“People are willing to brave horrible conditions just to eat chocolate!" said Kimberley McGrath Gomez, executive director of the Red Hook Chamber of Commerce. Indeed. Last Saturday was a chilly, blustery day, but that didn’t seem to stop hordes of people from the village’s inaugural festival celebrating everything chocolate. Red Hook and the Chocolate Festival took its cue from the town’s once-thriving chocolate factory and opened with a “Learn How To Taste Chocolate" event conducted by CIA-trained chef Dan Budd at his shop, Taste Budd’s Chocolate and Coffee Café. While there were plenty of events scheduled for kids (a Chocolate Bomb Skateboard Race, a Chocolate Wars bakeoff at the middle school and a Wandering Wonka), it was the adults who swarmed the chocolate vendors and strolled from store to store to taste the chocolates set out by retailers. Merchants reported that they’d never seen so much activity in their stores…proving that chocolate is good for everyone and everything.
Video: Jamie Larson
