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Elevating the culture of chocolate. projetchocolat.com

09/01/2026

I’ve been thinking about this for a while. The hierarchal system of craft chocolate. We’re dealing with different cultures, governments, and values. As some of you might already know, I’m a part of IndigeNash, an art collective here in Nashville. We disagree but never argue with ego because we have a common higher purpose. We always come together because we have a mission that we all agree upon. It’s a beautiful way and I truly believe it’s how the universe should work.

I know from IndigeNash that the lateral indigenous way is what the craft chocolate industry can look to for coming together. Until we have a common higher purpose that’s not implied but written, we’ll be like the Wild West.

How can we get there? What will it take?

What would you say is our common higher purpose?

08/30/2026

I’m in chocolate art history curating mode. Taking space and storytelling into consideration plus looking through a vast collection is quite the task! Jenelle Porter, former curator at The Whitney Museum of American Art and The Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston, had some helpful words for me. She said that every piece needs to connect and speak to each other. I immediately understood. She was very encouraging and yet I’ve decided like most everything, I can’t do this alone. I’m bringing in a co-curator.

It’s a vulnerable act to make art and it’s a vulnerable act to reveal what has been part of my inner world to the public. Every object has a soul and all will be revealed:

The Indigenous Story of Cacao
Chocolate Museum in collaboration with IndigeNash
November 18, 2026
Nashville, TN

08/28/2026

New research confirms what earlier residue analysis could only suggest: people at Etowah, in Georgia, were consuming cacao by the 11th–12th century CE. This is evidence of trade networks stretching thousands of miles from Mesoamerica into the Southeast, centuries before European contact. 🍫

This was what Dr. Crown shared with us at the Santa Fe Women’s Cacao Summit in May and we’ve been waiting for the proof. It’s here. Now you can read about it:

Source: King et al., “Cacao in the Mississippian World,” PLOS One, 2026

08/23/2026

Imagine four days at Hacienda Doña Andrea as we sit at the table sipping centuries of drinking chocolate.

Join us in Santa Fe this october for a weekend drinking chocolate workshop moving through Mesoamerica, 18th century European courts, and the present using hands, hearts, molinillos, and metates.

Your co-hosts are Mackenzie Rivers Mackenzie Rivers and Sophia Rea Projet Chocolat . With featured guest teachers Esmeralda Esmeralda Torres and Nancy Cacao Coyatoc , sharing Zoque family drinking chocolate traditions from Chiapas.

Open to home cooks, chocolate lovers, and industry folks alike. Spaces are limited.

Link in Projet Chocolat bio to register or learn more 🍫

08/17/2026

Craft chocolate sells one thing above all else: real people behind the process. So when the imagery is AI-generated, the whole reasoning falls apart.

I’m not asking for perfect photography. I’m asking for honest photography. I’m also asking for beauty.

I’m open for discussion and your thoughts.

08/15/2026

Save this if you want to try making Italian historical drinking chocolate or share this post with someone who will be surprised that chocolate once tasted like a pomander.

08/07/2026

Popular chocolate history and documented chocolate history are not the same thing. Four corrections with sources.

Save and share.

07/31/2026

This fall, the indigenous story of cacao will include scent as part of how the exhibit speaks.

I recently took a webinar on olfactory museology through the fragrancealliancenetwork , and it changed how I’m thinking about this whole project.

A things I learned:

Europe has been integrating scent into museums for decades. The U.S. is still catching up.

Indigenous exhibits use scent even less than most. Often because the people building them aren’t indigenous themselves, and incorporating scent responsibly means seeking permission from the communities whose story is being told. That process takes time, and rightly so.

This exhibit is being built in partnership with IndigeNash so that permission is built into the process from the start.

Scent isn’t decoration for the museum. It’s part of how memory works, conscious and unconscious. It’s also part of how a story gets to live in your body, not just your eyes.

07/20/2026

Cacao in North America, Pre Contact

In Chaco Canyon, 1000–1125 CE. cylinder jars carrying theobromine, cacao’s chemical fingerprint, were tested by Dr. Patricia Crown and Jeffery Hurst in 2009. Though Dorothy Washburn and colleagues pushed that date back to 750 CE. Thousands of miles north of where the tree grows.

Testing later expanded to Hohokam sites in southern Arizona and found the same residue, across elite and common vessels. That means that cacao was traded all around the Southwest.

The next frontier is the Gulf. Researchers have proposed cacao moving into the Mississippian world around the same time but the residue evidence there thinner. “Don’t be surprised if we discover cacao was in the Gulf states” - Dr. Crown at the Santa Fe Women’s Cacao Summit.

And now Chaco itself is at risk. The federal protections that have kept oil and gas drilling 10 miles from the park since 2023 are being rolled back, on a public comment window that closes July 29. This is a living cultural landscape, not a ruin. Link in bio to comment before the deadline.

07/12/2026

Part two: the books that are one of a kind and fun to find.

This list includes topics on medicine, scent, botany, art history, and Indigenous Foodways. These six books are further off the beaten path than last time and I promise there’s at least one in the list you haven’t read.

If you want to know more about each book just ask. All are fantastic and worth finding.

📚 Which one are you adding to your list?

Cover: Cocoa All About It by Historicus AKA Richard Cadbury, 1892

1. Smell Words: Ex Libris Odoratis risograph zine by Aubrey Gurtovenko and Noele Lusano

2. Coffee, Tea, and Chocolate: Consuming the World by Yao-Fen You, Detroit Institute of Art

3. Chocolate as Medicine: A Quest over the Centuries by Philip K. Wilson and W. Jeffrey Hurst

4. America’s First Cuisines by Sophie D. Coe

5. One Cacao Tree by Raven Hanna

6. Hot Chocolate by Michael Turback

Address

1305 Clinton Street Suite 100
Nashville, TN
37203

Website

https://www.projetchocolat.com/retreats/

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