The Chocolate Academy

Good Morning and greetings from Belgium. Yes I am back in Belgium for a few days. In fact, I am here to attend a chocolate academy. I took three days off to attend an Introduction to Chocolate through the Barry Callebaut Chocolate Academy in Lebbeke Belgium. The first day as ended and all I can say is WOW!! HOLY COW! IT WAS GREAT!!

I was so excited when I was accepted 2 months ago, but as this weekend drew nearer I was not so thrilled. I think it was because I was worried about my level of knowledge and if I would be in over my head. There are 10 people in my class and I think I am only one who has worked with chocolate to the degree that I have. Some people have never touched the stuff and others only messed around in their kitchen for a year or two. There is one guy, from France, who is coming to America to manage the Barry Callebaut School in Chicago – we were partners so I was out of his league but oh well.

Let me tell you a little about my day. The Academy sent a bus to the hotel to pick us up, so I got on the bus and went to the plant. When we arrived and exited the bus all you could smell was chocolate. The plant is huge – the largest chocolate plant in the world. They make 100,000 tons of chocolate per day or 260,000 tons per year at this factory alone. The company makes 1 Million tons of chocolate a year world wide – not that’s a lot of chocolate. Anyway, I had perma-grin all morning. It was so hard not to break out in the biggest cheesiest grin ever. I looked around and I honestly felt like I had just entered my own Willy Wonka Movie.

The first half of the day was in class listening to food safety and how chocolate is made. The food safety is important I know in fact I did not know there is a high risk of Salmonellla poisoning with chocolate – who knew. But it was boring. The chocolate cycle from pod to nib to bar was very interesting.

But then we went to the kitchen. It was great. My head is swimming with information. Some things we are doing well and others we might need to change but I will talk with the crew when I get home. Anyway, I was so excited I made a huge mess of my station. And I hate when my chocolate station is a mess. So tomorrow I will get my chocolate head on straight and get back in the kitchen. I cannot wait. Look out Altoona and world wide web – there’s a new chocolate store in town. (But we still don’t have a name.)

For now I am going to dinner with two ladies from the class. I’ll write more later.

Chow Chow