Yesterday I was at the Tucson Taste of Chocolate event at the Doubletree Hotel where I was a judge along with Karyn Zoldan, Edie Jarolim, Mary Paganelli and three other celebrity judges. It was a fund raiser for the Rincon Rotary.

You would not believe all the ways people presented chocolate. There were all the usual suspects: cakes, cupcakes, cookies, fudge and a chocolate fountain. But then there was salted chocolate nut bark, a chocolate empanada, chocolate nut praline, turtle cookies, chocolate pizza, something called chocolate Charlotte, chocolate balsamic vinegar, a chocolate enchilada, chicken mole and much, much more. Some places had just one item; others had three, four, five or more.

It was lots of fun and utter heaven.

There were four categories: Restaurant, Caterer, Bakery and Just Chocolate – I judged the last two.

I don’t have the People’s Choices winners but the Judges’ Winners are below the cut:

Yesterday I took another cooking class at the Foundation for Inter-Cultural Dialogue. This time it was Japanese food.
I have to hand it to the instructor – sadly I didn’t get her name – but she had to step in at the last minute because the original instructor’s kids were sick. She did a fine job. First she made an earthy mushroom soup. Then she did a shrimp curry and finally a noodle dish with vegetables and chicken. All were prepared in propane burners which was an amazing feat. There was a cadre of helpers, including a videographer who made sure we could see all the stirring and bubbling and brewing.

We got to eat the results of course. Everything was great, especially the soup.

Then the women of the Foundation served up a wonderful meal of Turkish food. There was a fantastic mixed bean salad and another salad with carrots and yogurt (yogurti havoc slatasi) and yet another salad with tender bites of potato and greens. The couscous was absolutely delicious. There were breads – one was a buttery roll wrapped around potatoes mashed with red pepper. Another was called – I believe ramazan pidesi - that was filled with a mild cheese and topped with nigella and sesame seeds. Desserts were wonderful as well. One was a take on baklava but rolled in small cigar shapes. The other was what I thought was lemon squares but turned out to be a moist, moist light spongy cake.

There were others as well including a creamy pudding.

I did research on the names with no luck. Is there anyone out there that can help?

But the best part was the camaraderie and sense of community afterwards. The crowd was a mixed bag of mostly women. All ages, all backgrounds. It was pretty neat. Everyone hung out afterward and ate and chatted about food and family and life.

These classes are pretty simple events, nothing like you’d see out of a professional kitchen, but they are a great time. You learn something, you get to eat great food, and you meet wonderful people. I recommend them highly. The next class is rumored to be Filipino food and a date hasn’t been set but if you contact the Foundation they’ll put you on the list and will let you know when the date. They like to take a head count, of course.

There are five bags of these Takis snacks in the Tucson Weekly snack machine and everyday I walk past them (they've received the center, eye-level premium placement) and wonder what they are and whether they are a delicious secret functioning as a key unlocking a Narnia of flavor. It's been sort of taxing on my brain, to be honest, so I submit this question to you, reader of The Range: are Takis good?

A few things that make Takis sort of appealing:

1. They're cheaper than anything available in our snack machine, costing only 50 cents when most of the chips are a full buck in price.

2. I think the swirl used to dot the i is sort of hypnotizing.

3. The product info refers to the snacks as "tacos" (twelve to a serving size). I like tacos.

A few things that make me wonder if Takis are some sort of cruel culinary joke:

1. They have been in our snack machine for two weeks and even at their low price, no one has taken the flavor plunge. Usually the cheap items are terrible, with the exception of the Great Regular M&Ms Thursday of 2011.

2. One of the ingredients is "chicken fat". Actually, I'm not sure how I feel about that. That could go either way.

3. While the snacks are apparently taco flavored, what aspect of tacos are they attempting to capture? Meat, the shell, all of the above? This is very confusing to me.

Any information would be greatly appreciated.

Many places have been adding Sunday brunches lately. This is something that's sort of commonplace in larger cities, but is just beginning to truly gain steam around here, and that's a good thing because starting Sunday with a mimosa and an omelet is just this side of heavenly.

The most recent place to start offering brunch service is Maynards Market and Kitchen, and being that chef Addam Buzzalini is in charge, you know it's going to be worth taking a look at. I submit a description of the brunch, which kicked off Easter Sunday, for your approval:

The menu features new classics like Red Velvet Pancakes (with smoked maple and tart cherry syrups, Chambord whipped cream, house-made bacon and sausage - $11); alongside breakfast standards like omelets and egg dishes; plus unexpected additions like the Smoked Pork Shank Confit (with creamy white cheddar grits, two sunny eggs, grilled country bread and fresh fruit - $17); and the Foraged Mushroom Galette (Blue d’Affinois, golden puff pastry, dressed greens - $14). House-made Grilled Country Bread, Duck Fat Breakfast Potatoes and/or fresh fruit accompany many of the entrees, and a la carte items are available for $4 each.

The delectable menu is enhanced with a drink menu that features “sparkling” beverages as the main attraction. Guests can choose their favorite bubbles to blend with fresh add-ins including orange juice, peach nectar, honeydew-mint or blackberry puree for a twist on the traditional mimosa or bellini. Truffled popcorn, prosciutto-wrapped melon, oysters and more are on the menu for $3 each as light accompaniments to the beverage menu. A new Maynards Signature Bloody Mary and coffee drinks will also be available.

There's more on Maynards here.

Charles and Bok Kim's new restaurant Kimchi Time Korean Restaurant will soon be serving traditional Korean food out of a space at 2900 E. Broadway Blvd.

"It's going to be traditional Korean food, but a lot of people think Korean food is really spicy, so we're trying to show that only certain things are spicy," said Charles Kim, adding that he'll be serving about 30 different dishes when the restaurant opens at the end of the month.

There will be beer, wine and sake as well, but the most interesting thing on the drink menu will be makkoli, which was considered the Korean version of moonshine until its recent return to popularity. It's also the oldest alcoholic beverage to come out of Korea, and Charles Kim says nobody else in town currently serves it.

Hours will be 11 a.m. to 9 p.m., Monday through Friday; 11 a.m. to 10 p.m., Saturday; and 4 to 9 p.m., Sunday.

I often wonder how Buddhists feel when companies fashion beer, bars and hot dog restaurants after their spiritual leader. There was apparently quite a stink before Buddha Beer changed it's name to Lucky Beer, but it's webpage is heavy on the Buddhist stuff, with references to the Dalai Lama, enlightenment and other pretty serious Buddhist references.

One wonders how the masses would react to a beer bottle shaped like Jesus or the Pope, but perhaps it would be very well received. He'Brew seems to have made very little of a ruckus, after all.

The traveling street-food extravaganza knows as the Tucson Food Truck Round-Up heads east this week to the Lazydays RV Park at 3200 E. Irvington Road. The action kicks off at 4 p.m., Tuesday, April 10, and there will be music, live art performances and, for the first time ever at one of these events, beer and wine.

These events have basically become a traveling food court that can pop up just about anywhere. A number of trucks were at the Tucson Museum of Art a few weeks back, then the Bookmans Entertainment Exchange on Grant and now at an RV park. And wherever they happen, droves of people come out to partake of the dozens of kinds of foods the events provide.

There's more on this week's event here.

If you were fortunate enough to have picked up tickets for one of Coachella's two weekends during their brief onsale window early this year (or are have the expendable income needed to purchase tickets on the expensive-borderlining-on-absurd resale market), the LA edition of food blog Eater has a helpful guide to places worth eating close-ish to the Empire Polo Grounds. Every time I attended the festival, I was so broke that I was counting the change in my car to see what I could afford at Del Taco, but still, this seems like it could be helpful to someone.

Tucson music from Amy Rude and Loveland, plus you can get some instruction on how to make hobo pies (which I did know previously know was a thing people made). What more could you ask for?

Usually, I find robots deeply frightening, assuming they exist to first comfort us with their helpfulness, then rise as one to destroy or enslave the human race, but if this sushi making robot is the best our future electronic overlords have to offer, I think we might have another decade left of societal dominance. After all, someone has to load the seaweed and fish for the robot to do the rest of the work. How do you expect to lull us in to submission like that, robots?

In other sushi news, Jiro Dreams of Sushi opens at the Loft today and it's 81 minutes of magic. You should check it out if you enjoy craftsmanship, food, or wonderful things.