All I can say is...WOW! Last night I was lucky enough to attend a party at ICE--the Institute of Culinary Education in Manhattan, honoring the 10 best pastry chefs in America. It was an amazing experience for a chocolatier and dessert freak like me. We were first allowed to roam through the building where these talented and amazing chefs were setting up and would answer our questions and just basically allow us to gawk at their creations. Then there was the ceremony where each of the 10 were introduced and we got to hear a bit of their back stories which I always find fascinating. My favorite story was that of Alex Stupak from wd-50 in Manhattan who at 12 fibbed about his age just to get a job in a kitchen and learn. My mother did the same thing about 73 years ago in Chappaqua so she could get a job in a tea house and learn to bake from a Southern woman named Carrie who was famous in the area.Each chef then put out a spread with their signature dessert and i ate every single one of them! The most unusual was probably the bluberry push-pop shooters from Richard Capizzi of Per Se and the Bouchon Bakery....amazing!Thanks to my friends at Dessert Professional Mag for inviting me...I had a blast!

So , I have finally been dragged kicking and screaming into this brave new digital world where everything is all a Twitter and Facebook has replaced Facetime, but here I am ready to Blog..So what do I blog about? Well, Chocolate of course! I am a chocolatier for lack of a better title. It's a pretty good title I think, and I am in very good company. I haven't always been a chocolatier and that is something I can blog about at a later date. , but I am one now. What that means is I get to create new treats and eat chocolate all day and nobody can stop me! Not a bad gig at all!I guess I will start off by asking does anyone out there find blogging helpful to their career? I have been hearing much lately about how if you are not blogging, you are not viable in today's world. Is that true? Comments? Questions? Let's discuss.....