What started it all...

I have always loved sweets.  When I was 4 years old I proudly declared to my parents that I was going to open a candy store in Idaho with my imaginary friends Bitty and Badda.

It wasn't until years later, while looking for a surprise birthday event for a friend of mine, that I discovered my first bean to bar chocolate tour.  At this tour I was introduced to how craft chocolate is made.  A long, and widely unknown, process of harvesting, fermenting, drying, sorting, roasting, and melanging cacao beans into what we finally recognize as chocolate. I learned that cacao is chocolate in its purest form and every chocolate maker and chocolatier has a story to tell. 

I was hooked!  I started bringing all my friends to this tour (attending it so often that I soon had the presentation memorized) and soon branched out to chocolate production tours (in California, Seattle, the UK, Austria, and Amsterdam) and visits to chocolate farms (in Costa Rica, Columbia, Hawaii and beyond).  After years of searching for and attending tours, I soon discovered that I occasionally knew more than those giving the tour.

It was at this point that I decided to it was time for formal training.  I obtained my Professional Chocolatier Certification from Ecole Chocolat (based out of Vancouver, BC) and began practicing.  I continue searching for inspiration in my travels around the world and as I am not a professional chef, I continue to look for professional chocolatiers to advance my training and understanding of the Stories in Cacao.