I was born and raised in Ontario in a town just outside of Toronto. Winters were spent playing shinny on frozen ponds, and summers were always spent at backyard pool parties. When I was 8, I moved along with my brother and parents to the West Coast of BC. It was a difficult transition as first, but as we all know, kids adapt quickly. After high school graduation, I attend the University of British Columbia. Following graduation, I moved to small town Japan to immerse myself in a new language and a new culture to teach English- I have always had a passion for traveling. After three years in the Japanese rice fields, I set about to travel the world. And what an adventure it has been. I have climbed the highest mountain in Japan, I have hiked the Great Wall of China, and I have swum with sharks in the Bahamas among others. As I am growing older, and hopefully a bit wiser, I am starting to settle down. A few years ago, I drew upon my experience abroad and my everlasting love of food to create my company that I am extremely proud of. My upbringing has taught me to live in the moment and to enjoy every day. Life really is too short. I have forgone the dream of a suit and tie job to step out of the rat race, and to venture into the exciting, but mysterious world of small business. Since our inception, I have been making the chocolate bark and chocolate works in a local commercial kitchen. To the chocolate I have add a variety of ingredients ranging from fresh orange peel, crushed candy canes, roasted almonds, cocoa nibs, and espresso beans. My chocolate bark is sold in 150g gift packages. I make my bark on a full time basis, and I am currently trying to make a living at this.
I work with high-quality Belgian chocolate to bring BLINK to life. I hand-temper the chocolate in small quantities as I pay close attention to details of quality and evenness. Tempering the chocolate well assures the chocolate has that characteristic “snap” as molecules are bunched tightly together and air pockets squeezed out. To temper the chocolate, I heat the mixture to between 100 & 120 degrees F. Once this temperature is achieved, I quickly cool the mixture down to between 82 and 85 degrees. This process also thickens the mixture. With the chocolate now in a warm/ liquid consistency, I slowly hand-pour it into my pre-molded, custom food-safe and eco-friendly PET trays. Once all the trays of that batch have been hand-filled, but before the chocolate hardens, I hand-top the various locally sourced flavours to the chocolate. My roster of flavours at any given time runs from 6-10 and is listed below. Once the trays have been filled, and after the toppings have been added, I let the chocolate bark cool down for about an hour and a half. When the bark has sufficiently cooled, I hand-package them into food safe plastic wrappers, which are sealed and placed into my custom black envelopes, which are finished off with a colourful label and a black ribbon.
We respectfully acknowledge that the Filberg Festival takes place on the unceded traditional territory of the K'omoks First Nation, Gila 'kasla...Hay ch q'a'.
