First Day

 Today was my first day at Chocodiem, a Beglium-based chocolatier located in Clinton, New Jersey. Upon arriving at the store-front, I met Jean Paul (JP), my internship mentor, and saw the glass Display Case in which the chocolates were waiting to be sold. The presentation of the display case pretty, but I could tell that JP was still in the midst of restocking the shelves. He took me on a tour of his store-front and the back where he creates, mixes, and experiments with the chocolates. He showed me all his machines as well as the ingredients. The machine that was supposed to temper the chocolate, unfortunately, was broken (it worked on and off). JP told me that it might have been because of the humidity and that he intended on getting a third humidifier. The purpose of tempering chocolate is to improve the consistancy, smoothness, and gloss so it can be propoerly molded. Tempering requires a chocolate to go through a process of heating and cooling, and if not executed properly, the chocolate will not be ready for presentation. Unfortunately, tempering chocolate by hand takes way too long so for now JP has to deal witH the machine. Mother's Day is generally a busy time for chocolatiers, and this is going to be Chocodiem's first Mother's Day as a storefront. (Chocodiem had been around as a wholesale retailer only until October) JP needed a lot of help with packaging, so afer I learned more about each machine and the way he processes each chocolate, I helped him make chocolate boxes and wrap chocolate flowers.