Let us eat cake

For some people, it is the best part of getting married.

I am speaking, of course, of the cake.

Sure, the ceremony itself is nice, though you’ll be too nervous to actually remember any of it, which is why couples make sure they have photographs and videos. Getting all those presents is always exciting, too (and thank you, Aunt Doris, for that lovely macramé rendition of the Eiffel Tower; I’m sure we’ll find somewhere to hang it soon). And the reception can be a grand affair, if you don’t spend the whole time worrying about How. Much. It. Costs.

Ah, but the cake. The cake is foolproof. The cake is the star of the show, other than, possibly, the bride. Everyone looks forward to the cake.

But how do you know you have the right flavor? Do you want fondant or buttercream frosting?

Glee Cake & Pastry in Chelsea, Mich., aims to make that part of the decision easier for you (and, let’s face it, to drum up some business for themselves) with the first in a series of wedding-cake and dessert tastings next Sunday, Feb. 19, from noon-3 p.m.

Prospective brides and grooms can sample a variety of cakes, cupcakes, and other desserts for free, while their guests may join in the fun for $5 apiece. However, seating is limited to 45 people, and reservations are required.

Reservations may be made by calling 734-475-3000. The store is at 117 S. Main St. in Chelsea.

When you do get married, don’t forget to save a slice of the cake in your freezer to eat on your first anniversary. But if you do that, don’t store it somewhere that, if the power goes out for several days, juice from frozen chicken bones above it will drip all over — and presumably into — the container with the cake.

Really, you don’t want that to happen.

Marketing your food

So you have this recipe for salsa that is so good you can’t wait to sell it to the public. Or maybe the pierogi that have made you so famous among your friends that you want to see what the rest of the world thinks of them. Or possibly your dry rub for grilling meats is so killer that you see dollar signs every time you taste it.

All you need now is a plan to market it. You need to know how to entice grocers to find room for it on their crowded shelves and how to convince restaurants to buy it. Distributors won’t pick it up by themselves, you know; you have to let them know why they want to carry it. And consumers themselves need to be kept informed about it, tantalized, seduced into buying it.

Enter the Center for Innovative Food Technology, which will be the host of a day-long workshop on Feb. 23. The MarketReady training program will cover how to sell food products through a number of marketing channels. It will also explain what is required for packaging, pricing, delivering, regulations, insurance, and marketing for each type of buyer.

The cost for the 9 a.m.-4:30 p.m. workshop is $75, plus $25 for each additional person from the same business. This cost includes materials, lunch, and morning refreshments.

The CIFT is at 5555 Airport Hwy., Suite 100.

For more information or to register, call 419-535-6000, ext. 108.

Chocolate, and thus important

With Valentine’s Day just two days away, we thought we would visit that vitally important age-old question: Is chocolate good for you?

Thanks to a recent release from the Ohio State University Extension and the Ohio Agricultural Research and Development Center, we can now definitively say: They don’t know.

Everyone is all excited about antioxidants these days, and cocoa solids are indeed a significant source of flavonoids, which have antioxidant properties. The Kuna Indians, who live on islands off the coast of Panama, get as much as 900 mg of flavonols (a type of flavonoids) every day from their favorite drink, which is made from dried, ground cocoa beans. Perhaps as a result, heart disease, cancer, and diabetes are rare in their culture.

But the problem is that Americans get nowhere near that amount of flavonols in their diet. A regular dark chocolate bar has about 250 mg of flavonols, but it also brings with it 240 calories, 9 grams of saturated fat, and 21 grams of sugar. In other words, if you eat enough chocolate to be healthy, it will kill you.

Even so, a 2004 study published in the Journal of the American College of Nutrition indicates that people who were given dark chocolate every day for two weeks benefitted from better blood vessel function than those who were not.

The jury, as they say, is still out. But to be on the safe side, the National Institutes of Health suggests that the darker the chocolate, the better it will be for you because it has more flavonoids. White chocolate has none whatsoever (it is made from cocoa butter, not cocoa solids) and milk chocolate has very little. The NIS also says that if you want hot chocolate you should make your own from unsweetened cocoa, water, and nonfat milk, with just a little sugar or sweetener.

Those spoilsports. They probably don’t even like marshmallows.

Items for Morsels may be submitted up to two weeks before an event to food@theblade.com.