chocolate shop

So, I am currently working in a chocolate shop. Having just moved to New York with no job prospects and no worries, I quickly realized that that was stupid. In the face of its notorious inflated rent, I very promptly needed a source of income.

I have been working part time jobs since I was 15 when I elected to fold clothes nonstop for The Gap. Have you ever realized that every Gap you have ever been to looks like a work of contemporary art i.e. indiscernible from piles of crap? Yea, it never starts that way, and it never ends that way either.  My poor father would have to drive over at 1 a.m. to pick me up when my shift ended because I didn't have my license yet. Since then, I have worked as a retail associate, a cater waiter, a grill cook, a manager at a donut shop, a busser, a waitress, a hostess, and a babysitter. You could say I was sick of the part time gig. So, I decided to at least make this one interesting.

I consulted the handy dandy Craigslist and stumbled upon a chocolate shop in need of some help. Mast Brothers Chocolate. Their website was sleek, their chocolate pricey, and their story refreshingly unique--like everything in Williamsburg. I arrived at my interview after writing a cover letter that revealed my love of cocoa, my OCD tendencies that would benefit chocolate displays, and my long list of experience with smiling. The general manager, who just happened to be extremely nice and one of those cool New Yorkers, told me that the brothers started the company around the same time they started growing their beards and one day, I would get the chance to make chocolate with them and wear a pretty white apron imported from France. SOLD.

I must say the perks are pretty great. I get to practice my French with our foreign customers, I eat healthy-ish chocolate all day, and I get to practice public speaking by giving tours of the factory. Win-win-win. I now know so much about where chocolate comes from and all the intricate steps involved in turning a cocoa bean into a chocolate bar that I might burst into chocolate song. Most interesting fact I've learned so far: chocolate flavors change depending on where the cocao pod was grown due to climate and soil variations! Did you know that cocao from Madagascar tastes like raspberries and cocao from Tanzania tastes like almonds? I didn't.