The Main Course Archive Pt. 2
Daniel Sklaar of FINE & RAW Chocolate
This week on The Main Course, hosts Alexes McLaughlin and Phillip Gilmour welcome Bushwick neighbor Daniel Sklaar, founder and chocolatier of FINE & RAW to the show. FINE & RAW is a chocolate company started in a notorious Williamsburg, Brooklyn, originally in an artist loft. He recounts that a nonsensical obsession with chocolate left him inspired to begin making small chocolate batches. Daniel shared them with friends then started delivering them on his bicycle to small local purveyors. The stock was good - the purveyors wanted more, which allowed Daniel to leave his job in finance. The group embarks on a global conversation about steak, food, quality Cuban food, and coffee. After the break, Daniel shares exactly how he started making his own raw chocolate, distinguishing raw chocolate from ordinary chocolate (there's no traditional roasting involved), and what's next for him and FINE & RAW. This program was brought to you by Whole Foods Market.
"I had my secret chocolate lab, my loft in Williamsburg in 2007 and was just jamming confections with friends... it was super organic." [7:30]
"It's the best thing about New York - you can travel the whole world through food." [16:00]
"As soon as I started working with chocolate there was this massive, gravitational force pulling me in." [20:30]
--Daniel Sklaar on The Main Course