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This Issue 11/30/2006

Also in this issue

• Ego of the Week: Queen of Couture
• Ghetto fabulous
• True Confession Of an Ant lover
• Give me five

As a wise woman once said, "There are two kinds of people in the world: those who love chocolate, and communists." Yet it's doubtful that even the most die-hard, sickle-wielding, card-carrying Red would object to the socially responsible tastiness of John & Kira's Chocolates. Rather, any self-respecting radical would support the "small chocolate revolution" spearheaded by co-founding/co-owning husband and wife team John Doyle and Kira Baker-Doyle.

On a bright but brisk morning in late November, the unassuming fa‡ade of an appropriately-colored mahogany building in Philadelphia offers little to suggest the bustling chocolate production plant housed within its walls. Wearing an apron and plastic hair guard, John answers the door and motions inward. In the warm, den-like kitchen, cream procured from local farmers heats in gleaming silver kettles so that pure Valrhona chocolate and any variety of natural ingredients may then be added. Ingredients form the foundation of the company; working bottom up, John and Kira brainstorm what local products may be used to both innovate or modify fun, fresh flavors (sprigs of mint harvested in local Philadelphia school Urban Nutrition Initiative gardens; raspberries, strawberries and lemongrass reaped from a collection of small farms; honey sourced from a part-time Valley Forge bee keeper, etc). Products unavailable locally, such as pistachios, tea, coffee and ginger, are sourced from cooperatives and organic farms alike. Such social responsibility forms the backbone of this local business.

Leading his visitors on through the labyrinth of stacked wooden boxes and rattling metal trolleys, John pauses on occasion to detail the various practical concerns of a small artisan company. As if on cue, a man manipulating a large pushcart laden with stacked boxes pauses in the entry way; John, eyeing the height of the door frame and the size of the load, quickly gives directions. Doyle smiles and offers a bemused shrug, underscoring "all the little details" inherent to trying, literally or figuratively, to get oneself in the door.