For the Love of Chocolate

Is there anything that chocolate can’t make better? The mouth-watering treat is said to have the power to give a person more energy, help mend a broken heart and evoke feelings of passion. And did we mention it’s delicious?

On Sunday, the Pasadena Convention Center will become a Mecca for chocolate addicts and casual bingers alike as it hosts the city’s second annual LA Luxury Chocolate Salon, featuring more than two dozen chocolatiers and their latest confections competing for the hearts and taste buds of contest judges and candy enthusiasts.

The event, which features chocolate-making demonstrations and will also pair chocolate with wine for a unique tasting experience, is being produced by Chocolate Television, a program of the Internet-based food and lifestyle network, Taste TV.

Connoisseur and author A.K. Crump, who founded Taste TV in 2004 and remains its top producer, said the idea of hosting a chocolate show happened somewhat organically. Crump was at a New York chocolate show autographing copies of his book, “Chocolate French,” when several chocolate enthusiasts suggested that he host a large-scale tasting event on the West Coast. After a successful, delicious experience early last year in San Francisco, the Salon was brought to Pasadena just a few months later.

Though this is only Pasadena’s second Salon, chocolate enthusiasm is nothing new here. The city’s rich chocolate history dates back to the start of See’s Candies in 1921, when Canadian immigrant Mary See and her son Charles See began making treats from a Craftsman-style bungalow at 462 S. Marengo Ave. and selling them from a storefront on Western Avenue in Los Angeles. By the mid-1930s, See’s Candies were in more than two dozen stores in California and, despite the Great Depression, were booming in sales. Today their name is world-renowned, with dozens of See’s stores bringing mouthwatering goodness to fans in 11 states plus China, Japan and Mexico.

But it is the city’s current culinary reputation that sold Crump on hosting his “LA” Salon in Pasadena this year and, he hopes, for many to come. “With so many premier restaurants and dining locations, Pasadena has become a destination for people in Los Angeles,” he said.

The Salon is a destination not just for chocolate lovers, but also chocolate makers from all over the Western United States, a phenomenon Crump attributes to the inebriating power of the confection, which he says only increases when paired with wine. “Both chocolate and wine produce feelings of comfort with people. They come in different varieties and blends, which seem to bring people together,” he said.

The story of Glendale chocolate maker and repeat Salon participant Joe Terpoghossian’s family business, Mignon Chocolate, shows how chocolate can bridge worlds. Mignon was launched in the Ukraine by Terpoghossian’s grandparents, but moved to Tehran after his grandfather, Hovsep, was sent to Siberia as a political prisoner by the Communist Revolution. In Iran, where Hovsep eventually reconnected with his family, Mignon was known as “The King of Chocolate.” After years of sending chocolates to the United States, the family in 2003 opened their Glendale store and a manufacturing facility in Van Nuys.

“A few items got good feedback last year from the judges and people who sampled our chocolate. Now those items are on our regular menu,” said Terpoghossian. “I’m always excited when it comes to chocolate. We are busy getting some new items prepared for this year’s Salon.”

The special creations of Choclatique, an LA-based confectionary founded by extreme chocoholics Ed Engoron and Joan Vieweger, are another good reason to get excited about the weekend: they put already sweet concoctions — root beer, cotton candy, apple pie, chocolate layer cake and other “all-American” treats — inside an average -sized chunk of chocolate to create delicious new flavor combinations.

In many ways chocolate is not only a treat but an art form, said Salon participant Susie Norris, the entrepreneur behind Chocolate All the Time, an interactive Web site (chocolateallthetime.com) featuring recipes, profiles of chocolate makers around the world, a guide to chocolate festivals and specialty shops — even a chocolate blog.

“I focus on artistry because I want it to taste great and also look really dazzling,” said Norris, who got into the business after quitting her job as a Disney vice president and enrolling in culinary school. In addition to her Web site, Norris also runs a dessert catering business in Hollywood called Mrs. Shell’s Bakery, and is working on a cookbook and DVD to instruct fellow chocolate lovers on creating their own concoctions. 

“The inspiration from fellow chocolatiers is great,” she said of her new career and events like this weekend’s Salon. “You have other passionate chocolate makers around you trying new designs and tastes. It’s pretty much a love-fest.”

Crump looks forward to the Salon for many of the same reasons. “What I enjoy about chocolate events is, first, working with so many talented people. They are true artists. Second, seeing people so euphorically happy when they leave, and third, I get to eat some of the chocolate.”

The LA Luxury Chocolate Salon takes place from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Sunday at the Pasadena Convention Center, 300 E. Green St., Pasadena. Tickets are $20 at the door, $17.50 in advance, $10 for children ages 6 to 12 and free for up to two kids under 6 per family. For advance tickets or more information, visit lachocolatesalon.com. Call (626) 793-2122 to reach the Convention Center.