small Not including our two little boys, whom we haven't yet conscripted for duty, we started the business as two, husband and wife.  Sam and Max are a long way off from being allowed to handle chocolate; we grown-ups have a hard enough time not eating our profits!  We share responsibility for every aspect of our little operation. Since opening the Chocolate Lounge, we’ve hired a small army of chocolate fiends to help us in our mission.  Currently, we are fortunate to have Morgan, pastry chef extraordinaire, and Stephen & Kristina, our fabulous management team.  Plus our knowledgeable and friendly foodie staff: Ryan, Amy, Lisa, Kate and Allison.

We are small business with a small production, and it bears mentioning that we advocate reasonable but sufficient portion size.  You will not find anything gargantuan at the Chocolate Lounge, perhaps other than our selection. You will leave satisfied, not stuffed.  We believe decadent desserts can be part of a healthy diet.  Small luxuries are part of having a positive relationship with food, and one’s body.

local   One of our primary company directives is to be a part of the local business community.  We are fortunate and proud to be part of a vibrant culture of small food producers here in western North Carolina.  Fertile soil and evolved consciousness make this area ripe for the local food movement.  Farmers, artisan bakers, cheese makers, chefs, tailgate markets, nonprofit organizations all work side-by-side to support one another.

At French Broad Chocolate Lounge, we sell locally made Ultimate Ice Cream (East Asheville), Pisgah Brewing Company organic beers (Black Mountain), Counter Culture Coffee (Durham).  In our chocolate kitchen and bakery, we buy fruits and berries and free-range eggs from WNC farms, and pick herbs out of our back yard.  We pick up our wildflower honey from an honor-system shack on the other side of town, and our milk is processed less than a mile from our chocolate kitchen!  The point is: we always have our eyes and ears open to find ingredients from our local producers.  We believe we vote with our dollars, and try to live within our local economy as much possible.

But, um, isn’t chocolate grown in the tropics?  You got us. Cacao, an awfully finicky tree, will only grow ten degrees north and south of the equator.  But even the most die-hard local foodies agree that some foods are worth making an exception.  Anyone want to live without coffee? Black pepper?  Vanilla?  Chocolate?!  …We thought not.  With chocolate, almost all we use is manufactured in the United States, which dramatically reduces the carbon footprint of the products we make.  We buy locally what we can when we can: we do our best.

  Note: if you see an ingredient listed that you think we could source locally, let us know!

organic The organic movement embodies principles of food production and earth stewardship.  Since the USDA developed their National Organic Program, the word is laden with controversy and many small farmers and producers feel that the spirit of the movement has been legislated away.  Did you know that even if our chocolates are made with 100% certified organic ingredients, we cannot say they’re “organic,” or even “made with organic ingredients,” without ourselves being certified under the federal rules?  We believe that using organic methods of production is the right thing to do, and we buy organically produced foods most of the time.  We take earth stewardship seriously, as evidenced by the growing pile of eggshells and coffee grounds behind our bakery that will be the soil in next year’s herb garden, or by the compostability of most of our takeout packaging. 

We were certified organic under the USDA NOP for the first year of our operation, but our honey had to come from Brazil, because that was the only certified organic honey we could buy.  That is just one example of the disparity between organic certification and our other food values.  We can look Greg, of Haw Creek Honey, in the eyes and ask about the purity of his operation.  By creating local relationships with our food producers, the specter of “food security” loses its ominous underpinnings.  We value the USDA organic certification for keeping a watchful eye on producers that we can know nothing about, but all the better if we can visit Alex up at Full Sun Farm and ask if he sprays his berries.   Not “certified organic,” but de facto organic.

fair Across the planet, the lion’s share of cacao is grown on farms smaller than 5 acres.  It is inherently the business of small farmers.  Furthermore, the nature of the plant makes the mechanization of harvest impossible; every pod must be removed by hand, with a machete.  This opens up the small farmer to the possibility of exploitation by an ever-more-consolidated industry of chocolate processors, demanding more for less.  

However, there is hope for the industry yet.  Many chocolate manufacturers are showing leadership by protecting the interests of small farmers through such organizations as the World Cocoa Foundation and TransFair USA.  Perhaps more important is the establishment of direct relationships with the farmers.  Manufacturer working together with farmer yields higher quality cacao because the quality of processing—fermentation and drying—can be controlled at the source.  In turn, the farmers are producing more valuable beans and being paid more for a better product.  It’s a win-win.

For us, that means we either buy third party certified fair trade chocolate—which we do in many cases—or in lieu of certification, ask pointed questions of our processors: “Do you have direct, long-term relationships with the farmers or farmers’ cooperatives?  Are they paid and treated fairly?  How do you contribute to the vitality of the farmers’ community?”

superb superb All of the above factors are considered in selecting our chocolate and other ingredients.  It is rarely the case that we can satisfy the rigors of each consideration for any given ingredient.  There is often a compromise, and when there is, we err on the side of excellent taste.  Take milk chocolate.  We have in the past used a very good organic milk chocolate made by Dagoba.  Then we met Kokoleka, a divine 38 percent single origin, single estate American-made chocolate from Hawaii made by Guittard, a San Francisco chocolatier.  While not organic, it blows our minds and meets the small and [relatively] local and fair (direct relationship) criteria beautifully.  In closing, we cannot help but take our food choices personally; our products are a reflection of who we are.
...return to top

Our Family Resume

The Rattigans

Residents of Asheville for the last two years

Objective

To create a beautiful space and a beautiful menu; to see the emotional impact of our creations in the experiences of our guests; to achieve financial comfort, so that we can further hone our place in the community and lighten our environmental impact, all the while living as decent human beings.

Experience

2003: Jael flirts with the cute bartender (Dan) at her brother’s wedding.

2004: Take a vacation together in Costa Rica. Profess their love for one another. Decide to move there. Dan drops out of law school. Jael drops out of business school. Buy an abandoned cacao farm. Drive back to Costa Rica in a vegetable oil-powered 40 foot long school bus-turned RV, pregnant and eager to make bread and chocolate for the good people of Costa Rica. Learn Spanish. Open Bread and Chocolate, a café and dessert shop in Puerto Viejo de Limon, on the Caribbean coast.

2005: Birth first baby (Sam) in the apartment above the restaurant. Realize they’re not beach people. Learn about theobroma cacao from Marcos, the artisanal cacao farmer down the road. Start to play with chocolate recipes. Get hitched, legitimizing their bastard son.

2006: Sell Bread and Chocolate to a young buck (younger than Dan!) from Baltimore. Repatriate, in same school bus, newly ordained missionaries of chocolate. Move to Asheville, preggers once again. Start French Broad Luscious Chocolates.

2007: Hone their chocolate repertoire. Birth Max at our house in West Asheville. Sell chocolates at tailgate markets, Earth Fare and on the interweb. Write a business plan at Mountain BizWorks for a retail location.

2008: Open French Broad Chocolate Lounge February 2. Open seven days a week, we haven’t been closed since.

Skills and Abilities

Jael and Dan: collaborative chocolate making and recipe development, vision realization, making babies (retired)

Sam: prevarication, argument, creative story telling, voracious reading

Max: climbing, dancing, defiance with a smile

Education

Jael: University of Wisconsin – Madison, University of Minnesota School of Business

Dan: Oberlin College, University of Minnesota Law School

Together: Self-guided, never-ending chocolate education – from textbooks, cookbooks, chef friends, online classes, cacao farms of Costa Rica, culinary tours throughout United States and Central America, and of course, in the kitchen. (nope, they didn’t attend culinary school)

References (see press and testimonials sections, or call our moms.)

...return to top

Our Name

French Broad?!  How uncouth!

Actually, our name is quite, um, couth.  It is inspired by the mighty French Broad River, a brief account of which we have included below.  We were awestruck at the age and majesty of the river running through our chosen home town, and we're proud to identify with it.   It helps us establish our local identity, while having the added benefit of some great double entendre.  To us, indulging in handmade chocolate truffles is a sexy and sensual experience, and the suggestive nature of the name "French Broad" speaks well to that. 

We found this information at ashevillenc.com:

"Since the intensity of the river varies depending on the season, both experienced and beginning water-sportsmen have come to love the river. It plays host to many beach side resorts and rafting agencies that provide raft and equipment rentals as well as guides who are happy to lead you on your very own rafting adventure.

"Of course the history of the French Broad extends to a time long before whitewater rafting enthusiasts breached its shores; it extends back before the dawn of man, before even the formation of the ancient Appalachian mountains that it now threads gracefully through. It's long been understood that the Carolina region is geologically quite old, but the French Broad River bears the distinction of being the third oldest river in the world, trailing closely behind the Nile and the ironically named New River which also flows through North Carolina. Today the French Broad River serves as a major tributary of the famous Tennessee river, weaving its way around and through 210 miles of Western North Carolina Mountains, taking up the Pigeon, Swannanoa, Nolichucky, and other tributary rivers along the way.

"The Earliest known settlers of the French Broad Region are thought to be the Connestee Indians who's mounds have been found to date back to 200-500 AD. Evidence of Cherokee habitation can be traced back to at least 1,000 AD. The Cherokee gave the river it's oldest known name, Agiqua. It would be quite a while before immigrating Europeans, no doubt impressed by the river's breadth, would name it the French Broad.

"Since the first Europeans settled the region in the late 18th Century, the banks of the French Broad have played host to cotton mills, riverside parks, even the doomed steam boat The Mountain Lily, but as city and industry grew around it so too did pollution. Fortunately this trend did not go unnoticed. In 1955, Wilma Dykman published her seminal work “The French Broad”. Calling the river 'To thick to drink and to thin to plow”, Dykeman rose concerns about the state of the river which were soon confirmed by the French Broad Pollution Survey of 1957. With the passage of the Clean Water Act in 1972, The French Broad was on its way to returning the clean refuge of nature loved by so many today."
...return to top

More Luscious Chocolates?

Thanks for your support,

Jael and Dan
Owners/Chocolatiers
French Broad Luscious Chocolates

828.252.4181
info@frenchbroadchocolates.com