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FRIDAY MA'L27. 1988
Seduction By Chocolate
Judy Weinblatt concocts confections that comfort
and soothe
SUSAN LUDMER-GLIEBE
Special to The Jewish News
0
scar Wilde said that
the best way to get
rid of temptation was
to yield to it. That's what peo-
ple have been doing ever since
some anonymous lucky soul
first tasted chocolate cen-
turies ago.
Through the ages, chocolate
has aroused all kinds of
disparate passions. Cortez
called it "the Divine Drink"
and brought it from the new
world to the old. Casanova
thought it aided him in his
numerous seductions.
Astronauts take it into space
as a pick-me-up and a great
way to pass the time. Judy
Weinblatt, Ann Arbor cho-
colatier, explains its world-
wide attraction in a few sim-
ple words. "It's comforting,"
she says with maternal
understanding. "It's
soothing."
Ever since she can
remember, Weinblatt has
been interested in food and
her fondness for sweet things
in particular has remained
undiminished. "When I was
younger I had dreams of Baby
Ruths and M&Ms," she
recalls.
Dreams have become reali-
ty for Weinblatt. After several
years in Florida working in
restaurant kitchens and as a
masseuse on cruise ships ply-
ing the Caribbean, Weinblatt
returned home to attend the
University of Michigan.
One day she read an article
about chocolate in Cuisine
magazine. Not long after-
wards Weinblatt realized that
she was hooked. "I decided
that chocolate was my call-
ing."
Since 1979 she's been chief
dipper, decorator, creator and
all round chocolate artiste for
her firm, Minerva Street Cho-
colate, Inc.
Now, in the basement of her
Burns Park home, which does
bear a resemblance to Willie
Wonka's factory, the 34-year-
old Weinblatt is surrounded
by the tools of the candy-
maker's trade — stainless
steel pans, stove, counters,
bowls, chocolate warming
machines, vats, boxes of
chocolate, cookies and
pretzels. There are hammers
to break the 50 pound
chocolate chunks.
Minerva
Street
is
synonymous with truffles.
Dark chocolate truffles with
rum centers decorated with
Judy Weinblatt at work: If her truffles don't shine they end up on the
reject plate.
milk chocolate lacing. White
chocolate truffles covering
mocha centers. Pistachio truf-
fles over vanilla bean centers
rolled in crushed nuts, a
magnificent concoction of con-
trasting flavors. Truffles of
Belgian milk chocolate over
hazelnut crunch surrounded
by dark chocolate piping.
Even for those who are not
easily seduced by chocolate, it
can be love at first sight for
these delicacies because they
look so good. That's pur-
poseful on Weinblatt's part,
"They're pretty," she admits.
And, as she explains, she
wants them to look as good as
they taste and taste as good
as they look. When people
take a bite of her chocolate
truffles she wants them to
say, "That was worth it."
Evidently enough people
have been doing that for
Minerva to slowly but surely
expand into the so-called
gourmet luxury chocolate
market which accounts for
some $50 million a year in
sales in the United States.
"They are really great
chocolates and they match up
with any other in the coun-
try," says Ari Weinzweig, co-
owner of Zingerman's Delica-
tessen, which not too long ago
started carrying Minerva
Street goodies. "Judy has a
great love for chocolate and
she uses only top quality in-
gredients. She still makes
them herself and this shows
itself in the quality of the pro-
duct which is first rate,"
Weinzweig says.
But don't take his word for
it. Food critics have been sing-
ing praises for Weinblatt's
products for a long time. Her
candy has been featured in
Connoisseur, Redbook, Food
and Wine and Chocolatier.
The Washington Post and
Chicago Tribune have offered
their own tributes.
All that free advertising
has allowed her mail order
business to boom. She even
has a celebrity customer. "I