So You Wanna Make Chocolates?

"So you wanna make chocolates?" a chef friend of mine once asked me. "I sure as hell hope you know what you're getting yourself into Aaron. The long hours it takes, the trickiness of tempering chocolate in all kinds of weather, not to mention the mess you're gonna have to clean up. Good God man that stuff gets everywhere!" 

I should have really taken into account his words from that evening in New Orleans. We sat around talking about strategies for getting into the field of the culinary arts and how one becomes a chocolatier and what kind of people choose to take on the profession. And here all I thought it took was a special handshake.  He went on to explain that there really is no "easy" entry into making chocolates, you just gotta want it. 

Let me say how easy it is to sit back and talk chocolates and act all cool, but it sure is another thing to be slinging tempered chocolate, at all kind of hours, into molds at break-neck speeds because you don't want it to set up before you get to the next batch. There really is a lot more to it. I give it up to those people willing to do what it takes to see their dreams come alive.

Last night I had an order to fill for a co-worker. He has an anniversary in a few days and wanted a special batch for his wife. I worked all night. The mess extended from one end of the kitchen to the other, a virtual sea of brown. My feet hurt from marching back an forth, my back hurt from bending over and rolling out truffles, decorating molds, dipping chocolates etc. In the middle of me bitching about it I heard from the back of my skull -You just gotta want it! It made me smile because now I think I know what he meant.