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New Morning Natural & Organic presented its 4th Annual Chocolate Dinner benefit for the education and environmental programs of the Audubon Centers at Bent of the River in Southbury and Sharon, CT. The programs provide hands-on nature experiences to area teenagers and adults.
 This year’s cuisine had an international flair, drawing on African, Asian and Southwestern flavors, created by New Morning’s Executive Chef Carol Byer-Alcorace. The savory to sweet menu included: Vegan African Peanut Soup with a Dark Chocolate Swirl; Chocolate Glazed Pork Tenderloin on Sweet Potato Corn Cakes; Chocolate and Beer-Baked BBQ Chicken. Carol’s fabulous Vegan Chocolate Truffles are back by popular demand. (Full Menu) Many New Morning vendors kindly donated their goods to offset the cost of the event, including Green & Black’s dark organic chocolate, an exquisite 68% dark and one of the very special ingredients.
 Guests enjoyed their dark organic chocolate with a clear conscience- knowing that it’s fairly traded and organically grown. The speakers this year were Naren and Gun Sonpal, owners of Coffee-Tea-Etc, LLC, local coffee roasters. http://www.coffee-tea-etc.com Naren served as a Peace Corps volunteer in Guatemala, where he worked with coffee and tea growing cooperatives. He witnessed the devastating effect the global coffee/cacao industry has had on local communities and returned passionate about telling their story. The cacao bean comes from the same parts of the world and is harvested in similar fashion to coffee beans- although as we know, cacao has demonstrated magical properties when converted into chocolate.
 Shade-grown coffee and cacao offer many benefits to small farm communities. Among those benefits are an improved environmental impact and better habitat for diverse wildlife species. On hand were feathered ambassadors from the Raptor Education Program at Audubon Sharon. We learned that we share many of our migratory birds with the coffee/cacao regions! Find out more about Audubon: www.audubonct.org
Guests enjoyed live music of West Africa, from a musical trio featuring versatile Woodbury musician Dirck Westervelt, who learned from the masters in Bamako, Mali, and Zimbabwe. For more about Dirck: http://www.juddhill.com. Dirck accompanyed Abdoulaye Alhassane, a member of a noble Songhai family of Niger, who is a composer, singer, arranger and multi-instrumentalist. The group will perform on guitar, banjo and traditional  instruments. More on music
Fine organic and biodynamic wines were served by Mary Kay Brown of Organic Vintages-http://www.organicvintages.com <http://www.organicvintages.com/> Including: Frey Chardonnay, Borgo Faveri Pinot Grigio, Frey Syrah, Frey Biodynamic Red Zinfandel, HoneyRun Blackberry Honey wine. Nutmeg Wine and Spirits kindly donated 10% of wine orders written at the dinner to Audubon. Coffee-Tea-Etc again provided fair trade coffee and tea for
the evening. Bantam Bread donated some of its unbeatable crusty wholegrain breads for the delight of our guests. This year, New Morning introduced a new baker, regular New Morning supplier, and Ghana native, Esi Eyiah, owner and partner of the Gourmet Sweet Shoppe, who creatied dark chocolate ginger snap cookies in the shape of  doves with royal icing. The cookies were signed by area celebrities such as Dustin Hoffman, and resturanteur Danny Meyer, and were part of a silent auction for bidding on during the evening. 
See pictures from previous years events
The Audubon Center at Bent of the River in Southbury is a 700-acre sanctuary and education center that features 15 miles of hiking trails. The Bent of the River conserves birds, other wildlife and their habitats by engaging the community and inspiring lifelong appreciation of nature. For information on the Bent of the River, please call: (203) 264-5098.
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