Post Valentine's Day Food

Valentine's Day chocolate and candies are delicious. But the extra pounds you can put on from them is not.  To recover you might exercise or go on a water diet.

Delicious sweet peppers on a bed of butter lettuce grown by QV Farms,
Loxahatchee, Fla.
Copyright 2015 by Helen A Lockey

But you'd be better off eating some Florida grown vegetables like the ones from QV Farms in Loxahatchee.

I absolutely adore their sweet peppers, pictured above, and eat as many as I can before the end of the growing season in April or May depending on the year.

You can purchase these peppers at the Sunday morning Palm Beach Gardens Green Market from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. And when you go, say, "Hi," to farmer Jon from me.

Grin Real Nature GFruit Soursop In Glass, Miami, Fla.

The new super-food soursop or guanabana now comes in glass. This is significant because until recently the only choice was frozen, sugar added products. “No one has it like this,” said Alan Melillo of Grin Real Nature GFruit, lifting up a glass bottle, from the shelf behind him, at the 18^th Americas Food & Beverage Show in Miami Beach, last year.

Glass jarred, fresh soursop from Grin Real Nature GFruit,
at 18th Americas Food & Beverage Show, Miami, Fla.
Copyright 2014 by Helen A Lockey

His product is preservative-free, low pasteurized, vegan, GMO-free, gluten-free and sugar-free.

GFruit packs the soursop with its seeds to extend its freshness. “Keeping the authenticity of the stuff is very important to us,” Melillo said with a smile, adding that soursop bruises easily.

The low pasteurization method ensures the fruit retains as many of its health benefits as possible like vitamin C & B, Thiamin and Riboflavin.

And in keeping with the idea of benefits, “Growers are part of the company. They are shareholders,” said Melillo.

Soursop has a delicious tart yet sweet flavor similar to pineapple mixed with a slight bit of musk.

From left to right: Sabrina Ruz, Alan Melillo and Felix Bobe of
Grin Real Nature GFruit, 18th Americas Food & Beverage
Show, Miami, Fla.
Copyright 2014 by Helen A Lockey

Grin Real Nature GFruit soursop/guanabana/graviola is available at seven Florida stores according to their website. If you live outside of Florida do not despair because GFruit can be shipped to anywhere in the world from their website https://grinrealnature.com/products/gfruit/

NOTE: You have to refrigerate opened jars and eat the fruit within 10 days because there are no preservatives.

Wine & Chocolate Tastings, Crush Wine Bar, Stuart, Fla.

Stuart, Fla. – Forget wine and cheese pairings, wine and chocolate are better. This past November, Crush Wine Bar and single-origin small-batch American craft Castronovo Chocolate joined forces in Stuart, Florida, for a night of wine and chocolate tasting.

Mario Babino and Denise Castronovo at wine & chocolate tasting,
Crush Wine Bar, Stuart, Fla.
Copyright 2014 by Helen A Lockey

“Denise & Jim will go around and pass the chocolate,” said Mario Babino, co-owner of Crush Wine Bar.

“We spent three days prepping. Our tastes may not be your taste. You might not like it but don’t tell us,” said Babino pausing for affect.

The thirsty foodie audience laughed.

“No, really, enjoy,” Babino said, with a smile.

Jim Castronovo, co-owner of Castronovo Chocolate, walked to the center of the room and said, “We have huge variations in our chocolate. Denise is the chocolate maker,” he said, pointing to his bubbly blond wife. “We are trying to bring American craft chocolate up to the standard of European chocolate,” he added.

Single-origin cacao bean chocolate made by Castronovo
Chocolate's bean-to-bar chocolate factory, Stuart, Fla.
Copyright 2014 by Helen A Lockey

The featured chocolate of the night was made with rare cacao, heirloom, wild harvested, Sierra Nevada beans.

The trees were abandoned long ago, according to Jim Castronovo. They grow between three and six thousand feet in the mountains of Columbia. Dry trade winds keep fungus away from the trees.

Castronovo Chocolate pays indigenous people to travel by mule to harvest the cacao pods.

“I asked, ‘How long does it take?’ They said, “One to two tobaccos,’” said Denise, adding tobacco meant cigars. The audience laughed with delight.

Other chocolate companies don’t want to bother with the pods, according to Denise,  because it takes too long.

“When it is in the grinder, it looks like the clay soils of Georgia,” said Denise.

The cacao bean has a natural sweet caramel taste that comes through both in a dark and dark-milk 63 percent chocolate style. The dark milk chocolate version was deliciously served with Evodia Grenach wine from Spain.

Crush Wine Bar and Castronovo Chocolate plan to have more tastings in the future.

NOTE: Castronovo Chocolate's Rare Cacoa Collection ~ Sierra Nevada dark-milk 63 percent chocolate won a silver medal at the 2014 International Chocolate Awards World Final Tasting in London. And took a bronze award at the Americas 2014 Semi-finals Single-Origin Milk Category.

Crush Wine Bar is located at 100 S. Dixie Hwy., Stuart, FL 34994

Phone (772) 600-5836