This article first appeared in the fall Chow! guide, in the September 10 issue of Eugene Weekly.
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In the 2000 film Chocolat, Juliette Binoche soothes the pain of the residents of a provincial French town with a single magic potion: chocolate, the movie’s namesake. And while the current worldwide economic recession presents a different set of problems than the 1950s conformity and heavy-handed demagoguery of the film, eating one’s way to happiness still sounds like a tempting quick-fix cure for depression...both the emotional and economic varieties.
With a disheartening 12.5 percent unemployment rate in Lane County, more than three full percentage points higher than the national average, belts are tightening across the Southern Willamette Valley, and extras like sweets seem like a natural place to start trimming the fat. But if the thought of foregoing dessert due to a limited budget makes you want to toss your cookies, some local sugar-slingers are taking steps to ensure their customers can have their cake and eat it, too.
Adam Bernstein, proprietor of eateries Café Maroc and Adam’s Sustainable Table, recently changed the name and menu of the latter from Adam’s Place, a measure to reflect not only sustainability of the environmental sort but a nod toward finances as well. “I think people tend to share more desserts” these days, says Bernstein.
“We have a chocolate volcano, a shared dessert,” Bernstein says. Ordering a dessert, even a shared one, makes “people feel like they’re getting a bonus,” he explains.
If even half a chocolate volcano is beyond the budget, Amy Brown, manager of the Candy Baron at Fifth Street Public Market, may have the solution. Brown equates the shop’s à la carte shopping experience with a way to save a few coins, asserting that her customers “are appreciative of the fact we carry individual candies, and can buy just a couple of pieces” as a pick-me-up. All the same, Brown says, “We’ve definitely had a [sales] drop at the beginning of the year.”





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