Have you visited a chocolate factory? Have you visited an artisan chocolate factory? Well there is one right here in Raleigh - Escazu! And when I say artisan, I mean they hand craft their chocolate from scratch, as in the cacao bean. Exotic flavors like strawberry balsamico swirl around you as you enter and peruse the delicate and intricately designed chocolates. Each one seems like an individual piece of art.
Escazu has been in Raleigh since 2006. Hallot Parson, the head chocolate maker, is a native North Carolinian who comes from a background as a
Chef in Aspen, NY and Dallas. Danielle, the chocolatier in charge of
confections is a Venezuelan Native and is instrumental in obtaining the best beans from that country.
We visited Escazu thanks to Alice, the Carillon Activities Director who I have written about in a prior post. She makes each trip special for her residents, and the residents reciprocate in various ways. This time residents on the trip were from Asheville, Rolesville, Wendell and Zebulon, all in North Carolina and mostly local, bar one who is originally from the town of Garrison on the Hudson River across from United States Military Academy in West Point, NY. Mrs. B and Alice exchanged ideas of how to create more fun at the community.
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| Escazu - Artisan Chocolates in downtown Raleigh |
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| Ooh la la... |
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| Choosing getting interesting! |
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| Giving the connoisseurs plenty of room |
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| Antique Scale |
Then there was Mr A, who used to take tour groups across the country. Here's an audio snippet of how he entertained us on the bus! Listening to him was simply amazing; his wife talked about how he would draw this one bird closer to him in his backyard with his calls. Wow!
