer. The opening of our space on Valencia is on the horizon and we’re doing lots of planning and prepping. It’s exciting and terrifying that the space will be ready within the next few months!

In addition, we’re working with our neighbors in the Mission and our neighbors in the Dogpatch on two great events this month. We’ll be teaming up with 18 Reasons and Pete Slosberg (of Pete’s Wicked Ale and Cocoa Pete’s) to host a beer and chocolate tasting on July 25 from 7-9 PM at 18 Reasons, 3674 18th Street. We’ll talk about the overlap between the processes of making the two foods and taste how well they work together. Tickets are available here.

We’ll also be showing off our current kitchen space as part of SF Made‘s Dogpatch factory tour on July 13 from 2-4 PM. On the tour, guests will stop by Maison de Monaco, Barbary Brix, Sutton Cellars, and our factory. It’s a great area, full of small businesses making beautiful products, and SF Made will make a perfect tour guide. Tickets for this event are available here.

We hope you can make it one of the two events, we’re looking forward to both!

Ken from Media59.com posted a quick video of Cam explaining Cacao at the SF Chocolate salon. Take a look:

One of the fun things about being at farmers’ markets is entering into serendipitous conversations with curious passers-by.  A couple weeks ago at the Noe Valley Farmer’s Market, Cam and I met a very nice man named Carlos who, intrigued by our signboard, came over for a closer look.  He tasted some of our chocolate, and then proceeded to recite (from memory!) a poem by Arnold Adoff.  The poem is included in a book of poetry dedicated to chocolate.  Called Chocolate Dreams, the collection is ostensibly meant for children, but I think it can (and should) be appreciated by anyone who enjoys chocolate, poetry, humor, or any combination of these things.

Mr. Arnold Adoff was kind enough to grant us permission to share the poem with you in its entirety.  A big thank-you to Carlos for bringing it to our attention, and an even bigger thank-you to Mr. Adoff for writing such lovely poems in the first place!

Her
She
Bar
 

Far
Star
I
See
You
Shining
Brown
In
My
Dark
And
Hungry
Sky

I
Wink
Back
Once
And
Fly
To
Meet
Your
Melt

Reproduced with permission from Arnold Adoff’s Chocolate Dreams.  New York: Lothrop, Lee & Shepard Books, 1989.  Please visit Arnold Adoff’s website for more information about the poet.

Come by and impress us with your artistic, musical or literary love for chocolate!  Alternatively, just come by to say hello.  You can find us at the Mission Community Market every Thursday from 4-8pm, and at the Noe Valley Farmers’ Market every Saturday from 8am-1pm.