What is your ideal office?
A nice hotel.
What is the most seductive sense?
Smell.
Is cacao a safety word?
Ha! Yes, I’ve seen that Portlandia episode and laughed hard. The word itself is so funny and formal but mainly confusing. Honestly, we have tried often to eliminate using it but we can’t stop. Describe your chocolate factory utopia. Beautiful, inspiring people making beautiful, inspiring chocolate. Our factories are more people-focused than big equipment-focused. I like that.
What does social responsibility have to do with dessert?
You have a social responsibility to always order dessert.
What differentiates good chocolate from great chocolate?
The ingredients. We spend an insane amount of energy and money on the best. If you mess this part up, you can’t fix it in the kitchen.
Why do fair trade standards matter?
It recognizes the value of the farmer. The farmer is one of the most under-served, under-appreciated parts of today’s society.
What is your favorite meal?
We are spoiled rotten and get to work with the world’s greatest chefs on a regular basis, so this is basically impossible to answer. I’d say that a Sunday pancake breakfast with my kids and a cup of coffee is a meal I can’t live without.
What turns you on?
My wife.
What is the most improbably delicious chocolate pairing you’ve discovered?
Miso and sesame. It’s part of our Los Angeles collection and it is awesome. Our head chocolate maker out in LA is Michael Lowe and he is a genius.
Sex or chocolate?
Both simultaneously. Obviously.
What do you consider to be the language of love?
Music.
How do you seduce someone?
I don’t think I’ve ever been successful trying to seduce anyone. I’m best at that if I don’t try.
Besides chocolate, what are the essential ingredients of life?
Love, food, work.
What makes a good chocolatier?
How am I supposed to know?
