Audrilly Wonka & her internship at the Chocolate Shop

#dreamsdocometrue

March 16, 2015

A little background: My study abroad program, USAC, offers internships and I chose to interview for the chocolate shop, Chocolat de Neuville, to count it as a marketing credit back at USC. After practicing interview questions, making a CV and LM, I went to the interview and one of the owners asked me a question and I gave her my [pathetic] spiel-- "My name is Audrey. I am very interested in cuisine and I love chocolate" and then after a pause they said "Noooo....where are you from?" 

Needless to say, I got the job. With communication skills like that, how could they refuse? #whatacountry

Today, I learned how to make a chocolate high heels (escarpins)!

1. Clean the molds. No fingerprints!
2. Melt chocolate slowly in a double-broiler (bain-marie). Pay attention to the temperature and make sure NO water gets in the chocolate.
3. Paint each half of the mold with the melted chocolate.
4. With a flat edge clean the edges of each mold.
5. Clip the two molds together and paint more chocolate over the seam.
6. Pour chocolate into the high heel mold and move it around to coat all the edges. Dump out all excess chocolate.***During this whole process, you have to keep reheating and cooling chocolate so it is at the proper working temperature.
7. With the flat edge clean the edges of the mold.
8. Set up something so the shoe can dry upside down, securely.
9. Wait an hour or so until you see the chocolate has completey dried. It will detach from the sides (chocolate shrinks when it is cold). Remove the molds and Voilà! 

Enjoy eating your chocolate shoe.

After Renaud (one of the shop owners) educated me on chocolate molecules and molding, there was not much store traffic so he took the liberty of educating me on guitar soloists. 

We started off where we left off last week-- watching videos of his favorite singer on "Nouvelle Star" (France's American Idol).  Her name is Emji and she has an AMAZING voice. She does a mean Amazing Grace, Feeling Good, Hallelujah...and probably everything else. She won, naturally.   Next up, Renaud showed me his favorite artist playing his favorite song. It's Steve Vai's "Tender Surrender".  Enjoy the video. Renaud is also a Joe Satriani (who?) fan.  He was surprised that I knew none of these american artists.  I was racking my brain for guitarists I listen to, but I don't... so I played him "Little Submarine" by the Black Keys.  Then I blew his mind when I said I had never heard the Dire Straits before. 

I'm going to have fun explaining my marketing experience with this one (n'import de quoi) to future employers.