Mrs. Cavenaugh's Chocolate Factory Tour

Because I love chocolate so much, I took another factory tour with my family and friends.  This time we toured Mrs. Cavenaugh's Chocolate Factory, a local "Mom and Pop Shop" located in Salt Lake City.

Mrs. Cavenaugh is a real person.  She began making chocolates by simply experimenting with her family's recipes.  After giving them her own unique flare, she began making them for neighbors.  She quickly gained recognition and popularity, so she decided to go for her dream and sell her confections.  In 1964, she took out a $15,000 loan, even though the banker seriously doubted her success.  But she gave him a box of her chocolates as a "token of thanks" (or bribe?).  He opened them at once and proceeded to eat the entire box.  He loved them so much that he became her very first customer, ordering 200 pounds of chocolate when she opened her shop!

Upon entering the factory, we watched Lori hand-tempering some molten chocolate in preparation for dipping almond clusters.

 It was really fun to watch her literally pick up the liquid chocolate and drop it back down onto the granite stone to cool it to the perfect temperature.  Then we watched her mix in the almonds and drop clumps of it into candy papers.

Have you ever seen that I Love Lucy episode, where she gets a job at the chocolate factory?  Yeah, it's just like that...  (Unfortunately, I couldn't find the one of her dipping chocolate, but this part is still really funny!)

The Top 10 Things I Learned:
1.  The factory makes about 100,000 pounds of chocolate each year.

2.  Mrs. Cavenaugh's most popular item is the Mindy Mint, but the Cherry Cordial is the most popular item sold online.

3.  The Aztec Chief Montezuma supposedly drank 50 cups of dark chocolate liquid every day.  Hmmmm... I wonder how much he weighed?

4.  Liquid chocolate is called Chocolate Liquor, even though it is not alcoholic.  Wait!  Maybe that's why I go into a drunken stupor after eating chocolate!!!  Bring it on!!!

5.  I LOVE I Love Lucy (they showed the Chocolate Dipping Episode at the end of the tour).

6.  Cacao is more successfully grown on small farms rather than on large plantations because they can't handle too much sun.

7.  It takes 5-7 days to dry cocoa beans.

8.  The Spanish learned about the warm chocolate liquid Montezuma drank, tried it, took it back to Spain and added milk and sugar to make it more palatable.  Smart thinkin'!

9.  Only 10% of the cacao pods growing on a tree actually mature into "fruit."

Caramel Popcorn cooling on the fourth table from the front

10.  Marie employed all of her kids in the family business and called them "The Youngest Dippers in Captivity."

The original cash register.  Might be a little out dated now...

Question of the Day:

Have you ever seen I Love Lucy?  What is your favorite episode?

Mine:

This was the first time I had ever seen it, but I was laughing so hard I almost fell off the bench I was sitting on!  I'm still laughing about it!

La Ney Ferme Tour

A few days ago, my mom, a few family friends, my grand parents, and I got to tour a local veggie farm (that's what I call a farm that doesn't have animals) called La Ney Ferme.

It was neat to see how different ways of planing plants can effect their growth.  For instance, he had some plants planted inside mini "caves" or "tunnels" and others planted in normal garden beds.  The plants in the tunnel things grew quicker and faster than the crops growing outside.  It was quite interesting to see how the peas grown in the tunnel were about 3 feet taller than the peas growing outside... and they were even all planted at the same time!!!

My mom gets a lot of produce from the farm we toured.  I'm going to have to say that the strawberries are so good when they are fresh!!!

It's amazing how the "good stuff" at the store tastes absolutely terrible compared to fresh produce from a farm.

Question of the day:
What has been your favorite tour you've ever participated in?

Mine:
There is this ride at Disney World called Living with the Land (sounds boring right?).  You get in a boat contraption thing and it talks about plants and "living with the land/living green".  Anywho, it has an amazing garden place where they grow plants in different ways to see how somethings might grow better than others.  But my mom was able to get us into a behind the scene tour of the place it was absolutely AMAZING!!!

Here are a few pictures from that tour: