When I first met the famous chocolatier, Chef Jin Caldwell of Ethel M. Chocolates,

she was teaching with Chef Stanton Ho at the Maui Culinary Academy. After Stanton and Jin left Maui, I found out from my baking instructor, Chef Teresa Shurilla, that I would be given the opportunity of a lifetime....a two month internship at the Ethel M. factory in Las Vegas! One word could easily describe Las Vegas. HOT. It seemed crazy that a major corporation would want to have a chocolate factory in the desert. However, the lack of humidity made it the perfect climate for creating beautiful chocolate confections. Under Jin and her assistant Dora, I was quickly shown the challenges they face at the Research and Development Department for Ethel M. The main challenge they were working on when I arrived was formulating several of their recipes to accommodate the new machinery to produce the famous Ethel M. chocolates. If the recipe for the center was too dense the chocolate shell would be too thick, too light and the chocolate would leak its center. We also tested new recipes for the Artisan line, a specialty chocolate that Ethel M. makes from cocoa bean to bar right in their recipes for us to test, some required more testing than others but all in the end were absolutely delicious. It was tough adjusting to a different environment, but those two months went by like a breeze. From creating new flavors like maple syrup with bacon chocolate to improving classics like cherry cordials, Jin taught me to keep an open mind and always expand my knowledge of chocolates.