For a while now, I've been bringing our students to visit Joel, taste his chocolates and enjoy being in the presence of this vivacious and generous man. But, behind the scenes, in-between our mutual congratulations on each of our expanding families (his third daughter, my second son) Joel and I have been hatching the idea of a collaboration where we would bring my students to him for a special chocolate class. Having come to agreement on the details, we brought our "guinea pig" class to him just in April 2002. And how gloriously happy they were to be our guinea pigs!!!

From start to finish, we made chocolates with Joel and his assistants Nathalie and Peggy. Our students washed their hands, donned their aprons, and paired up to weigh, chop, melt, pour, blend, table, shape, hand-dip, and enjoy their own "carre d'or" of deep dark 70% chocolate. The recipe is simple, but successful chocolate making is in all the little details. How you hold your body, the rhythm of your stirring, the smoothness of your tempering, the patience to wait till the chocolate is just the right temperature and texture, the precision of your gestures.... In three hours can we learn all this? Well, Joel was eager to teach and share and was tickled by the enthusiasm of our passionate amateur cooks. I'm looking forward to hearing back from these students and learning about the success of their own chocolate making when they get home.

We arrived early in the morning and split into two groups as his space is small (as are most artisans' shops and work areas in this country). Each pair of students received 300 grams of 70-72% chocolate, a sauce pan to pour in their 225 grams of heavy cream, and a surface on which to place their 90 grams of sweet butter. While one student carefully chopped the chocolate with just the right placement of their hands and body, his partner weighed out the cream and the butter. They then heated the cream just to the boiling point, and poured it gently over their chopped chocolate. Stirring gently, they then added the butter. When the texture was right, the chocolate was poured onto a stainless steel or marble surface and with the tools of the chocolatier, they tabled their chocolate to cool it quickly. Once the chocolate ganache was at the right texture and temperature, they put it in the pastry bags and made their little chocolates. These they then rolled to the right height, and let sit for at least 30 minutes before hand-dipping them in the perfectly tempered dark chocolate coating. We had to then let these rest at least 30 minutes before Joel put them into a bag and sent us home with a hand shake and kisses all round.

There is something wonderfully sensual about the scent of chocolate, the sensation as it melts so perfectly on your tongue, the perfect sheen to its dark coating, the brilliance of the ribbons of heated chocolate ready for the ganache fillings. And yet this is an art that requires precision in every gesture, temperature management to the precise degree, careful handling with cool hands and clean tools.

And what a foil for other flavors? What else can handle being married to so many possible flavor partners? Would you flavor your bread with tea or lavender or hot pepper?

Here are all the flavors that Joel makes. Note that there are certain letters and punctuation marks given to two chocolates, which indicates that depending on the season, one or the other is available.