COCOA'S THE NEW COFFEE; JULIE…JULIA…HINTON…HELTON

Is Franklin becoming to chocolate shops what Seattle is to coffee shops? On December 28, NPT’s Tennessee Crossroads segment host Tammi Arender took viewers on a visit to the Cocoa Tree in Franklin, where chocolatier Bethany Thouin goes to great lengths to find southern flavors that tickle your tastebuds. In today’s City Paper, Alexa Hinton writes about another chocolatier in the area, Julie Hinton, whose new shop Xoconochco (pronounced sho-ko-noch-ko) is slated to open this spring.

If you read both the Tennessean and the City Paper every day as we do, you noticed something interesting in today’s papers. We had Julie Hinton in the City Paper, and Julia Helton, chef of the Family Wash in East Nashville, in the Tennessean. Coincidence? Am I stretching it? Do I like chocolate and the Family Wash? Is it that obvious?

Helton offers up the recipe to the neighborhood bar and restaurant’s famous Shepherd’s Pie in the Chef Du Jour profile. Perhaps she has given away the store by revealing the recipe, but I suspect, as one who dabbles in cooking himself, that she has left out one ingredient. We’ll see.

Yes, we know journalist Hinton’s last name and chocolatier Hinton’s last names are the same, but that was too easy of a coincidence to point out. Hinton and Helton was a lot more fun.