News Including New Store Info

Well. This is a bad sign. Since my last post, blogger has completely revamped their site, and I no longer know what I'm doing. Wish me luck!

First things first, Robert and I have no access to the content of our website; this means that any time we want to put up some new info or photos we have to go through a programmer (yes, it is inefficient, and we are currently building a new one that will give us access to the site, so stop judging!). Consequently, we haven't really gotten around to having them add our new store's contact info which has driven many people to the brink of madness. I know the blog isn't the same as the site, but here it is nevertheless.

Fleurir Chocolates' second retail location and new production facility:
724 Jefferson Street
Alexandria, VA 22314
703-838-9055

And our current hours are Tues-Sun 12-5pm, but those may change once we get a feel for things. Another fun fact regarding our contact info is that I have no idea how our new phone works sooooo it only rings twice before going to the voicemail that I have yet to setup. I promise I will have Robert sort it out soon, and in the meantime we will run as fast as we can to answer the phone when it rings.

Moving right along, the really exciting news regarding the new location is that we will soon hold chocolate making classes and movie nights which I will post more about later... once we figure out what we are doing. I do know, however, that there will definitely be a chick flick and chocolate night leading up to Valentine's day, and it will probably star Meg Ryan.

That is all I have for now, so I will leave you with this hot mess of a photo of the new space. Enjoy!

Fleurir+Fox 5= Delicious Easter Treats

So Robert and I had a FANTASTIC time on Tuesday's Fox 5 morning show. Seriously, it was awesome and if you have a TV show you should contact us because I want to be on TV again, like everyday (watch yourself Matt Lauer!).

Annie Yu and co. rolled up at 5:30am and, due to construction barricades, had to drive their fancy TV van down our narrow little alley to the back parking lot IN REVERSE! This may seem like a rather mundane detail to most of you, but I was left completely flabbergasted; you could even go so far as to say I was gobsmacked. The whole morning consisted of a lot of hurry up then wait which I was totally fine with because I had a bucket of donuts and nothing but time on my hands. All in all, I'd say it was a success, and you can find the recipes for the homemade marshmallow chicks and carrot cake caramels below. Also, here is a link to our three segments.

Carrot Cake Caramel

3 oz White Sugar

2.5 oz Dark Brown Sugar

2 oz Honey

1/4 tsp Ground Nutmeg

1/4 tsp Ground Clove

1/4 tsp Ground Cinnamon

1 tsp Salt

5 oz Cream

5 oz Carrot Juice

1/2 cup toasted chopped walnuts

Toast chopped walnuts in oven set to 350 F for 7 minutes. Set aside.

Add all ingredients excluding Walnuts into a sauce pot. Heat over medium heat stirring regularly until caramel reaches 246 F.

Remove from heat and stir walnuts through caramel. Pour into greased 8 x 8 pan. Cover and refrigerate until caramel has firmed. Cut into 1 inch pieces and wrap in wax paper.

Feast on delicious caramels!

Raspberry Marshmallows

2 packets powered Gelatin

1 oz cool water

3/4 cup raspberry puree

2 oz Honey

2 oz Sugar

1 tsp salt

Bloom gelatin by combing with cool water in a small bowl. Add puree, salt, honey, sugar to a pot and bring to a boil. Add bloomed gelatin and stir through until melted. Place the liquid into a mixer and whisk on high until stiff peaks form.

Either pipe chicks or pour marshmallow into a greased pan that has been dusted with powered sugar. Once set cut out shapes with a cookie cutter.

Oh hello, spring.

What's shakin'? Is that so? A 20 foot basement monster terrorized your house last week but was outwitted by a plucky young bichon named Ferdinand? What an interesting start to spring you have had; it's kind of hard to compete, really.

Hmm. Well, Team Fleurir has begun negotiations on a property in Alexandria which is pretty neat (which, in all honesty, is it's own kind of 20 foot basement monster). Be not alarmed, though! 3235 P St NW will still be our home and main retail hub, and the space in Alexandria will mostly be for production (and chocolate making classes?!?!). This means that Robert will no longer have a 3 hour commute to his kitchen which is a welcome change. Also, the ceilings are crazy tall and the building is pretty long, so we are trying to figure out how to install a zip line, or rock climbing wall, or basketball hoop (chocolate making is really a secondary concern to us, right behind... HAVING FUN!!!).

Holy Guacamole!

Hello all! What a wonderfully busy few months it has been! The best part of those past couple months was Robert's and my super sweet trip to Barbados (we just got back two days ago, and I am still sooo tan woot!... although my face did just start peeling because it refused to do anything but burn for two weeks. gross.)

But before this little adventure we were navigating our way through our first Christmas season with a brick and mortar store, and boy was that an adventure of a completely different sort. I may have miscalculated demand and run out of chocolates at 2pm on the Friday before Christmas (Not to worry, I was restocked by 10am on Saturday). We may have miscalculated our production capabilities and had to swing seven all nighters over the course of two weeks (Also, I am now addicted to coffee which I never really drank before). And I may have miscalculated (repeatedly) how long I could microwave the hot cocoa without it boiling over. Overall, I would say Christmas was a succes!

Also, we were featured in Food and Wine Magazine's January issue in the Trendspotting section! Lots of screaming and jumping for joy ensued.

Furthermore, look at this cool photo Christina Bernales took of our Christmas Bar!

And this mediocre photo of the super awesome window display Brit Carlson did for the shop!

Robert's Birthday: An Excuse to List Embarrassing Anecdotes

As the mouthpiece for Team Fleurir, I have been presented with many opportunities to humiliate Robert. Interviews, blog posts, Facebook posts, tweets and talking to customers are all prime public outlets to tell embarrassing tales or let slip curious habits, but I always pass up the opportunity in favor of tact and grace. Well, in honor of Robert’s upcoming birthday, homeboy is turning 27 on September 1(say what?!?!), I have decided to break my vow of silence (also, I got Robert the best birthday present ever, so he can’t get too mad).

What to tell, what to tell. Hmmmmm...

Let’s just do this laundry list style, shall we? Perhaps, in escalating levels of embarrassment? Yes.

1. You know that “Rhythm of Love” song by The Plain White T’s? Well, Robert likes to play it on loop in the car, in the kitchen, in the bathroom all the while singing right along. Here is a sampling of the lyrics: We may only have tonight; But ‘til the morning sun, you’re mine, all mine; Play the music low; and sway to the rhythm of love.
2. Hugh Grant. When Robert and I first moved in together I came equipped with an enviably well-stocked library of DVDs (a good chunk of my nearly nonexistent 17-20 year old income went toward purchasing movies and earrings because I like to invest in my future, clearly). There was, what I thought at the time, a healthy sampling of Hugh Grant rom coms in the mix; little did I know that my amour for the bumbling Brit was to pale in comparison to the deep fondness Robert had for the man; he owned a copy of nearly every one of his films and two copies of “About a Boy,” just in cases. Granted (ha!), as Hugh ages and appears in fewer films, Robert has begun to view Ryan Reynolds as an acceptable substitute.
3. To this day, Robert remains a rather trim gent, but, compared to his teenage, self he is downright Hulk-ish. At 15 years old, Robert was an impressive 6’ 3” yet weighed-in at a mere 135 pounds; understandably, Robert was desperate to gain weight (seeing as how he was on his high school hockey team, bulking up was more than a matter of mere vanity). Having little taste for lifting weights, protein shakes or roid rage, Robert decided to change his eating habits. For almost all of his sophomore year of high school, his after-school snack comprised of a dozen Krispy Creme donuts, a can of whipped cream, and a couple tall glasses of whole milk to wash it all down. He only gained 5 pounds.
4. Around this same time, Robert decided that the best way to attract the ladies was with a gimmick and what tired cliche is more successful than the guy with the guitar who can really only kind of play one song (I never went for the guitar guy, I was more impressed by the piano)? Rather than take the time to learn how to play even one song with barely passable proficiency, Robert’s guitar was simply for show. Whenever a lady asked him to play for her he would make up some nonsense about it taking forever to tune and this that and the other thing and hey want to watch a movie?
5. Between the two of us, Robert and I have an embarrassing amount of stuff. So much stuff that our basement is filled with items we can’t find the space for in our house (granted, our house is uber tiny/cozy, so we don’t really have a whole lot of room to work with in the first place), but even if we lived in a fancy pants mansion with ample room to display our (short) lives’ collection of curios I would still not unpack one dusty suitcase filled to the brim with Marvel comics collectors cards. These little treasures were collected while Robert was in elementary school, yet, to this day, he refuses to part with them because he “has the entire set of 1990-93 plus all of the holograms.” Duh.
6. Finally, a new source of embarrassment has started to plague Robert since opening the shop only a few months ago- grey hairs. Four months ago, his beautiful mane of dark, silky locks was salt and pepper free, but the stresses of the shop have seeped into his scalp and pushed out multiple, no, numerous, no, LEGIONS! of silver strands. You can, of course, help to alleviate this source of shame by coming into the shop and buying loads and loads of delicious chocolatey goodness (like what I did there?).

I could go on for days, but I don’t want to outweigh the awesomeness of my gift for him with the not so awesomeness of these private revelations and consequently tumble into murky waters of possible retaliation; therefore, I shall end here.

P.S.

My awesome gift to Robert is a long weekend at the beach in Charleston with a couple of his old college buddies; thus, over Labor Day weekend Robert’s parents will be manning the shop, so come in and say hi- who knows, they may have some embarrassing stories of their own to share!

O Hai Fudgesicles! Goodbye Bad Attitude!

It has been unnecessarily hot out lately, like whoa. This is a big problem for one half of Team Fleurir because the other half can only handle temperatures between 67 and 75 degrees and gets uber cranky when the thermometer ventures past that eight degree window (or when she has to wake up before... well, waking up generally isn't my strong suit) . Unfortunately, DC went from -5 degrees (roughly) to 105 degrees (again, roughly) with no in-between this year. What is a person to do when his life/business/cribbage/gift wrapping partner becomes an unreasonable bundle of weather-rage?

Bribe her/him with this:

This is one of our scrumptious new fudgesicles that we launched last weekend. They are delicious. You should buy some if you are cranky or if someone you know is cranky and you want to make them more bearable (eating a fudgesicle while dealing with a cranky person makes the experience 63% better, it's science).

BEFORE AND AFTER!!!

You will all be happy to hear that I really have nothing to say in this post. The pictures (thanks Christina!) all capture how incredibly, crazy awesome Team Fleurir and the new retail space are much better than my words ever could (oh, hello modesty; I don't believe we've ever met before. My name is Ashley.)

THE BEFORES (courtesy of Robert's madre, Janet):

We have keys!!!

We have ladders!

Red wall, meet primer.

Post primer

Hey, you know what's fun for the whole family? Patching and taping walls.

Nicole-My vision includes this branch.

Us- Branch, yes, BRILLIANT!!

THE AFTERS (courtesy of Christina Bernales)

Team Fleurir and a flower pot made out of moss? MFEO= made for each other

Nicole Bourgea is a champ.

A masterpiece out of tennis balls and golf tees!

DIY all over the place!

Fun fact, that big piece in the middle was initially bright blue.

In your face!!!!

That mantle was sooo heavy!!

Remember those pieces of wood Shana was beating up a few posts back? Here they are!

Come on in; buy some chocolates!

Cheers folks!