Welcome Spring! Thank you Punxatawney Phil for not seeing your shadow. We are from PA after all.
Everyone is back from Spring Break more or less and Easter and Passover are over for this year. Our daffodils have faded but it promises to be a bumper lilac year here in Yardley PA!
Our chocolate roller coaster ride is beginning to wind down. It can be grueling (more about that later), so we are always happy when Spring arrives.
Our next big occasion is Mother’s Day and we’re going with our classics: LOVE turtles are a great option for someone you love, right?
Or just a beautiful assortment for that special person that is a mom.
And it wouldn’t be right not to mention another member of our little chocolate company, my mom Marilyn, who is our relentless book keeper. Madame (as she is known and called by Stephane since the day they met) is essential to us - she organizes all of our receipts and order forms, keeps a log of every expenditure, gas mileage, ingredients, inventory and things I don’t even know about. At 84, she is sharp as a tack and even uses a Mac to make spreadsheets!
Madame and Stéphane hit it off right away when I brought him home 30+ years ago to meet the parents. She always loved to cook and was a big reader of all Martha Stewart Living recipes.Stéphane's first family meal experience was tuna sandwiches with fresh tarragon from the garden.
We often drove from North Jersey, where we lived at the time, to hang out with mom on many weekends and holidays. She loved to go antiquing and we found many favorite furniture pieces with her at tag sales, estate sales and auctions. She wore a straw hat and bobbed her head to bid.
Mom has always been fun, adventurous & stylish. Stéphane made her a beautiful gown for our wedding (he was a couturier in a former life) and Madame danced the night away with dad. She visited us in Hong Kong when we lived there and traveled around Asia with us to Bangkok, Beijing and Kyoto.
In Hong Kong, Stéphane took mom everywhere. They went to the fishing village of Tai O on Lantau Island during a festival and she ate her fill of fresh seafood with locals. They visited the Big Buddha, rode the trolley through downtown Central and Wanchai and enjoyed a day trip to Shenzen where they had foot massages while drinking co*cktails. She and I went to the Kowloon flower market and bought a Christmas tree, then bummed a ride back to our apartment with the florist. Madame even tried karaoke.
This was all some time ago and these days she is less active as an octagenarian. But her spirit is resilient. She is also, of course, a big chocolate fan and is our resident taster (ha ha).
So on Mother’s Day, if a mom you love is as special to you as Madame is to us, treat them to some award winning chocolate perhaps?
Speaking of awards, this past year we managed to enter the International Chocolate Awards Competition and won not only an Americas Silver Award for our Moroccan Mint Pavé, but a World Silver! Stéphane grows the mint used in this recipe and is very proud of the uniquely refined flavor it brings to a dark chocolate. This ain’t no peppermint patty!
Most of you know we are an online-only business that is open from October to June and closes for the summer when the warm weather discourages shipping. (That time is shortly approaching so you may want to consider the month of May ‘Last Call’).
Sounds kinda nice, doesn’t it?
Well, a lot of it is nice. We are doing something special that makes people happy and we get to taste more chocolate than is probably wise. We are our own bosses and set our own schedules.
For those of you who have a small business, you know that this comes with its own cost.
From October until roughly May, Stéphane works every single weekend, Saturday and Sunday.
Usually until about 7 pm when he has dinner and then … goes back to work until 10 or 11.
At Christmas time, we both work until midnight or later.
It is non-stop labor, but to coin a phrase, definitely a labor of love.
And we have some of the most wonderful clients (you know who you are). It’s always gratifying to see a familiar name pop-up with their chosen chocolate and often a thoughtful note attached. Thank you for your emails, texts and voicemails (we never answer the phone ~sorry~ but always leave a message and we’ll get back to you). Truly you are our extended family of chocoholics!
So we are looking forward to recharging and upgrading all things chocolate including some website and product tweaks over the summer downtime. We’ll keep you posted.
And if you don’t already do so, follow us on Instagram!
Happy early Mother’s Day !!!!
xoxo Barbara & Stéphane
