Chocolatier Blue makes "green" chocolates. Chef Chris Blue sounds passionate when he shares the eco-friendly philosophy behind his molded chocolates:
• There are no artificial extracts or flavorings. "Why would someone want to use artificial lemon flavoring, when all he has to do is squeeze it out of a lemon?"
• There are no artificial preservatives, so these chocolates have a shelf life of only seven to 10 days. "I will not eat anything that's been sitting on a shelf for two years."
• The coloring is made from fruits and vegetables, such as spinach and beets.
• The chocolate is single-origin, from the El Ray company of Venezuela.
• The cream comes fresh from a family farm in Nebraska where the cows are grass-fed and graze on pesticide-free land. The cows are milked in the natural habitat instead of indoors, so they don't get stressed.
• The organic butter comes from California and boasts the "highest butterfat content in the world," according to Blue.
• The pumpkins, apples, cranberries, mint, pears and pecans used in the candies are from Utah family farms. "We've gone to farmers markets to find the best organic fruit," Blue said.
• The 25 flavors change with the season. "If you're eating a raspberry chocolate in December, there's something very wrong. You should be afraid of eating that chocolate. Any strawberry you find right now has been grown in a greenhouse, and it has no flavor."
• The simple-but-stylish boxes and inserts are made from recycled materials and soy ink. "There's a lot of bad chocolate out there dressed up in fancy packaging."
• He uses cotton cloths in his kitchen instead of paper towels.
His butter-smooth ganache comes in unusual flavors, such as pumpkin pie, Granny Smith apple pie, cranberry, and peanut butter and jelly. Have Utahns embraced any in particular?
"The kiwi caramel was surprising," he said. "People see the roasted pear and say, 'Ooh, I don't know,' but once they try it, they come back for more."
Blue, a graduate of the French Pastry School in Chicago, honed his skills as assistant pastry chef and chocolatier at Charlie Trotter's, the five-star Chicago restaurant that has garnered numerous awards.
"That's where I started seeing the difference in using fresh ingredients, in season," he said.
After a stint with the Norman Love Confections in Florida, he and his fiancee, Jessica Steeve, decided to open their own business with a green approach. Steeve said the couple scouted the United States for a quaint, small-shop setting. Being near Sundance Resort, which sells Blue's chocolates, is also a plus. In Utah, the chocolates are also sold at Caputo's Market & Deli, but his biggest customer is Charlie Trotter's To Go, a Chicago gourmet food store and deli that's an offshoot of the restaurant. "Usually that's a very difficult place to get into, because he (Trotter) scrutinizes everything. It's something we're really proud of."
Blue said he can make 2,400 pieces of chocolate in a day. He's not planning to expand beyond that amount. "It took me eight years to perfect this. I don't consider myself a good teacher, so it would take me 12 years to teach someone else to do it."
E-mail: vphillips@desnews.com