Month: January 2019

Mama Ganache: a retrospective

Eve Neuhaus 19 Comments

It’s only eight months since we passed Mama Ganache on to Ben Taylor and his family. In some ways that feels like an eternity; in others, the blink of an eye. It was harder than I expected to review my pictures from all those years. Assembling them for this blog brings a lump to my throat, an ache in my heart, and even some tears.

Mama Ganache began her life in the basement of the Vets Hall in San Luis. We rented the kitchen there on Sunday afternoons to create some ridiculously labor-intensive, ridiculously delicious chocolate bars: layers of chocolate, crispy rice and peanut butter. Tom sold them at local churches to fund his fledgling NGO, Project Hope and Fairness.

When his sister Joanne opened Splash Cafe in San Luis, our newly named Sweet Earth Chocolates were made in the second floor kitchen.

Our chocolate at Splash in 2006
Our first truffle collection

In 2009, we moved down the street to 1445 Monterey.

Our chocolates grew more and more beautiful and delicious, especially when Rebecca Wamsley came to work for us.

We held art shows, wine tastings and parties.

In 2012, we changed our name to Mama Ganache.

Valentine’s Day was always fun.

As was Easter:

Halloween:

And Christmas:

In 2013, we started to make our own chocolate from beans sourced from around the world.

Truffle critters were always popular.

We gave tours, hosted birthday parties and meetings, and raffled off huge bunnies and turkeys.

  • Raising a Reader
  • Girl Scouts
  • Birthday party
  • The Adventure Club

Our artists were amazing.

  • Jo Jackson
  • Susan Lara
  • John Landon
  • Susan Lara, Rochelle Niemerow, Lin Mercer

As was their art.

  • Susan Lara
  • Chloe White
  • Lee Lawson
  • Rebecca Wamsley

And our customers.

Tom and I will be forever grateful to all the incredible people who worked for us over the years. Apologies to those of you – and there are many – who aren’t included here because I don’t have pictures of you.

  • Kelly
  • Rebecca and Talina
  • Lena and Bruce
  • Isabelle
  • Sophia
  • Cindy
  • Jane
  • Ashley
  • Theresa
  • Terryl, Allison, and Lenny
Larry, Tom, and Josefina

Tom and I (and Joanne) had Mama Ganache for thirteen years. I went through close to 6000 pictures to choose these, and the ones I picked in the end don’t cover a fraction of the love, life, and laughter that we shared in those years.

And none of it would have happened without Tom.

Ninety Days outside the Schengen area – good-bye California

Eve Neuhaus 5 Comments
THX MoM - a carving on a park bench at Lake Merritt, Oakland, CA.
THX MoM
Lake Merritt park bench, Oakland, CA

Though I’m sad to be leaving California behind, I’m filled with gratitude that our long term French visas, good for one year, have come. Dual Austrian/American citizenship is still in process, but I’m optimistic about that too, especially as reading The Viennese – Splendor, Twilight, and Exile makes me feel so very Viennese.

Coffee at Linnaea'sCoffee at Linnaea’s Cafe, San Luis Obispo

Once, when I told our retired psychoanalyst friend, Joe Abrahams, that it was my mother, my very Viennese mother, who finally pulled me to the top in a long series of dreams about mountains, he responded without hesitation, yes, that’s your purpose, to fulfill your mother’s dreams.

I’m deeply thankful that my mother passed on her dream of living in the south of France to me, as well as for my rich life in the United States till now. THX MoM.

My mother, Trudy Baumohl, in California, near the end of her life

You know the sensation you get when you feel profoundly thankful – when the tests come back and you’re okay, when the car doesn’t hit the dog, when you realize what you’ve got, that tingle that spreads outward from the back of your head as the hypothalamus releases all those healing hormones? As the possibility of putting down roots in Cordes for a good while becomes more real, I feel deeply grateful more and more often. When I am there, I feel it every day as I open the shutters.

Sometimes there’s a hot balloon out there

Such gratitude cannot be conjured, though it can be courted. Like meditation, it isn’t something you do; it’s something that comes. Practice readies the heart, the mind, and the body; but true meditation and deep gratitude are states that arrive only by grace.

The cycle of giving and receiving gratitude is at the heart of the Iroquois belief system – the prime responsibility of the people to keep the cycle turning.

The yearly cycle of Iroquois Thanksgiving Ceremonies

The next few days will be our last in California for a while. I am grateful to so many of you for your love, laughter, and light during our years in San Luis: twenty years of learning, sharing, and growing.

As things seem pretty much in order for our departure, Tom and I plan to spend our two last afternoons in San Luis at Mama Ganache, where you are welcome to join us. One or the other, or maybe both of us, will be there between 2 and 5 on both Tuesday and Wednesday, January 8 and 9. Stop by.

We’d like to say thank you.