A real meltdown in the Placer County city of Colfax, as a semi-truck carrying 40,000 pounds of chocolate burst into flames early this morning on I-80, and that 40,000 pounds of chocolate is still sitting there in the sun.

If you’re a fan of chocolate, be aware that there is 40,000 pounds of chocolate just sitting there melting in the sun on the side of Interstate 80, some 50 miles north of Sacramento. But that chocolate has been charred in a fire, and you cannot access it as emergency crews respond to the aftermath of a semi-trailer truck carrying 40,000 pounds of chocolate catching on fire early Monday morning, according to KCRA.

“CAL FIRE/ Placer County Fire Department Firefighters responded to a commercial vehicle fire on Interstate 80 and Highway 174 just before 4:30 this morning,” the CAL FIRE Nevada Yuba Placer Unit says in a Facebook post. “The semi was hauling 40 thousand pounds of chocolate. Firefighters held the fire to the trailer with no [extension] to the wild land.”

KCRA was at the site for the above video, and you can see the 40,000 pounds sitting in the sun. “There’s no telling yet exactly what they’re going to do with all this chocolate,” KCRA’s Melanie Wingo reports. “That remains to be seen.”

That station adds that the truck was traveling westbound on I-80 when its brakes caught fire. The driver was able to detach the trailer from the truck, and the thousands of pounds of chocolate were removed and are still sitting by the side of I-80.

There is one lane of westbound traffic moving on the interstate. KPIX reports that one lane of interstate remains closed, though it is expected to reopen by 3 p.m. Monday afternoon.

Thankfully, according to KRON4, there were no injuries in this blazing chocolate truck disaster.

Related: Big Rig Full of Shrimp Catches Fire on Dumbarton Bridge, Shuts Down Traffic For Eight Hours [SFist]

Image: CAL FIRE NEU via Facebook

With the departures of Joseph Schmidt and Scharffen Berger, chocolatiers who each had local operations before buyouts from Hershey's, the Bay Area's status as a sweet-toothed capital was in question. Not for long, of course, as cutting edge confectioners peddling their sugary wares have quickly joined the ranks of historic operations like Ghirardelli, the nation's third-oldest chocolate maker. These days, a confluence of forces from the culinary to the entrepreneurial have sweetened the scene to new heights, and if you aren't engaging in one of these SFist recommended solo Valentine's Day activities, we recommend you treat yoself to a box of sweets from these shops. Or, of course, you could give them to a loved one, but where's the fun in that?

Chocolate Covered
This charming little shop is every Noe Valleyan's go-to spot for sweet tooth-soothing, featuring probably the largest selection in town of locally made chocolate. They've also got plenty of other bars from American "bean-to-bar" manufacturers, as well as assortments of chocolate from around the world. Owner Jack Epstein knows his chocolate, and you can learn more from this 2011 Bold Italic piece that featured the store.— Jay Barmann
4069 24th Street between Castro and Noe Streets

Dandelion Chocolate
Since 2012, Mission District-based "bean-to-bar chocolate factory" Dandelion Chocolate has been where choosy candy bar eaters have sought unique small-batch treats. Founded by former tech guys/Stanford buddies Todd Masonis and Cameron Ring (they started online address book Plaxo with Sean Parker, then sold it to Comcast for an estimated $150 million), Dandelion is known for their uniquely smooth and nuanced-in-flavor chocolate — seekers of wacky flavored, super sweet stuff should look elsewhere. Warning: their bars aren't cheap, at between $8-$12, or a three-bar pack at $20. So, probably not a daily thing for most of us, but as a special treat it's unparalleled. — Eve Batey
Factory and Cafe is located at 740 Valencia Street at 18th Street, bars are available across SF and online

Photo: Facebook

Victorgrigas via Wikimedia Commons

Giddy
We told you about this place a couple months back, and it's a cute new little candy shop in the Castro that features a bunch of nice local and/or artisanal chocolate products that your foodinista boyfriend/girlfriend will likely be thrilled by. There's also plenty of other stuff, like pate de fruits, malted milk balls, and hard candy, and prices aren't bad either. — Jay Barmann
2299-B Market Street at Noe

Hooker's Sweet Treats

Photo courtesy of Miette.

Recchiuti Confections

See's Classic Red Heart with Assorted Chocolates

PureNotes Dark “Nutty” 65% 120x8g bars from TCHO

Candy bars are meant to be consumed during your walk from the liquor store to your apartment's front door. Typically after having too many beers. But what about an $11 candy bar? When we came across Coracoa's Caramel Bar (81% raw cacao, if you're an asshole) at Small Foods in South Park, we couldn't resist.

First, we know that, according to many, our first reaction at that price should've been disgust. Anger. We should have shook our head at the over San Francisco's twisted relationship with food. But we didn't. We felt neither horror nor ire. If anything, the $11 price tag—sitting there nonchalantly, acting like it didn't do anything—intrigued us. "I bet that's what'll finally make us happy," we thought. Bullshit's siren song. It's like the clothing items up on the wall at Crossroads. We're drawn to those pieces, leaving behind the pit-stained Banana Republic and Diesel for you. Things that cost more are better and thus make you a better person, or so we'd like to believe.

Anyway, we bought it. Ate it. Enjoyed it pretty damn quick. Did not savor it. (Savoring chocolate is for women in Dove Chocolate commercials.) And we can report that, alas, it didn't taste like $11. The candy bar, made by Emeryville's Coraco Confections, boasts organic raw cacao, cashew butter, organic coconut palm sugar, "wild-crafted vanilla bean," yacon syrup, and Himalayan crystal salt. The candy bar was pleasant. Gritty but smooth caramel, with a deep chocolate taste. It tasted like sustainability. It tasted like Caramello's wealthy cousin that goes to UCSC.

According to an employee at Small Foods, Coracoa's Caramel Bar does sell pretty well. Makes sense, we suppose, since the quaint neighborhood turns into a tech-industry feeding frenzy at lunch hour. So if you've got money to burn, buy it. Just make sure people see you eating it. Otherwise, what's the point?

Previously: Would You Pay $11 for a Pint of Juice?

If you're having a hankering for insects or mealworms this afternoon, you may want to stop by the Ferry Building where such snacks are now available in handy snack pouches from the La Cocina kiosk.

Don Bugito, the "Prehispanic snackeria" that is a business launched by Monica Martinez with the help of La Cocina's incubator program, specializes in using insects as food. Adventurous foodies around town have already tried things like her wax moth larvae tacos at the S.F. Street Food Festival, and now she's packaged up other treats like chocolate-covered salted crickets, and spicy "superworms" (mealworms) that are chile-lime spiked, as Zagat reports.

We are a little scared to try them ourselves, but other have earlier described the wax moth larvae as "mild" and "crispy," and this naturopathic doctor says that crickets are "like any other crunchy snack" and a bag of them "can be as addicting as a bag of potato chips."

And as Martinez assures us, eating bugs is "super healthy, both for people and the planet."

[Zagat]

On Saturday, June 15th, Hog & Rocks bar manager and scribe Michael Lazar (Left Coast Libations: The Art of West Coast Bartending)will join chocolatier Lisa Gallinger (Dandelion Chocolate) for an afternoon of chocolate and bourbon tasting, and explore how the two go together swimmingly.

Tickets, running at $40 each, can be found here. Space is limited. The tasting starts promptly at 3:45 pm. (Speaking of booze, did you know that San Francisco has had a major jump in alcoholism? Read SF Examiner for more harrowing details. Sorry to harsh your buzz.)

Hi-Lo: 3416 19th Street (at Mission), S.F., (415) 874-9921

The last time we caught up with Salty Sweet, we mainlined their salt-dusted chocolate chip cookies. We unofficially declared them the best cookies in San Francisco. Really, they are some of the best we have ever tasted. Even noted SF Examiner restaurant critic Jesse Hirsch (who will depart California to write about modern farming) agreed to their deliciousness. Now Salt Sweet founder and pastry maven Melissa Cohen offers Matzo Crack. Just in time for Passover!

Basically, Matzo Crack is like a superb yet pliable toffee made on top of sheets of matzo. Crack-like in its addictive qualities, she describes her latest concoction thusly: "Caramel is cooked until just before it becomes burnt, slathered on top of matzo and baked until crisp. It's then covered in dark chocolate and sprinkled with sea salt to make matzo magic."

Ingredients are simple: Matzo (wheat flour, water), butter, sugar, chocolate, salt, and vanilla. And just like the Salty Sweet cookies, you can order it at Good Eggs. Items can be picked up at Salty Sweet's Dolores Park headquarters or at Kitchener in Oakland. You can even have them delivered to you via Muchery.

Sure, we're Valentine's Day-adjacent, when all thoughts, especially retail and commercial, turn to chocolate. And yes, when has chocolate not been trendy ... in my mouth? We can't help but notice, though, that fancy chocolate in San Francisco has reached a tipping point that threatens to jump the shark, if the shark were made of the finest sustainably-sourced cocoa nibs.

There's the recent return of Charles Chocolates with a 7,600-square-foot candy kitchen and retail space on Florida Street where $2 artisan chocolates rub shoulders with fudgesicles and something called a "Chocolate snacking cake". Then there's Valencia Street's Dandelion Chocolate, where a "bean to bar" philosophy means each bar is packaged by hand and a rare cacao fruit smoothie will run you $7. Then there's Recchiuti Chocolate Lab in the Dogpatch, where sweets, savories and drinks supplement the chocolately focus (and where you can order an "Asphalt Jungle Revolution" - Recchiuti's dragées of chocolate covered almonds, hazelnuts, cherries and dark chocolate malted milk balls).

And that's just places that have opened in the four months. There's Poco Dolce, Socola Chocolatier and dozens of other chocolate purveyors have been up and running in the city for a while. And we owe 1/3 [author estimate] of all our city's tourism revenue to out-of-towners spending yuan at Ghiradelli.

For any other food trend that takes the city by storm (ahem, cupcakes), there's an inevitable backlash. Do we really need all these sweet treats? Who buys this stuff anyway? But we're happy to see local chocolatiers bouncing back to fill the shoes of Joseph Schmidt and Scharffen Berger, both of which had Bay Area operations before being acquired by Hershey. The more chocolate, the merrier, as far as I'm concerned. Ain't no room for hate on my plate.

As the holidays arrive so do sweet chocolate treats to help you chase away the existential Christmas blues. Jardinière, for example, now serves hot chocolate for the holidays, and they're calling it Hot Chocolate No. 5 (no relation to Coco's noted perfume). Drink it straight or pair it with Casa Noble Reposado for an adult beverage treat.

Hot Chocolate No. 5 is cream based, made with premium brand chocolate, house made cayenne pepper, topped with Taza Chocolate, and served with churros and dulce de leche on the side. See? Pretty good stuff. An excellent way to spend a chilly evening in Hayes Valley before or after the symphony or opera.

Jardinière, 300 Grove (at Franklin), SF, 415-861-5555

While San Francisco is home to the finest food, it's also home to some of the laziest food criticism. Each overheard tidbit can come off as painful as the nuggets of cinematic turd uttered by the pretentious schlub in Annie Hall (we're guilty of this too, by the way). For example: "Vodka is terrible," "the Mission has the best Mexican," "heirloom tomatoes and Kraft Singles don't go together," "burritos are good," and most egregiously, "milk chocolate is trash." Lazy all around. But the latter point we could never wrap our head or our heart around.

How could something so critical to the taste and glee of youth get such a bad wrap? Enter SF Chronicle's Emily Luchetti, James Beard Award-winning pastry chef. She defends the milkiness with a gentle break down in her debut column as the new author of "The Baker."

Among common arguments against milk chocolate, Luchetti notes that "[t]oo much sugar and poor-quality milk are the major factors in inferior milk chocolate," adding, "[m]ilk chocolate isn't your grandmother's chocolate any more. It's not one dimensional. Dark and milk chocolates are like apples and oranges, and can be appreciated for what they are." According to some sweet study, as reported in Sunday's column, Americans prefer milk chocolate 3 to 1. In the Bay Area, however, we crave dark chocolate in larger numbers. While we personally love a nice dark chocolate (encasing peanut butter or caramel, ideally, for we are only human), there truly are some great milks out there -- Scharffen Berger and Tcho most notably.

Like a beacon of foil-wrapped hoped, Luchetti reveals her two favorite milk chocolates:

Two of my favorite brands are locally made - Guittard and Tcho. Gary Guittard of Guittard Chocolate says it's harder to make a good milk chocolate than dark chocolate because of the variables and the need for high temperatures to encourage caramelization and develop the dairy flavor.

[...]

Tcho offers a couple of milk chocolate products, including SeriousMilk Cacao, with the minimum amount of milk allowed. Brad Kintzer, the company's chief chocolate maker, likens the taste to dark chocolate ice cream. The chocolate is intense, but the dairy component is prominent, too.

She also doles out choice tips for baking with chocolate (don't use chips!) and places in San Francisco in which to buy said sweet saviors of milk chocolate. Read the entire thing now, and then stop complaining about wonderful chocolate in all of its forms, you bloated cacao percentageists.

[SFGate]

Your San Francisco Giants held their annual Media Day at AT&T Park on Thursday. While there this morning, we came across two noteworthy items: Virgin American's Brian Wilson airplane and the s'mores sandwich. The latter will be available to you on opening day. Until then, feast your pupils on this mighty sandwich that boasts drippy Ghirardelli Chocolate and pillow-sized marshmallows. You're welcome.

Other new menu items for the 2012-13 season will include chicken pot pie, lamb hamburgers, a healthy snack pack (if you must), and an Anchor Brewing Island.

It's a forlorn time of year for chocolate lovers: that heart-shaped box from Valentine's Day has nothing but a dented caramel-raspberry-pistachio truffle left in it, while it's too early to break in to the Easter Candy and maintain any self-respect. Luckily it's time for the San Francisco Chocolate Salon on Sunday, your chance to stroll around Herbst Pavilion at Fort Mason and sample a wide range of chocolates and booze, plus catch a variety of demos and panels with some TV demi-celebs. Try not to overdo it, though. Easter will be here before you know it. More pictures from last year's chocolate mayhem are here.

San Francisco Chocolate Salon
Sunday, March 4, 10:00 a.m. - 6:00 p.m
$25 adults in advance, discounts for kids
Herbst Pavilion, Fort Mason

Welcome to Corner Store Food Critic, where we select an item typically found at any number of corner stores in San Francisco, bring said item home in a carefully wrapped bag, and then taste it in private. Seeing as how that, in a pinch, many of us eat entire meals bought solely at barely-lit corner markets and liquor stores, we now see it as our duty to examine the crud you shove down your throat during moments of drunken weakness or sheer hunger/laziness. That tin of deviled ham? Hellacious-looking Rockstar derivative? Bizarre Skittles flavor concoction? New Hot Pocket flavor? Those bottles of viscous water with chunks of aloe plant floating inside? We'll cover that and more. In this edition, we get our paws on Yorkie, a sexist chocolate bar.

There's a special place in heaven for local corner store owners who stock a wide variety of Cadbury, Kinder, and European-y Nestlé candies. Such treats they are when compared to the Snickers and Skittles and Milky Ways littering store shelves. We always stock up when we stumble into a store selling the comparatively rare candies.

During a recent visit to a liquor store on 19th Avenue and Noriega -- we're in the Outer Sunset each Saturday due to our semi-regular morning Saturday jog from SFsit HQ in SOMA to Quan Ngon for pho and imperial rolls, not that you asked -- the Cadbury's Yorkie screamed out to us as we waited in line at the cash register.

The tagline? "Yorkie -- it's not for girls!"

We had to buy it, obviously. No girls allowed? Sign us up. But... why, exactly, wasn't it for girls, we wondered. Will the Yorkie bar add shine and luster to our penis? Does it gently exfoliate the Y chromosome? Would it shave years off our adam's apple? We had to know.

After tearing it open and inhaling it in seconds, it's pretty much your basic milk chocolate bar perforated into six segments. The way most average chocolate bars land on the tongue, it's fairly tasty yet chalky. Unmemorable too. According to Wikipedia, the bar was created in 1976 by Eric Nicoli who "spotted a gap in the confectionery market and used the cheap cocoa from Rowntree's favourable futures market position to launch Yorkie." (Think of it as the grappa of Cadbury chocolates, if you will.)

Avert your eyes, ladies. Here's what the Yorkie looks like inside:

We still couldn't figure out why it's cheekily marketed towards dudes and not dames. But, as Wikipedia goes on to explain, the bar's anti-female sentiment ruffled some crinolines in 2001.

In 2001, the advertisement campaign made this more explicit with the slogan and wrapper tagline It's not for girls, which caused controversy. Nestlé also received complaints about this campaign from Norwegian and UK people who found it sexist and distasteful. Special versions for use in Ministry of Defence ration packs read It's not for civvies.

Could be worse, though. Much worse. Food marketed towards women tends to be more offensive and harmful.

PREVIOUSLY: Tapatío Doritos
Milano Melts

Keep an eye out for more tasty V-Day treats in the coming weeks!

by Aislinn Fletcher

Valentine’s Day is fast approaching and the obligatory heart shaped candy boxes are on the shelves in overwhelming numbers.

You may not have heard of Droga Confections. They don’t have a storefront and their chocolates and caramels are only available from a few retail locations and their online store, but they’re worth checking out. Run by a Bay Area native and Berkeley graduate, they use 100% natural ingredients to make small batches of handmade candies.