|
|
|
|
Saturday, 14 February 2009 |
BY ABBY FOX
Claudia Frankenberg wants people to like Frankie’s, her new chocolate business. It’s a bit different: mango, banana, or other fruit, dipped in chocolate, or fruit-and-nut on chocolate, but they’re yummy, in the most basic, palate-pleasing way.
The East Greenwich resident came up with her chocolate line after a decades-long career as a chef, food marketing consultant, caterer, and small business owner, in Rhode Island, New York, and Washington, DC. Despite her long and impressive resume, including such stints as sous chef for Glorious Food in New York, she wanted to work on something new: a mainstream, decidedly not high-brow nor low-brow chocolate treat. Frankie’s is not as cheap as a candy bar, and it’s far from the yuppie end of the sweetness spectrum, such as organic or high-cocoa chocolates.
What Frankenberg came up with is something you can find aplenty in Europe, she said, but not so much in America: chocolate discs with fruit and nuts on top, as well as her dried fruit-and-chocolate selection, with four choices of mango, apricot, pineapple and banana. She said she settled on the idea both because the concept is hard-to-find, especially in affordable, smaller quantities in your average grocery store, but also because they’re pretty to look at, which pleased her inner chef need to present food to its best effect.
Frankenberg wants you to know where she’s been in her career, that she’s a trained chef and a serious student of food; she was first in her class at the New York Restaurant School when she got her culinary arts and restaurant management degree. But on a more personal note, she’s also quick to point out a lifetime love for food, as someone who had her own recipe file by nine years old, and was comfortable making dinners for the family by the age of 11. “It’s curious and intriguing to me that this hasn’t been branded and packaged yet,” she said, “and at a good price point” – the business-side of her personality showing. And then, smiling: “This is my favorite desert item.”
The heart of Frankie’s, which by now you may have guessed is a friendly shortening of her last name, is the dark-chocolate, made of 48-percent cocoa, not too close to milk chocolate, but not cocoa-ey enough to be the expensive, bittersweet kind the antioxidant seekers prefer.
If you’re used to Hershey’s and not sure how a chocolate-dipped mango would fit into your food schedule, Frankenburg said it’s nice to pop one in any time of day or for a formal occasion. Serving size is two to three pieces for an apricot or mango-dipped treat, for example, but eight pieces for a banana-chocolate snack. And, at a “grocery price point,” she said – in other words, affordable enough for a grocery store, as opposed to a specialty boutique – the price per pound is less than $15. On the matter of taste, this writer can verify that when samples of Frankie’s were distributed here last Monday at 580 Main Street, most were gobbled up within the hour.
For the weight-watchers, or those who are still convinced that chocolate is considered more healthy than unhealthy, due to all the positive media attention, nutrition information does show it offers some supply of iron, vitamin A and calcium, highest in the dark chocolate-covered apricot and the dark chocolate circle with trail mix on top.
Frankie’s Fruit and Chocolate is sold at Dave’s in East Greenwich and Wickford; at Felicia’s Coffee; Belmont Market in Wakefield, near the Sweenor’s Chocolates factory where her chocolate are made; and the East Side Market in Providence. Frankenberg lives locally in East Greenwich and can be reached at www.frankiesfruitand chocolate.com
|
|
|
|
