Cheese and Chocolate Offer a Cheer-Up This Weekend

It’s a weekend of cheese and chocolate in Seattle as two top food events roll back into town.

Saturday marks the start of the 7th annual Seattle Cheese Festival at Pike Place Market. The event continues through the weekend, with chef demonstrations, a wine garden, fresh mozzarella-making demo, and results of the grilled cheese contest. The seminars always hold appeal, so register early (there’s a fee to attend these) to get your first choices, from keeping your cheese safe to learning about something called “transhumance.”

The main draw is the so-called cheese concourse, featuring over fifty exhibitors letting you sample their fare. The sampling tends to draw big crowds, so you might want to exercise your elbows ahead of getting in the lines. It’s a great opportunity to figure out what you want to include on your next party platter—and to talk with the people producing the cheese.

Saturday is the fourth go-around of the Seattle Luxury Chocolate Salon. Look for presentations and demonstrations during the afternoon, but for most people, it’s all about a Willy Wonka-like walk around a room full of chocolate vendors in the Bell Harbor International Conference Center.

Like the Cheese Festival, it gets crowded, so you’ll have to nudge your way in for samples. Look for lots of local and regional chocolatiers, with two of my favorites being out-of-towners: Amano Artisan Chocolate (Orem, UT) for their chocolate bars, and Posh Chocolat (Missoula, MT) for their salted caramels.

Note: At publication time, the Chocolate Salon is sold out. There are no tickets at the door, but in past years, individuals have sold unwanted extras.