Brussels, La Place du Grand Sablon

Life can change in a split second — when you least expect it. It’s a cold and blustery December day, and I am exploring the outdoor antique market in Brussels. Suddenly, my eyes stray to a display of unfamiliar, glistening metal objects.

“Des moules à chocolat,” — chocolate molds — informs the proprietress. “Oh, la, la!” Myriad sensory images are unleashed as I picture artisans meticulously at work one hundred years ago in a sweet haze of chocolate perfume. Weary of the vagaries of the New York financial world, I was sure that learning how to make chocolates with my hands and these molds would reveal the long lost secrets of the universe and revive my lust for life.

It did! Once back in the States, I began researching, experimenting and training with master chocolatiers. The Belgians claim to have made the first filled, shell-molded chocolates, or ‘pralinés’, in the early 1900’s. Now a sweet haze is wafting from a workshop in a landmark, turn of the century building along the Ladies’ Mile of New York City, and a rich, chocolate making history is united with new taste directions in CHOCOLAT MODERNE.