Episode 1
A Crust and Fudgy Center, with Amanda Garcia of NeoCocoa
December 15th, 2018
28 mins 15 secs
Your Hosts
Special Guest
About this Episode
Amanda Garcia joins us to explore the value of attending school to get experience—and confidence—vs. getting into the industry early. Amanda—who fell in love with chocolate while attending pastry school—shares her thoughts on learning the fundamentals, and the difficulty of getting into a kitchen without kitchen experience, then reflects on missing out on "home economics" class as an "older" millennial. She looks forward five years and the impact of living in the Bay Area on her plans. We explore food and flavor pairings, where Amanda opines on about pumpkin spice and other "trends". In the quick fire round, we force impossible choices, and end the episode recapping what we learned.
Links and Show Notes
- International Culinary Center
- Home Ec(onomics) class
- Millennials
- Stage — An unpaid internship when a cook or chef works briefly, for free, in another chef's kitchen to learn and be exposed to new techniques and cuisines.
- Black Sesame Brittle
- Double Chocolate Marshmallow Squares
- A reminder: "don't get high on your own supply"—Scarface
- Dandelion Chocolate
- Bean to Bar — "Many of the companies selling bean-to-bar chocolate also care about quality, sustainability, and transparency. What’s more, they believe bean-to-bar models can support them in this. It enables traceability which helps them to be aware of the production and processing practices, ensure best practices are followed, and understand how workers are being treated."
- Making Chocolate: From Bean to Bar to S'more by Dandelion Chocolates
- Pumpkin (pie) Spice
- Terroir — "Some artisanal crops for which terroir is studied include wine, coffee, tobacco, chocolate, chili peppers, hops, agave (for making tequila and mezcal), tomatoes, heritage wheat, maple syrup, tea, and cannabis."
- "Gastropod looks at food through the lens of science and history."
- Small Town Murder — "Two comedians look at a small town, what makes it tick, and a murder that took place there. In depth research, horrible tragedy, and the hosts' comedic spin on the whole thing."
- Reading books vs. audiobooks
- Duncan Hines brownie mix
- Julia Child
Our thanks to Amanda for joining us. You can find her on Twitter (@cocoalibris) and Instagram (@chocamanda).
Thank you for listening. You can follow us on Twitter:
or email us at lettucerwrappod@gmail.com.
That’s a wrap!
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