Maya La Chocolaterie

As I said in my previous post yesterday, It is been long time since I blogged. Working in the Food & beverage industry, makes you want to be more delicate while posting about your food adventures.

I always talked about chocolate on my blog. But since moving to Riyadh, and due to the hot and dry weather, it makes you subconsciously avert away from something warm and heat producing!

Yet, visiting Maya chocolaterie, a place solely for having a chocolate experience has proven something else! Chocolate is desirable regardless of the temperature! If it is hot, people will eat chocolate and perhaps even more!!

Maybe the quote from Star Trek actually reflects what goes on people's minds on chocolates :
"I never met a chocolate I didn't like " Deanna Troi -  Star Trek ( The Next Generation)

Baking in Jars

Baking in the Jars has become the latest trend, especially among home made products.
I found several places later after this trial selling such items.
The recipes that I followed are all attached here for you to download. Surely, several trials should be made if this was done for a commercial purpose especially before we settle on the end product in order to perfect the sensory experience from all its sides: flavor, odor, color, and texture.

Gourmet Popcorn?

Gourmet Popcorn, Packaged and Shipped!

In my recent discoveries throughout the malls here in Riyadh, I found a shop that sells "Gourmet Popcorn".
Called " KukuRuza".
This Seattle family based company, recently opened in  KSA and they ship their well-crafted artisan popcorns to here! Can you imagine that?

The Popcorn flavors of the US version are very exotic, ranging from Hawaiian Salted Caramel and Brown Butter & Sea Salt to Coconut Macaroon. Yet the KSA version is much adapted to the local taste, they have coffee, S'mores, dark chocolate, buffalo spice,cheese, Ranch, caramel, cinnamon...etc

I tasted all those flavors as seen in the photo below...They are good. Surely, some are sweet. But I prefer the original flavor of popcorn. I didnt buy any since I am not a big fan of pop corn.
Would you buy from this gourmet packaged popcorn??? Or would you get them as gifts when you visit other people??

Different Flavors 

Gift Packages

The Sweet Paradox: Natural or Artificial Sweetners?

Sugar in Drinks!

A girl in a restaurant orders a burger with fries, and then orders a diet coke. “Do the calories really matter when you are eating all this food?” her friends around her claim. Yes it does. One can of regular coke contain, more or less, 38 grams of sugar.

 Scientists have all agreed about the malicious effect of consuming lots of sugar. Unfortunately, sugar is embeded in almost all of all food . Sugar plays a major role in the production of thousands of food products from cured meats through preserves and frozen fruits to confections.

The Red Velvet Cake Dilemma

The Red velvet cake has lately been prominent. Everytime I am around my friends , the Red velvet cake should be either mentioned or devoured in their mouths.One can’t deny that its feathery texture, the striking red color, and the overwhelming vanilla taste, that contribute to its fame. It is indeed a magical cake, and just looking at it reminds me of cartoon, and all the Disney movies we all grew up watching.

Picture from the web

However, beauty is not pure. And as everything in life have their pros and cons. The red velvet cake is not an exception to this rule, sadly.

Normally nutritionists scare you off from these high caloric cakes, but as I am a food scientist I’d rather take another angle.  So, this post  is not to scare you away from the calories; rather, it’s the “red” you should worry about.

Let’s take Martha Stewart’s online recipe of the cake. Martha uses around 1/4 to 1/2 cup of a red food coloring to make one cake. She clearly states to put 2 one-ounce bottles liquid red food coloring to achieve the desired shade!Consider a normal diet; you are having one piece of the red velvet cake every month, along with other colorants in food from the halloween candies, to the Eid Mlabbas, to the Christmas colored cookies, to potato chips, fruit loop cereals, the guacamole dip, to the hotdog and the  frozen vegetables…etc The list goes one because everyone is increasingly relying on  processed foods.
 The question is whether all these colorants will cause any health implications.

Let us start why is there color in my food? 
Remarkably, sensory scientists found that color is always associated with flavor. Consumers may refuse to have a green chocolate drink or a brown strawberry juice. Therefore, industries rush in adding colorants to make their product look fresh, nutritious, and thus appealing to consumers. That’s because consumers love everything that resembles nature. ( more on how color affects the sense of tastes of food & drinks by Washington University)

Sensory Evaluation of Love

Speaking of part of my major which involves greatly sensory evaluation of food i.e appearance, aroma, flavor and mouthfeel. I developed  a nice " sensory description" lexicon for  Love. Yes Love.


This is is a food scientist point of view of love :

Love -  is not just an experience of feelings , it is a complex sensory experience that beats any  food you will have in your life.


Appearance : Love has no color, no shape.  People report that it can also blind  eyes .


Smell : Once you smell it, It follows you wherever you are. You can never get rid of the aroma .
It can sometimes cause mild hallucination due to its overwhelming effect.


Taste : It is sweet , and bitter as most people say. But you can feel  some pungency on the tongue . In some cases,  astringency can be felt if love became "harsh and dry".


Some tasters may indicate that love has a   vivid taste  that engulfs all flavors and can sometimes add flavor to other things in life. That is , it can be a flavor booster , an " Umami" !!!!


Surely, It will leave an aftertaste , a leftover effect ; either a soothing mouthfeel , either a throat burn down.


Love belongs to the  " food mood"  class in the pyramid as indicated by  the US FDA :P




Perhaps Love is the ultimate sensory experiment that one can get in his life. Perhaps it is because Love is truly the food of the soul, providing energy  and enthralling one's senses every single second.

S' mores

I have met them under Brooklyn Bridge. It was two thousand and eight.
It had been a long tiring day, had been walking all day exploring the city by foot. We walked from upper Manhattan up till downtown , crossed the bridge and reached Brooklyn. We were searching for a famous pizza restaurant. Cant remember its name now. I remember that it was dark when we finally found it and there was a long line of people waiting for their turn for a place in the restaurant. Oh! wow we werent going to wait for our turn to come. We would die from hunger.

So, we left and started searching for an alternative till we found a small " open bar" restaurant right infront of the bridge and beside the water. The view of Manhattan skies was indescribable. The Lights of the skyscrapers , and the darkness they have at the same time.

In this open air resturant,  my friends made me order " SMORE'S". I had never tried it before. Now i wish i really never tried it. It was one of the blissful things human made on earth.

The melted chocolate wrapping  the white marshemellows  inside the graham-crackers, served hot.
It was a great " hunger quencher" . A simple formula, yet it arouses complex aromas and flavors.
Not to forget,  a chocolate moustache will appear at the end of this indulging experience.

Here is how you can prepare a S'more:

1. Heat the marshmallow over an open flame until it begins to brown and melt.
2. Break the graham cracker in half. Sandwich the chocolate between the cracker and the hot marshmallow. Allow the marshmallow to cool a moment before eating.

( Courtesy of Allrecipes.com) 

Friends....& Flavors

Friends are like flavors. (Well am back to relating life to food. I like this relation ).


They are many types and several tastes. Some are sweet.Honey-like.They enter your life in a smooth way and stay there leaving a good after taste. But if there sweetness exceeded, you will get bothered! :P


Others are salty . They are "extractors". They let see you your worst and your best. These friends are good to be around with for sometimes and other times you try to avoid them because they tell you the cutting truth and you dont like to hurt your feelings !


While some friends are bitter. Well, this kind are the nagging type of people, they impose a negative taste in your life. The only good thing about these people is that you can recognize them from the beginning and literally "escape" them during a conversation, a dinner or anytime you spot them near.


Maybe the last flavor, is the sour. At first, they look delicious and sweet but then you have this annoying , sharp biting taste. You realize they are not really nice ! & you realize they are not your friends...or you cant befriend them!




Ofcorse there are other flavors like Umami ( which are the tasty ones) .They make everything in your life great , they boost your morals , your dreams and your hopes)..They are saporific, and are certainly full of flavor (flavorsome)…


There are also the spicy ones. Some of them chill you others just irritate you. You have to choose.


And there are the "astringent" friends! They might be similar to the sour , however, they leave some physical harm .


And yes there are the ZESTY people! They have all the vivid, spicy, piquant, utterly savory ; they are invigorating, stimulating, fresh and reviving. They are never soothing or dull!


We all have these kinds of friends around us!! If we didnt , our life would have been very boring and routine.
Imagine that you are tasting or eating the same plate every single day ! Would you like it that way?


This leads me to the conclusion.Yes. life is all about gustatory experiences !. You have to taste everything but make sure that you are delicate when choosing. Otherwise, you might get a food poisoning or a food allergy! ;)