REFLECTIONS
Behind the Scenes- Why I chose this Project
My prime motivation for choosing this as an OP was to practice awareness of consciously creating curricula for my own self study. I have been self employed for most of my life and I am a voracious learner. Gaia has inspired in me the recognition of using design tools to engage in the content and process of learning to feed my passions. I wanted to explore chocolate. I saw chocolate and cordials as an opportunity to explore active experimentation. I wanted to create a curriculum to empower myself to learn through my own motivation and design rather than through an externally imposed structure.
Relationship to Applied Permaculture Design
In line with my application for specialization, I have included a the following sections:
- 2.2.1 "The Field in context of Permaculture" describes how this OP relates to Permaculture ethics and values
- 2.2.1 "Design methodology" demonstrates how I use the design science of Permaculture to create this project including designing a curriculum and a small scale independent fair trade minded company.
- 2.2.2 "Relocalization" focuses upon that aspect of my thesis that relocalization is crucial to the permaculture movement as a whole.
- 2.1.3 "Permaculture Principles" shows how I utilized Permaculture Principles throughout this project.
LIPD Reflection
I am very happy with the skill-flexes that I developed. I certainly feel that I stuck to many of the broad strokes that I have in my life regarding attitude or approach to living and projects including joyfulness and compassion. In addition my hope to fuel more creative outlets was satiated by the chocolate making in addition to some of the marketing play. OP3 developed my skills as a chef and enhanced my palate. Interestingly, chocolate consumed more of my time than originally intended; however, in addition, I began playing with infusing honeys and using cacao butter to work with salves. All of this was within the larger goals for my hear, while being unanticipated during this OP. I did read several of the books on my list including Drunken Botanist, Naked Chocolate and Artisanal Chocolate. I successfully crafted the 7 to a dozen key chocolates and cordials that I intend to use as the start of my product line. On the other hand, I didn't explore as much medicinal or raw chocolate as I had originally intended. That being said, I believe that my solid grasp of chocolate will continue to evolve through play and exploration. Overall, I feel that this OP kept me on track with many intentions I explored in the LIPD. There is a more detailed list of skill-flexes attended to from my LIPD on the Skill-flex assessment box on this page to the right.
Collaboration: Leadership & Cooperation
I was happy with my efforts at collaborating with friends on this project. As I taught myself to make chocolate, I offered to teach others, knowing full well that teaching others is a wonderful tool for myself to learn what I am doing. And indeed greatly assists my intention of making my work and projects fun and community based. I quite enjoy doing things with others, including making chocolates or many other creative and practical endeavors. This made me explain it in many different ways. The main mentor I had during this project was Brian Wallace who after connecting at the herbalism seminar last spring and talking chocolate for hours and hours, I went to his production facility in Berkeley to really grok chocolate making. Honorable mentions go to the greater Buckeye Gathering community, many of whom were making medicinal cordials that inspired me to blend my cordial making and tincture making into a fun and medicinal project.
MTMP
I was intending to complete this OP this spring. The main divergence from my intended timeline was that I had intended to finish OP 3 on Land Stewardship in Baja this spring and that project got shifted around due to a hurricane in Baja. I wanted to complete OP 4: Chocolates & Cordials this spring; however, I also wanted to be close to done with my MSc. I will now need to take most of the summer to work and then commit the winter to documenting and finalizing land stewardship while living in my homestead in Baja, Mexico.
Timeline Chocolates & Cordials
Replicability
My hope is that the curriculum I have created during this OP allows many to follow my steps in becoming chocolatiers. I hope I have laid out my design methodology clearly enough to assist people in designing a curriculum to suit their needs. This I see as one level more advanced (meta) than replicating the chocolatiering curriculum. I hope that there is significant information and enthusiasm as well to launch people on the process of infusing their favorite flavors into alcohol. This side of Chocolates & Cordials is less precise as I am still playing with what the main cordials to produce are. I did not aim to have recipes for these at the end of this process but rather greater familiarity with alcohol, sugar, medicinals, flavorings which is a fun and enjoyable process.
Liam as Project Manager
I managed this project wonderfully. I connected with other chocolate makers and had good talks about chocolate. I invested in product and explored what was on the market. I created realistic and effective goals. I committed time to joyfully play with chocolate making. I included friends in the chocolate making to practice myself as a teacher.
Classic Gaia Questions
What went well?
I am thrilled with my learning curve through chocolatiering. I feel highly skilled both in the science and language of chocolatiering and in the practical skills that are valuable to me. Basically in 2 months, I am comfortable saying that I am an amateur chocolatier. Unknown good benefits of sending chocolate to many friends. I am happy with some of my cordial concoctions. I am probably happier with my learnings and growth more than the physical products. I don't feel as solid with these, though I am happy with the emergence of 8 cordials that I foresee as my first product line in the coming times.
What was Challenging?
I had to eat several pieces of chocolate every day and I think I may have gotten a cavity.
What would I do differently next time?
I may have typed out an actual curriculum to follow and PRINT it to mark how classes were different than my imagination. Having a solid action sheet that I can mark up is a skill that I am instituting into my caterings as well. Even if "this" is the first approximation, it is useful to have in a concrete form.
What are my next achievable steps?
• I intend to expand upon my 12 very happy chocolate pieces with more in the world of raw medicinal chocolates.
• I will play more with cacao butter in the cosmetic/medicinal world as I understand the crucial aspect of it with human body temperature (melting smoothly at 94 degrees F.)
• I will create boxes of chocolates to sell at Farmer's Markets in Baja
• I will write a nice article on emulsions
• Put energy into creating a marketing platform and image
• Hoping in the next few days to try out making couverture from my own blend of sugar and baker's chocolate.
LEARNINGS
Key Un/Learnings
• how quickly I learn something when I Just do it. Play
• how to fail gracefully and proudly. I truly embraced failure as a path toward learning.
• how to temper chocolate
• how to use chocolate molds
• how to dip chocolate
• considerations around marketing and production beyond solely the product — logo, packaging
• how to emboss
• conventional liquor making methods
• exploration of medicinal methods
• awareness around sugars and alcohol
• how to document effectively -- happy with some of my charts
• how to read material from multiple sources and find the themes, source the truth from multiple online perspectives
• how to experiment to question conventional wisdom
• Perhaps the greatest learning was that giving anything time is how to become proficient at it. The first couple times it felt like a PROJECT (daunting) to make chocolate, eventually, it became something that could happen while I was making dinner (or "oh, i have an hour now")
• Great contrast to my more abstract/intellectual OP on health because I had PRODUCT at the end of many days. I realized that sometimes I buy things just to materialize that I did something that day. It’s hard to explain how abstract so much of our work is. I don’t understand how people can work a year of their life without anything to hold in their hand. And I think for many, the compulsive need to turn their paycheck into “stuff” is based on this aspect of wanting to feel like something “objectively/materially” happened today. A glimpse into the materialistic culture we are is a foil to the abstract conceptualization that much of today's professions do.
• curriculum creation mimics the design process.
Kolb Kite: Doing, Thinking, Reflecting, Experimenting
This OP was heavy into Active Experimentation and Doing. I spent some time thinking and reflecting and looking at maximum points of leverage. I did write a few articles which entailed some reflection and conceptualizing tempering was useful for me. This gave me the overwhelming sense of Just do It.
I found it extremely helpful to read the tempering process and then do it, then read it again, then do it. . . .This greatly enhanced my nuanced level of refinement that otherwise could have been considered “I know” through reading/conceptualizing once but it’s not in my bones.
Skillflex Assessment
hard skills of homesteading --food production, fermentation, herbalism
fermentation — played with mead
herbalism — medicinal cordials
strategic planning — how I could learn, how I could market
project/promise management — OP level
priority analysis — As I develop a product line, my priority was learning as much as good tasting product. Learn themes i.e. granulated sugar vs. syrup, volume vs. time
action learning — Lots of Active Experimentation which tends to be my weakest Kolb
documentation — good charts, metrics and journals
story-telling — weave the story of the product
holistic medicine — creating medicinal cordials and medicinal chocolates
relationship with plants — infusing plant energies into alcohol
healing products manufacturer — my product line hopefully will be expanding as I settle on recipes and
aromatherapy — playing with scents in chocolates
reiki — I reiki my cordials and chocolates to add the final ingredient : love (positive energy)
natural foods catering — away from industrialized processing. I consider nearly anything handmade as natural foods
cleansing — bitters cleanse, some herbal medicines are very valuable aspects of cleansing, established my fire cider product as well and looking into salves, etc. . .
photography — for websites and marketing and packaging
writing — blurbs for cordials
Art in Design brainstorming on logo and packaging for cordials and chocolates (and website)
ePortfolio skills — OP Management
hip to 21st century creating / improving my website
Permaculture Principles
MOLLISON
Work with Nature
Quality ingredients. Marasca cherries, not little balls of cellulose. Cacao is a powerful friendly plant.
Cordials that are herbal and medicinal. Focusing upon the relationship between plants and flavor and medicine.
The problem is an opportunity
Many of my greatest learnings came about from apparent failure. When learning a new skill, sometimes taking it to the extreme and seeing how the problem unfolds can yield greater understanding.
Make the least change for the greatest possible affect
Chocolate and cordials each are high value added products that can maximize my ability to turn profits without doing significantly more work. Fun and more $//hour than most other cooking. I used my chocolatiering skills at a wedding that I recently catered and this added to the cache of me as a highly skilled chef and person.
The yield of the system is theoretically unlimited
Chocolate is infinite.
Everything is connected
I love the spectrum between tincture and cordial that I am exploring through volume and time.
Relinquishing Power
Trusting in the power of nature to heal.
Unknown good benefit
Turns out that you get to eat a lot of chocolate when studying to be a chocolatier (and even send some to your friends).
Succession of Evolution
This is crucial in any active experimentation as well as in curriculum development.
Through each succession, my layers of refinement in the process increased.
We must give ourselves over to the process and engage it. I can’t learn strictly by reading and studying.
Cyclical Opportunity
Cordials — moon cycles
Curriculum allowed refinement of my chocolate making with each repeated class
Cycles of Active Experimentation — as above
Diversity yields stability
I am diversifying my skillflexes in both the greater world and even as a caterer. Information as a resource
Tempering chocolate is an art that must be shown or read about. It seems rare than many people would just happen upon this in the course of trial and error.
Holmgren
Observe & Interact
With chocolate, I enjoyed the constant interplay between observing the process as I was doing it and then interacting with movies and material to understand it more fully
Catch and store energy
Cordials represent the bioactive constituents and flavors being preserved for indefinite periods of time in alcohol.
Obtain a Yield
DEFINITELY — chocolate + cordials
Apply self regulation and Accept Feedback
I must apply self regulation regarding both Chocolates and Cordials. . . .
Use & Value Renewable Resources and Services
Fair trade chocolate
Organically/sustainable grown and wildcrafted herbs
Produce no waste
Gotta eat all the chocolate since I wasn't selling it.
Design from Pattern to Details
I started thinking about 7-190 chocolate products I would like to be good at making
and same with a series of 6-10 Cordials
I don’t want to tackle “everything”
This pattern level of what are my most effective points where I can engage
and then get better and better through the years
Integrate rather than Segregate
Chocolate cordials
Molded chocolates with cordial based centers.