Caylie, acupuncturist & chocolatier: Creating unique occasions between food & people
This is my craft
I love to host food based events, bring people together around the table in unexpected ways, and to spark dinner conversations. I want to get people excited about the obscure aspects of food and life.
While interviewing Caylie for this blog post I’ve had several moments when I felt deeply connected to her, resonating on so many levels with what she was sharing with me.
Her edible creations don’t just include chocolate, but also mushrooms, flowers, corn masa and various ferments like Miso and Kimchi - inspired by her curiosity and passion to invocate the world around in the profile of food. For Caylie food isn’t just medicine, it’s a balm for the soul.
Chocolate has always been in her blood and part of her story. Although she is currently dedicating most of her time to Chinese medicine, she tells me “food and chocolate have always been a central element in my family.”
Caylie’s great grandmother owned a very well-known chocolate business in the States and growing up, Caylie spent many hours in the kitchen with both of her grandmothers pursuing the food traditions - including chocolate experiments.
Writing these lines I’m reminded of one of my favorite movies - Chocolat - and can see parallel traits in Caylie and Juliette Binoche, the main actress - the love for treating people with edible creations for sure.
For Caylie health is happiness, which is derived in large part from the pleasure of eating. Hence, a career in medicine made absolute sense for her. She believes treatments should be palatable, literally and figuratively. Teaching people how to reconnect with and identify their own food sources is a core part of her work, exemplified by taking people outside in the spring to pick a wild salad.
With an academic background in food science and chocolate making, her years in Mexico taught her other traditional ways of chocolate preparation around harvesting and hand processing cacao beans.
Her passion for food and unique edible creations has often led her on faraway adventures. She told me about a trip to Turkey, where she endeavored a 12 hours bus ride to get to a restaurant that was well known for offering all wild pepper dishes, and ordered everything on the menu, which inspired the proprietor to give her a tour of the peppers in the moonlight. For Caylie, seeking out food is seeking out unexpected connections that happen along the way.
Her chocolate creations are seasonally driven, not only what’s to be found outside and can be picked or foraged. It’s also the light, the feelings, and the many textures of time and place that inspire her.
For the upcoming Día de los Muertos (Day of the Dead, November 1st), which her family loves to continue even since returning from their stint in Mexico, she created a cinnamon-infused truffle sprinkled with candied calendula blossoms, and black charcoal sugar for the ofrenda.
All of her current food-based projects have the throughline of health and deliciousness, and listening to Caylie’s plans, they always will.
Caylie integrates all of the different elements of food and medicine into her primary practice Acupuncture Kitchen and dappled food-based workshops, such as the science of aphrodisiacs.
And she’ll definitely continue to find ways to creatively work with chocolate, Caylie says. Her future travels will certainly lead her on more food-inspired adventures to bring back unforgettable memories, fun stories to share, alongside plenty of inspiration for more confections.
Caylie and her business Acupuncture Kitchen is based in Brattleboro, Vt.