People here in France are crazy about chocolate. Take cereal for example. When I go into any local grocery store, 99% of the cereals have chocolate in them - white, milk and especially dark. The chocolate comes in flakes, chunks or iceberg sizes along with the various fruits and nuts. There are even cereals promoting weight loss and a slender body that of course contain chocolate. When a Parisian watches his or her figure, he or she doesn't want to give up the really good stuff. I think it's rather quaint, but I just want one decent tasting cereal that doesn't have it. That's why I've been paying 12 dollars for an imported box of Cheerios from a store selling US-based food products.

This week, I spent my entire time working with the chocolate team at the Paris pastry shop. When I first started, I didn't realize how much I would be learning. The pastry shop has a great program for interns. Each week I'm rotated between the different teams and the two stores so I get to see and learn everything. At the first location in the 15th district, there are two teams. The morning team works Tuesday through Saturday, 6:00 AM to 2:00 PM. They're responsible for making all the puff pastry, pastry crusts, croissant, pain aux chocolat, and breads. The afternoon team works from 2:00 PM to 10:00 PM and produces all the macarons. At the second store in the 6th district, they are responsible for decoration and chocolate. Only one team works, and they work the morning shift. It's a rather smart operation, and I'm impressed by how smoothly everything works.

As I read my schedule, I realized I'd be heading for the store in the 6th. Since there were already two interns working with the decoration team, I was sent downstairs to the chocolate team. There are four people all together in a single room with heaps and heaps of chocolate. And since Easter is just around the corner, you can imagine how exciting things can get.

When I poked my head in the climate controlled room (the air conditioner is always on to keep the room ultra cool), I could tell the four guys weren't all that pleased at having an ignorant intern, let alone a woman, break into their world. But too bad - they were stuck with me for an entire week.

For the first couple days, I spent most of my time molding and unmolding something we have called Absoument Chocolat. These are thin sticks of chocolate containing flavored bits such as ginger, raspberry chips or caramel. We melt chocolate to the right temperature, add cocoa butter or clarified butter, mix in the right flavor of chips, and then pour the chocolate into molds. The molds are hard clear plastic squares about a foot across with small bar-shaped indentations. We ladle the chocolate onto the mold and scrape it into the tiny indentations, then scrape off any excess. It sounds simple, but there's a rhythm and a technique to it all if you want to avoid wearing most of the chocolate.

Once the sticks have crystallized overnight in the freezer, we unmold them and put them through the enrobing machine. This is a conveyor-belt looking thing that coats the chocolate sticks in more chocolate and spits them back out the other side. The process is rather fascinating, and since I was looking at the machine with such interest, they decided to put me to work.

Have you ever seen the episode of I Love Lucy where Lucy and Ethel work in a chocolate factory? Well this is immediately what I think of when the put me at the end of the conveyor belt to catch the chocolate when it comes out of the machine. At first, they think it's an easy job until the boss comes in and turns up the speed on the conveyor. The girls are forced to stuff chocolate in their mouths and down their bras to keep up with the work. It's one of the funniest things that I've ever seen. But I'm not laughing when I stare at the tiny sticks of still-liquid chocolate that are rapidly marching toward me.

It seems rather simple actually. But I'm here to tell you, as a beginner, it's not. My job is to cut the paper that the chocolate sits on once it's been enrobed in pieces and put the pieces of paper on a baking tray. The baking tray is set upon a series of shelves so the chocolate can harden. While I'm doing all this, I must also keep an eye on the hardening chocolate and once it's set, stack the chocolates and their papers in layers and set them on another set of shelves. And I need to watch the chocolates that come down the conveyor belt to make sure they're not touching. If they are, I must separate them with a little fork.

At first, I'm pretty nervous. There's a lot to keep track of and you can't forget any of the steps. My hands are clumsy at first, almost cutting the conveyor belt in half with the scissors instead of the paper; accidentally folding the paper back onto the chocolate so everything sticks together; getting the paper jammed in the feeder; and yes, trying to do something else while the chocolates get to the end of the conveyor belt and conveniently fall on the floor. I'm sure if you were watching me at the time, you'd laugh. Believe me when I say that I wasn't!

After a half hour, I eventually got into the rhythm. The work became like a well choreographed dance: cut the paper, check the crystallizing chocolate, set the tray in the rack, stack the cooled chocolate, separate the stuck together ones. And then they turned up the speed. Yeah, I'll let your imagination run wild with that one.

But working with chocolate isn't always glamorous. There's a lot of repetitive, tedious work. I now understand why handmade chocolates are so expensive - it takes a lot of time and a lot of people to get them done before someone joyfully pops one in their mouth.

One of my least favorite jobs was cutting chocolate into little tiny cubes - 15 kilos of it (about 33 pounds). These little cubes were headed for a new chocolate cake/tart and needed to be all the sale size. The project took me three days to complete. I was very thankful when the last little chocolate cube was tossed into the box and the box sealed up.

On my last day, I did get to do some more interesting things. The team had been making loads and loads of bunnies, chickens, bells (yeah, I don't get the bells), and eggs. As I stood there chopping my chocolate, I watched them fill the molds and assemble the figures. Once I was free from my chocolate-chopping bonds, I was allowed to make eggs.

Small, medium and large egg molds are piped with chocolate in loops to create a see-through lacey look. I took melted chocolate, added some water to make it thicker (water makes chocolate seize up), and carefully piped loops into the mold, covering the whole surface, but leaving gaps exposed. When unmolded, the two egg halves are put together using liquid chocolate like glue and the result is rather impressive, if I do say so myself.

It was an interesting week, and by the end of it, I think the guys were a little used to having me around. Perhaps they even liked me, but who's to say. Next week I'm headed back to the store in the 15th to work with the morning team. It's a whole new adventure, and I can't wait for my alarm to go off at 4:55 Tuesday morning!

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