Four Friends – not your typical friendship story

Cafe: Four Friends

Location: 5/29 Holtermann Street, Crows Nest

Phone: 0415 068 881

Over the weekend, the team at Next Stop: Food was invited to Four Friends for a chocolate experience at Crows Nest (Jess and I work at St Leonards so we love to venture new foodie places around our area). Luckily, the four of us made some time out of our busy schedule to come together for this four friends experience. So happy that the four of us could make it as I wouldn’t have wanted it any other way and for anyone of us to miss the opportunity to meet Katze (pronounced as K-C) and Jimmy (the couple who are owners of Four Friends) and also proud parents of three gorgeous children (aged 5, 3 and 6 months). And Katze, if you’re reading this - I will babysit your children any day!

An array of chocolate delicacies to chose from

I promise this won’t turn into a Katze’e life blog but the team at Next Stop: Food really wanted to take the opportunity to share her story and the ethical values that Four Friends follow. Katze and her team support handmade chocolate and organic produce - meaning no artificial sweeteners and preservatives. Chocolate that stands by this only have a 3 week shelf-life, so let’s ask ourselves: How many businesses out there can proudly say they also follow this business practice? I’ll let you be the judge of that.

"Planet" Chocolate indulgence, chocolate almonds, caramel robot, crown, lemon tart, mango macaron, orange macaron, lemon macaron, passionfruit, popping kitty, raspberry tart

Sweet Tier

Because of miscommunication with the PR team, Katze and her team had only expected one of us at the meeting, rather than the four of us rocking up at her shop front on an early Saturday morning. Katze was very catering and offered us the ‘planet’ dish (there is also a ‘galaxy’ option for a bigger group) and a two-tier dessert selection AND a dish of her Christmas season collection AND choices of tea, coffee and cold drinks. (Note: there are 40 varieties of tea available)

Christmas season chocolates

Previously diagnosed with scleroderma left Katze with no choice but to be severely bed-bound. Some of you might not be familiar with scleroderma but in a nutshell, it’s an autoimmune disorder that affects the skin, which can also damage the internal organs, unfortunately for Katze’s case it did. Just when Katze had almost given up on life– this is when she found herself pregnant with her third child.

Our tea selection

It was the presence of her third child that gave her the willpower to fight this rare disorder.  Katze practices religion but she is open-minded and respects the teachings and faith of each religion. Ever since her recovery, Katze now faces all life challenges and experiences with this formula: Love + support, Respect, Gratefulness, Freedom = Happiness.

From our visit, I also found myself guilty of the crimes that Katze had mentioned. The inability to sit down and enjoy a cup of coffee, checking emails/constant texting/talking on the phone when we should be enjoying our coffee or simply to indulge and appreciate food and also to acknowledge the person you’re with and NO, it is not acceptable even if you’re both doing your social-networking duties.

With 2014 just around the corner, I would like to reflect on these crimes that I am guilty of and hopefully remember that happiness does come from within and of course sometimes that extra bite of chocolate can help too!

For those interested to know how Four Friends got its name, please click here

I realised this blog entry didn’t quite turn out to be food-related but I will end with – any business that operates with love and moral values will not create products that are of poor quality. My favourites would be the crown (vanilla apricot) and seasonal collection (cinnamon). Popping kitty and robot would be the highlight as it offered quite interesting innards (popping candy in the kitty; oozing caramel in the green man)

That’s it from the team so please have a safe and happy Christmas and may you all be tummy-filled with yummy food and/or with chocolate! hehe

With love

Cee

Thank you to Katze and her team for sharing her story and delicacies.

Next Stop: Food was invited to Four Friends, however all comments are based on our own thoughts.