A tour with sweet rewards

March 08, 2009|Cathie Desjardins, Globe Correspondent

"You hit a wall, didn't you?" Steve Almond asks. I am hanging onto the counter at the Chilly Cow ice cream store in Arlington Center as the server looks at me quizzically. I've just sampled a frozen pumpkin custard, rich and vivid as pie filling, and my brain has gone into orbit.

"It's OK," he says. "Lots of amateurs think they can keep up."

I'm on my third stop with Almond, local author of "Candyfreak: A Journey through the Chocolate Underbelly of America." In his book, he claims he's eaten a piece of candy every day of his known life, including pulverized pieces when his jaw was wired for dental work. Today's sugar tour of local favorites is a small chocolate chip compared with the odyssey Almond undertook in "Candyfreak," visiting the last independent regional candy producers all over the country, purveyors of candies with names like Twin Bings, Valomilks, and Abba-Zabbas. I'm surprised Steve Almond is so thin.

Our first stop is the Danish Pastry House (330 Boston Ave., Medford; 781-396-8999), sister to the one in Watertown. The place is hopping with students from nearby Tufts, and there's a nice selection of salads, drinks, and sandwiches. but our eyes are focused on the pastries: traditional Danish cheese and fruit-filled kringles, florentines, croissants, brioches, Sacher torte.

"What I always do," Steve says, scanning the glass cases astutely, "is ask the people who work here what's good." We get into an extended discussion with the staff about the offerings, including the marzipan featured in the Kermit-esque frogs in bright colors and matching fruit flavors less sweet and more utilitarian than traditional Italian marzipan, we're told, and we are led to a glass case dedicated to handmade chocolates. Since Christmas, partner-proprietor Ulla Winkler has been going all over the country learning how to make deluxe chocolates. "She's becoming a chocolatier?" Steve asks reverently.

For chocoholics, two words about the Pastry House selection: go there. Imported Belgian chocolate is crafted in many and whimsical ways including Danish mint chocolate frogs, cinnamon-rolled truffles and much, much more. Steve and I sit down with little plates of pastry and chocolates.

"Do you know how to eat chocolate?" Steve asks, demonstrating with a bite of hazelnut ganache. "Exhale deeply through your nose a few times, and close your mouth tightly." Steve compresses his lips. His eyes drift to the tip of his nose, and I want to ask him if he knows this is a classic meditation technique, but he is gone, vanished to an inner realm of amazing sweetness.