In order to succeed, you have to fail, no? You ride a bicycle, you fail; you try a few times, you succeed.
Jacques Torres
I decided on a chocolate business. I love the history of chocolate and making it and the fact that people of any gender, age, and race enjoy it. I found a space in Brooklyn that had not been used in 30 years. Then I talked to an investor who wanted more than 50 percent of the business.
I still make mistakes today - I always explain to people, when you will make as many mistakes as I did, then you will know as much as I know in my profession.
In 2004, we opened our first store in Manhattan. I installed a big window so people could see me making the chocolates. That store cost $1.8 million. It has a 45-foot-long chocolate counter and a hot chocolate bar made in Louis XVI style because that's when chocolate arrived in Europe.
We eat raw dough. We eat raw cookie. We eat massive buttercream in cakes that are still warm. We eat salt. We have to taste things that you will not put in your mouth. But you know what? That's television. You have to do it.
My chocolate is special because it's real. My pistachios are from Italy, and the almonds are from Spain. We make our own marzipan. If I sell a product that says 'raspberry,' it's real raspberry. My plan was to make the best product possible and be the least expensive of the best chocolate makers. That's still our position.
I'm blessed to do what I love to do every day.
The good thing is, the season of chocolates is during the cold months. During the cold months, I can send ground.
Valentine's Day is the biggest single day of the year, the biggest sale day of the year.
Pierre Franey's producer wanted to do a show with me. This was around 1998, and I think we shot our first PBS show that same year.
By planting more, we find new hybrid of cocoa, and by doing that, we lose some quality. So the price of the very high-end chocolates rises even more.
It take me one year to lose all that weight. Look, it takes a long time to put it in; it takes a long time to take it off. It's a struggle in the beginning, and then you get used to it. I work also with a nutritionist, and she helped me. She became a friend.
The first time I baked, I failed a couple of times, and I made some mistakes and perhaps ended up with something inedible. Then I was a little bit more careful, and I learned how to do it right.
I have spent more time in my life working and being in restaurants than being at home. I immediately feel comfortable entering a restaurant, and I feel even more comfortable in the back with the chef and cooks.
You really have to be a good entertainer, or the show won't work. For me, it was all about having fun with the audience, which meant that I could usually forget that the camera was there. It was kind of like being in the classroom.
Chocolate cornflakes are a hit. Mixing chocolate with cornflakes to make dollops of candy with that crunch and saltiness just has a magic to it. People watch you do it and think, 'Oh it's so easy,' and then they taste it and say, 'I want to do this.' It's recipes like this that are very successful on TV, because they're so simple.
On TV, I really try to go back to the basics and break down a recipe until it's very easy.
I come from a family of craftsmen. We like to make things with our hands. Better than the pleasure of making money is the pleasure of making the product and saying, 'Wow. I did that.' I couldn't see myself doing anything other than making good things to eat.
Dark chocolate can be good for you, and when I say 'can,' it's about what type of dark chocolates are you eating. Don't eat the dark chocolate with too much sugar.
I'm happy to try everything at least once.
I like music that is upbeat, such as Lady Gaga and Bruno Mars. Or anything disco - I will listen to that, too.
I started cooking around 9 years old. I would make crepes at home for my parents. By 15 years old, I had started my apprenticeship at a bakery.
More and more research shows that chocolate is good for you. It's a mood elevator. It contains a lot of antioxidants and will keep us younger. It's good for your heart and acts like aspirin. It keeps your cholesterol low.
I believe history and tradition is something solid and something we can rest on. I am not crazy about putting new spices in chocolate.
I understand Christmas, and I understand Easter. But Halloween is one of those things where, if you don't grow with it? The French, they tried Halloween for a few years, and I think they're dropping it.
Christmas is the biggest holiday in numbers - in terms of gross amounts - because you have one and a half to two months.
I used to like Lady Gaga. I still love her. But what I like about LMFAO is that they're completely outside of the box; they're completely different. They're not ridiculous, but they are not afraid of it. And also, it's a certain type of artistry.
My goal is to teach what chocolate is. I don't think my customers understand what it takes to make chocolates.
I make my own chocolate, I grow my own beans, and now I have something about the history of chocolate. I feel I try to go as far as I can into this profession.
You can easily compare chocolate to wine. What makes a good wine is usually a good terroir, a good grape, and the weather has something to do with it. Chocolate is the same, from where the cacao bean grows to what type of tree it grows on.
If you buy chocolate with too high of a cocoa content, you might not like it because it doesn't have enough sugar.
I personally like different chocolates. I like milk chocolate during the day and, during the evening, I like something a little bit stronger with more personality, so maybe a 70-percent or 75-percent bar that's hopefully made with good beans so it's not acidic or bitter.
You need chocolate with enough cocoa butter. If your chocolate is high-quality, with a good content of cocoa butter, the chocolate will melt inside and create layering. That's very important. Those chocolate morsels don't melt. So, for the best chocolate chip cookies, I use the chocolate we sell, which is a 60 percent cocoa.
