The motto at Goody's Soda Fountain and Candy Store, a Boise fixture since the 1980s, is "Only Too Much is Enough." And the shop's so-called chocolatiers are doing their darndest this week to help fill as many Easter baskets as possible.With scores of different types of chocolates already on their traditional menu, the chocolatiers have added some extra Easter goodies.
Taking a short break from the delightful gooeyness of his profession, chcolatier Ayzeya Aydinova visited with Morning Edition host George Prentice to talk about some favorites — of customers and insiders, and the particularly tricky business of crafting the perfect "seafoam."
"We know how much effort goes into it and the customer just thinks it tastes good."
Read the full trascript below:
GEORGE PRENTICE: It is Morning Edition on Boise State Public Radio News. Good morning. I'm George Prentice. It; is now almost time to fill the Easter baskets and indeed it's all about the chocolate. And that's why this morning we're going to visit Goody’s Soda Fountain and Candy Store…certainly a fixture in Boise North End since the 1980s - a family run shop. Their motto is “Only Too Much is Enough.” On the line with us this morning is Ayzeya Aydinova. Ayzeya, good morning to you.
AYZEYA AYDINOVA: How are you doing, George?
PRENTICE: I'm very well. So, indeed… you are a chocolatier?
AYDINOVA: Yes.
PRENTICE: For how long? How long have you been a Goody’s?
AYDINOVA: I've been here for about four years and I've been a chocolatier for about two of those.
PRENTICE: So, I have to assume then to reach that tier of chocolatier, pardon the pun, well, there's a quite a bit of training. and there's as much art as there is science.
AYDINOVA: I didn't really want to do it when they first offered me the position because it sounded like a little bit too complicated. And even when I started, it was very complicated. And even then, it's still a learning curve that you have to understand… like the tempering of the chocolate, the weight of everything, because you obviously don't want your product to be too expensive. And after all of that…for the last two years, I would like to say I'm a semi decent chocolatier at this point.
PRENTICE: I did a blind taste test yesterday with the help of a friend who put three different types of chocolates in different small generic boxes. Indeed, I tasted what is commonly considered store-bought chocolate. I taste-tested chocolate that was pretty high end but delivered from the other side of the planet. And then I tasted Goody’s chocolate, and I was trying to determine the three. And I have to tell you, slam dunk. I quickly identified Goody's chocolate. Indeed there's other, reasonably priced chocolate, but there's a waxiness.
AYDINOVA: That's actually why I think chocolates are one of our biggest sellers. Goody’s is … we're primarily an ice cream shop. But chocolates…they still make up about 30 to 40 percent of our sales at the end of the day. The reason why our chocolate is more high quality is because we do buy very high quality chocolate. It's called a Guittard. It has no preservatives or anything like that inside of it. So the waxiness won't be there… because it will go bad if we don't sell it. Luckily, that's not a problem for us. It's just very high quality chocolate. And the way that we make it, like all of our little creations and all that kind of stuff just adds like a little bit extra flavor to it.
PRENTICE: So, the last time I looked in the showcase, I stopped counting at about three dozen different types of chocolate. I know there are a lot more. What are customer favorites?
AYDINOVA: So, you can never go wrong with our caramels or salted caramels. We have a choice for any kind of person, but the customer favorites are probably going to be the caramels. We have some turtles as well, and our chocolate covered potato chips are also a pretty big seller.
PRENTICE: So how about as an insider…what are the favorites among the chocolatiers?
AYDINOVA: One of them is definitely seafoam, which is a caramelized brown sugar that we then dip into milk, white and dark chocolate. And the reason why it's one of our favorites, not our favorite to make… because the reasons are it's one of our favorites is because of how difficult it is to make there's about a three second window, three- to five second window, where it reaches a certain temperature that you need to put baking soda into it. And then while you're stirring it, you need to figure out the exact time to pull it out and put it on to the table next to us and let it dry overnight. But if you mess that up, you can either have it be undercooked or overcooked. And at that point, it's not sellable anymore.
PRENTICE: And there's the science of it.
AYDINOVA: Exactly. And that's just an hour of your life gone. And you have to retry it again, if you messed up. That's probably why. And it's one of our customer favorites as well. A lot of favorites…they're similar between the customers and the chocolatiers. We know how much effort goes into it and the customer just thinks it tastes good. And that's one of the things with seafoam is… seafoam tastes amazing. And we're one of the few places in Boise that actually has it and makes it themselves.
PRENTICE: Ok, real quick, I'm going to guess you have special Easter molds.
AYDINOVA: So, we actually have solid chocolate bunnies that we're selling right now, and like most stores usually just do hollow, but the solid bunnies are like bricks basically that we're selling. And we have something called Bird's Nest, which are very similar to our haystacks. It's shredded coconut dipped in chocolate. And then we have some chocolate eggs in the middle of them. And so we call them Bird’s Nests because they look like a nice little bird. And seasonal Oreos as well… with milk, dark and white. And they have like nice little decorations on them.
PRENTICE: Ok, Goody's is the definition of a small business. So, I'm curious: How have you guys fared during the pandemic, and in particular, how your customers have been with safety protocols?
AYDINOVA: Well, throughout the pandemic, we were lucky enough to be, kind of, a crisis-proof business. I was talking to my friend's dad about this. He runs his own business as well… and his was actually struggling a little bit. And I asked him, “Why Goody's was doing so well while other businesses were suffering?” And he was, :”Well, with a pandemic like not as many people are traveling anymore and they want to do something for their family. And what's like the next best thing like going on vacation?” It’s just taking your kid out, getting some ice cream, looking at the toys that we offer there as well. And just having a nice little outing in lieu of going on a big vacation. There were some days that we were beating sales from our last year during peak pandemic. We are very lucky in that regard to that.
PRENTICE: And then there's every reason to look forward to this holiday. He is Ayzeya Aydinova, chocolatier Supreme. Ayzeya, Happy Easter to you and your colleagues. And thanks so much for giving us some time this morning.
AYDINOVA: Of course. Thank you for having me.
Find reporter George Prentice on Twitter @georgepren
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