Things to get out of the way: the name Theo, for starters. Not Teddy, not Vincent's brother, nothing to do with the Deity, nope. It's a small tree, Theobroma cacao, native to the deep tropics of Central and South America, whose seeds (called cacao beans) are used to make chocolate. Moving on. Ten years ago, a novel food company based in Fremont burst onto the scene, promising something unheard of and thought to be unattainable: the nation's first bean-to-bar chocolate.
The company was called Theo. Its founders were Joe Whinney and Debra Music, and the early press enthusiasm for their products pushed their personal stories aside. Now, with the publication of a handsome Theo Chocolate cookbook, their remarkable tale is being told again.
Over the years, we've heard regularly about Joe Whinney, the environmentalist and activist for sustainable agriculture whose sympathy for the plight of the cacao farmers turned from idealism to advocacy to commercial success. Less about his co-founder, Debra Music, the marketing maven who created Theo as a consumer brand. But we're getting ahead of the story. Whinney and Music married, set up house in Massachusetts, had a son, divorced, but-despite their separate careers-remained close as their son, Henry, grew up. Henry was ten when Whinney convinced a Seattle-based investor to underwrite his dream of creating a sustainable chocolate business; he asked Music to join him in the move to Seattle.
Theo Chocolate opened a year later in an old trolley barn in Fremont. Originally viewed as a novelty, the chocolate bars, in a variety of unusual flavors, caught on, helped by a terrific logo by a local design firm called Kittenchops.com. Food Network named Theo one of the hottest chocolate companies in the US; WebMD named it the nation's outstanding dark chocolate; Oprah declared her love on TV. Integral to the concept are the one-hour public tours ($10) which explain every step of the chocolate process, literally from bean to bar.
And now there's the book, filled with 75 recipes along with innumerable articles about the bean's transition to chocolate. A procession of A-list chefs contribute recipes (Tom Douglas: roast chicken and wild mushroom bread salad with cocoa nibs; Maria Hines: lamb sugo over tagliatelle infused with cocoa nibs). Cocoa's not just for breakfast anymore.
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