Sugar Savvy

I love trying new candy. So when the opportunity to trade with a fellow candy lover in Australia came up, I knew I had to jump on it. Out of the many treats I received, this small packed of The Natural Confectionery Co’s Fruit Chews was amongst them.
I found the simple and child-like packaging interesting […]

While mentally cataloging my favorite sweet treats I realized that many of them come from small stores that survive on local business. Here are three of my favorite chocolate places in Sydney. They are all specialty shops, selling chocolate by weight. The busiest times for chocolate stores are from Christmas up until Mother’s Day. […]

Pods. If I were to create a chocolate named Pods I would make chocolate eggs, which when you cracked them open a white chocolate alien would fall out, amidst a sea of M&Ms, like an alien explosion. A wasted opportunity unfortunately, Pods are actually chocolate wafer bowls filled with milk chocolate with a center of […]

Sam Madell is a chocolate purist. At her Australian chocolate company Tava, she produces a 100%-cacao bar using beans she and her partner Langdon Stevenson purchase directly from growers and collectives on the South Pacific island of Vanuatu. Over a lengthy email conversation, Sam and I discovered that we have something in common: we’re both, […]

An alluring spokeswoman for the Max Brenner chocolate company in Australia recently implored me to join her for an orchid hot chocolate, swearing by the floral beverage’s aphrodisiac properties.  Since orchids are the source of countless fascinations and fixations (and even phobias, I’m told), this seemed like a stirring topic for Sugar Savvy’s hot chocolate column.  […]

If the wintering of the northern hemisphere isn’t enough to put me in a bad mood, the frigid clouds that have blown in over what’s supposed to be spring here in southern Australia will do the job. Luckily, an out-of-town guest has kept me in good spirits, and my mood was especially lifted when we […]