Chinese Antiques

Here I am (Paul Pertusi) husband of Widya Pertusi (owner of Batavia Home) in our warehouse this morning. Our partner Al Yondadi imports Chinese Antiques to the U.S. and sells them at his store in Short Hills, NJ One World Imports. This is a link to his site. http://www.oneworldeast.com/home.html

Pictured is a 19th century Red Lacquered Round corner Cabinet with moon hardware, Completely original circa 1860 Zhejian China. Albert Joseph directly hand picks all his merchandise in the country of each pieces origin and imports them to the USA. He specializes in Asian antique Furniture, Art and Artifact.

Al has a loyal customer base primarily in New Jersey and New York City and a following of some great designers in the area. He has been doing business out of his shop in Short Hills for about ten years and has some of the finest quality Chinese Antiques that we have seen. He is an honest all around great guy and works hard to make sure his customers are happy. He also operates Albert Joseph Gallery at http://vandm.com/0_222_dealer=14759.aspx where he showcases some of the most exclusive pieces in his collection.

I just ran the numbers on Truffles and they're not good. The Ghiradelli was $2.79 a bar at six bars, you used a whole box of cocoa, and it took you five hours. We have to rethink this!

So, we finished up with two types of Truffles, one coated in cocoa and the other dipped in chocolate and rolled in butter toffee Fisher peanuts. The tempering process went reasonably well, but you have to move fairly quickly afterwards otherwise you will lose the temper. We ended up with 26 Truffles and I ate two along the way.

The picture to the left of Connor is the truffles this morning after spending the night in the refrigerator. I let them sit for about an hour and then tried to perfect the shape by rolling them in my hands. This can be a bit challenging because the heat of your hands melts the chocolate quickly. I dealt with this by shaping them in 2 or 3 rolls between the hands for about 5-10 seconds at a time.

I used the microwave to temper the chocolate as suggested in "Making Artisan Chocolates". After chopping the chocolate on an angle, I heated 75% of the chopped chocolate for 60 seconds at a time. This takes 3 or 4 60 second intervals depending on the power of your microwave. You heat the chocolate to between 115-120 degrees stirring each time at the end of 60 seconds.

After the chocolate hits 115-120, let it sit for about 10 minutes and then begin the seeding process with the remaining 25% of the chopped chocolate. Be sure to chop this 25% much finer than the original 75% because it makes the seeding process easier. Seed the chocolate a handful at a time stirring well in between until the temperature returns to approximately 86 degrees. Finally, re-heat the seeded chocolate 1-2 seconds at a time in the microwave to raise the temperature to 89 degrees. Try not to go over 90 degrees. Re-heating is the final part of the tempering process.

I will explain the two types of truffles that I made today separately, but remember truffles are a freestyle thing. You have to figure out what works for you which I think is the fun part. The first 8 truffles were dipped into the tempered chocolate with a fork and then rolled in the cocoa until covered (use a second utensil to roll them around in the cocoa). The finaly 18 truffles were first rolled in the cocoa for a thin coat, then dipped into the tempered chocolate, and finally rolled in the Fisher's butter toffee peanuts. I first ground the peanuts in our little coffee grinder which worked well.

Finally, this was not easy and there is clearly a learning curve but I think it will be much faster next time. There is definitely patience required. In my opinion, the peanut coated truffles are far superior and most of my friends/family agree.

Batavia Chocolates

So, Batavia Chocolates are coming to Summit, NJ sometimes in the near future (how's that for a business plan). Here we have chocolate chips which are a recipe from Bakarella's Blog at http://bakerella.blogspot.com/, but I substituted Toll House Peanut Butter and Milk Chocolate Chips instead of just Chocolate Chips. Behind the cookies are the first stages of dark chocolate truffles from Andrew Garrison Shotts book "Making Artisan Chocolates". In this recipe we used Green & Blacks Organic 72% Cocoa Chocolate. They will be rolled in Cocoa powder and dipped in tempered chocolate tommorow afternoon after spending the night in the refrigerator.

Batavia Home, our home furnishings store in Summit, NJ will soon be selling coffee, chocolates, and baked goods in order to enhance our customer's shopping experience. Our soft-sell approach will now be even better as you can sit down, enjoy a coffe, and take home a bananna bread for the next morning's breakfast. The table in the above picture is the Batavia Farm Table hand made from solid teak which we sell for $1,999 (and have in our own kitchen as well). We will keep you posted as soon as we are able to get our coffee and baking ideas from our heads to a reality at the store in Summit.

Batavia Sleeping

Our son Connor, the love of our lives. Born November 8, 2008 at 6:47 pm. The easiest and coolest kid on the planet. Part Indonesian, part Irish, part Italian. The best of all three!

Bali Photo

Photo by Robert Discalfani (Right), Bali 2001. $845

http://www.discalfani.com/

Long Looi Lee Painting (Left) $725

Serigraph

Both featured at Batavia Home in Summit.