How Sweet

Tell us about the chocolate making process at Garrison Confections.
We change the flavors of the ganache quite often – maybe four times a year. We’re one of the only chocolatiers in the country to do that. Everything we do is small to medium batch size, and everything is by hand - mixed, filled and rolled. We’re a true artisan chocolatier.

Is it a slower process to make everything by hand?
We can make about 20,000 pieces a week. It sounds slow, but we do large volume. I prefer to keep control in the quality – you can’t maintain the same quality with machines. That’s the way I started and that’s the way I still do it.

What’s your background?

My training is as a chef. When I moved to Europe I became a pastry chef. I only moved into chocolates about 12 years ago, when I opened Garrison’s in 2001. I’m trying to reopen a retail store this year, and it will be more of a pastry/bakery/café. Chocolate will probably be about 25% of what I do. It’s a really interesting concept and I hope it comes to fruition.

What’s in your current seasonal collection?
It’s the Legendary Lovers collection for Valentine’s Day. We’ll be launching that on January 31. The factory store will be open through the 14th for sales. We’ll be doing very Valentine’s Day themed things – raspberry, a tea infusion, coffee, something spicy.

How do you get inspired about flavors?
I get inspiration from all over – things I eat, being out, memories of things I had in Europe. I can be at an ice cream shop and try to figure out a way to do that in chocolate. I take different kinds of cocktails and try to get those flavors in a piece.

Are there any unexpectedly good chocolate flavor combinations you’ve tried?
I like tea and fruit at the same time. Right now we’re doing a piece with ruby red grapefruit and Earl Grey tea ganache. Those flavors really go well together. I like caramel – right now we’re doing a pear pate de fruit with a salted caramel ganache that go really well together.

Where do you like to eat?
I’m a creature of habit, but I sometimes switch it up. I go to Loie Fuller’s for steak frites maybe once a week. I love El Rancho Grande. The other place I’ve been going is Broadway Bistro. They always have a really good salad – it’s twice as easy to mess up a salad as it is to get it right.