It all started in front of the TV on Susan Melowsky’s sick day. Chocolate featured on the Cooking Channel inspired Melowsky to dream up the first Cincinnati Chocolate Festival of 2010, which turned into a project of the Isaac M. Wise Temple Sisterhood. Others say the Chocolate Festival really started as a competition with the very popular Isaac M. Wise Temple’s Brotherhood chicken soup cook off. Whatever the true impetus the Festival has been vastly successful with over 2500 in attendance in 2010 and double that this past October.
Even though the scale differed, the New York Chocolate Show had already fortified me for the inevitable lines and the crowds at Xavier University’s Cintas Center. I loved meeting pastry chef Summer Genetti at her cooking demo. Not only is she a longtime friend of our Cincinnati family, she also knows how to make that fantastic The Egg dessert of Le Bernardin. In a very expert, concise presentation she clipped the top of the egg, cleaned the shells, and prepped the savory version for that day. When Mark and I first saw The Egg delivered to tables at our lunch celebration at Le Bernardin a year ago, I thought the gentleman at the neighboring table must have had an upset stomach and needed a poached egg to sooth it. Surprise. The Egg arrived at our table as well as a pre-dessert with multiple rich flavors of chocolate, caramel, maple and sea salt, a prelude to the mousses, ice creams and mini-cookies. Summer made it look so simple.
The Chocolate Festival’s first year engaged over 200 volunteers, including a few “good men,” and grossed over $50,000 from corporate sponsors, a silent auction, advertisements, venders and admissions. The financial gains benefited a number of local charities including: YWCA Battered Women’s Shelter, South Avondale School, Interfaith Hospitality Network, The Bedtime Bundles Program and others.
I look forward to seeing how next year’s Festival grows!
