Editor's pick: Culinary art

Piquing the palate with fine chocolate

Fri., Aug. 26, 6:30 p.m. at La Shed du Fred, lower Main Street, Callicoon, NY. 845/887-4040.

Sight and hearing are not the only faculties to which artists can appeal. There is also the sense of the palate, and it is addressed by the art of cooking.

Olga Pchelintseva of Koroleva Chocolates, who has become a master at that most self-indulgent subset of the culinary art, the making of fine chocolate candies, will visit La Shed du Fred on August 26 to discuss and demonstrate this art in part three of “Indulgences: Chocolate @ the Library,” sponsored by the Delaware Free Library.

Pchelintseva’s interest in chocolates developed as a sublimation of her passion for music. Born in Russia, she is a devotee of the piano who was disabled for a while from practicing music by an injured finger. She assuaged her artistic instincts while her finger was healing by learning how to make chocolates and has since consolidated her skills by study at the Culinary Institute of America.

At this week’s session at La Shed du Fred, Pchelintseva will focus on “ganache,” a type of filling made out of chocolate and cream. She will also deal at some length with perhaps the trickiest part of the making of filled chocolate candies: the tempering of the coating. This is a procedure involving just the right type and amount of heating in just the right order to make the chocolate the smooth, creamy consistency it must be to coat the fillings perfectly. Cheaper candies avoid the need for tempering by using chocolate in which the cocoa butter is replaced with other oils; Pchelintseva will explain how to create the coatings with a true chocolate. This should be an ideal event for those who believe that eating as well as listening and seeing are avenues to the soul.