Wonka Redux from WeLoveYouSo.com

Wonka Redux: “

Roald Dahl’s Charlie and the Chocolate Factory was published in 1964. The movie starring Gene Wilder (tag line: “It’s Scrumdidilyumptious!”) came out in 1971. A second version hit theaters in 2005. Which is all to say that the story of a loony inventor revealing his sugary trade secrets to a bright young kid holds a certain perennial appeal.

Part of this allure lies with the story’s masterful structure: part mini-bildungsroman and part fairy tale, it combines adventure, supernatural phenomena, moral perils and a grand journey. Some of the story’s greatness is also due to the inventive genius of Roald Dahl. And part of it––a large part––stems from the concept of magical candy. Who doesn’t love magical candy?

Katrina Markoff is a real-life Willy Wonka of sorts, if Wonka was a globetrotting woman who trained at Le Cordon Bleu. Markoff’s company, Vosges Haut-Chocolat, specializes in exotic candy bars meant to be nibbled in the tiniest of savoring bites (no Violet Beauregards allowed.) The Black Pearl bar––speckled with ginger, wasabi and black sesame seeds––tastes like the result of Wonka running wild in a sushi restaurant. The Habana bar is crunchy with plantain chips (Wonka-Goes-To-Cuba), and the Enchanted Mushroom bar, with Reishi mushrooms and walnuts, is like a chocolatey trip to the forest floor.

If it all sounds weird––well, it is. And that’s definitely not a bad thing.

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