A Passion for Chocolate
Friday September 3rd 2010My name is Janet Shimada and I am the owner and chocolatier of Cadeaux Chocolates. I live in Seattle and I have a passion for chocolate.
My mother told me that when I was a baby, I would scream hysterically at the sight of chocolate, only to be pacified by a morsel of mildly sweetened baker’s chocolate. Although I no longer scream when I see chocolate, I do have a very visceral response to it - I want to eat it, savour it, create with it and share it. I have no explanation for my ongoing craze with chocolate, other than that some substance contained within the Cacao bean altered my early brain development, forever establishing itself as an essential neurochemical.
My life has always been punctuated by chocolate. When I was eight years old, I convinced my parents I was independent enough to run errands for them at the grocery store several blocks away, on my banana-seated bike with the butterfly handles and pastel-colored wicker basket. With the change from the groceries bought, I would purchase one, very special chocolate bar, but only after examining the beautiful array of check-stand candies. I would study each one very carefully, every time. They were all fantastic to me: the ones with nuts, or without, with caramel, malt, crispies, nougat, or marshmallow. I believed that when I opened my chocolate bar, something incredible and magical could occur, just like when Charlie found the golden ticket. I obviously never found that ticket, but I continued to search for something, believing many good things would happen by pursuing a life in chocolate.
And they did. Eating a lot of chocolate helped me study long hours for my exams in college and medical school. During my Internal Medicine Residency, I kept stashes of chocolate in my lab coat to get through my thirty-two hour on-call shifts. At some point, I transitioned from candy bars to fine, gourmet chocolates which were increasingly more available in local markets. I ate these throughout my Psychiatry Residency, convinced of their mood enhancement effects.
Purchasing great chocolate was certainly exciting, but I craved something more intimate and more experiential. My solution was to make beautiful chocolate things with my own hands, like cookies, cakes, mousses, pastries and truffles. However, after producing a tasteless, dry, hard, flat, and lopsided chocolate cake for my husband’s (then boyfriend's) birthday, I was convinced I had a mutant culinary gene. Just to make sure, I made a few more cakes, each one tasting, and looking, more gruesome than the first. I felt demoralized by the fact my relationship with chocolate was ending up like this. So much love and passion, but seemingly no future. This was certainly not what I imagined.
Before giving up my spatula altogether, I decided to enroll myself in a nine week pastry class. The course was taught by a talented and enthusiastic pastry chef. Through his support and encouragement, I finally learned how to make a proper chocolate cake. I also discovered the temperamental nature of chocolate and how any change in a variable - temperature, humidity, a bad mood - would lead to an unsightly end product. Thereafter, I channeled my compulsive tendencies into chocolate work, hoping to make delicious and pretty chocolate treats. Over the next few years, I poured over textbooks and worked with chocolate as much as I could. I took professional courses in France, Quebec, New York and Florida by some of the world’s foremost master chocolatiers. Humbled and inspired, I planned my own recipe development, just as I would my early chemistry experiments in the lab. I carefully manipulated each ingredient, documenting every step, until I felt my ganaches and caramels had just the right texture and flavor. I enjoyed putting just as much thought into the design phase, knowing chocolatiers create signature looks for their treasured confections. My tool box now contains my very favorite, carefully collected, and most used pieces : brushes of many sizes, specially weighted dipping forks, ganache cutters, custom fabricated metal caramel bars, bench scrapers, digital thermometers, colored cocoa butters, edible gold leaf, and spatulas of every kind.
This is how I created Cadeaux Chocolates. Currently, I work by myself, in a lovely commercial kitchen in Seattle, making all-natural confections in small batches. After I hand-temper the chocolate, hand-dip or mold my confections , I carefully package them, then I deliver them to local markets. I feel very lucky to have this life in chocolate, but mostly, I am incredibly fortunate, and grateful, to have the support of my husband, son, family, friends, colleagues, consultants to my business, and clients.
I continue to believe, and be inspired by the notion, that chocolate can bring many gifts (cadeaux) in life.
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