Michael Batterberry, co-founder FOOD ARTS magazine

I was standing next to Michael Batterberry in the crowded Rainbow Room. We were listening to Reese Schonfeld as he revealed his plans for the launch of the TV Food Network.

It was 1993 and I’d guess just about everyone in the room was secretly hoping we’d be discovered, and he’d invite us, (beg us), to sign a contract for our future appearances on his network.

The more he said, the more our hopes were dashed.

After a few minutes, Michael turned to me and said, “Let’s go and have a glass of champagne in the bar, there isn’t a place for us here.”

From the outset it was clear there would be no room for anyone of Michael’s depth and breadth of interests. Michael and his wife, Ariane had the intellectual heft and undaunted persistence to raise the money for the publication of Food & Wine magazine.

Later, a bitter dispute with their partners resulted in the Batterberry’s ouster from this magazine. The tragedy eventually led to their next venture: FOOD ARTS Magazine.

Food & Wine lives on with a current circulation approaching a million subscribers.

FOOD ARTS also lives on as the most influential magazine for top flight restaurants.

Ariane lives on as publisher of FOOD ARTS.

Michael was managing editor. He too will live on as the generous visionary who encouraged the flow of ideas into the magazine. (He even allowed me space to discuss issues related to biotechnology.)

Michael earned the respect of legions of food professionals who admired him as a historian, as a great writer, a wonderfully witty speaker, an insightful forecaster of food trends and a mentor for innumerable chefs and other food folk.

We were so fortunate to have known and admired him.

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Paula Lambert, Mozzarella Company Owner & Cheesemaker

In our long road to gastronomical sophistication, we have recently discovered cheese, in particular artisan cheeses. Yet, it wasn’t anything so bucolic as a fondness for cows or goats that led Paula Lambert to the cheesemaking business. It was a taste.

Paula wanted fresh mozzarella; the moist kind that oozed milk when cut with a knife, the kind that she’d savored on numerous trips to Italy. Such mozzarella was not to be found in Dallas.

Whenever a new Italian restaurant opened near her, Paula would call and ask, “Do you have fresh mozzarella?” When told “yes,” she would rush over to taste it. But it was never right: not like the mozzarella that sold in every corner market in Italy or straight from the cheese factories. It was always old and dry and sour.

So Paula became a mozzarella cheesemaker herself. (She had a will to find whey.)

Her training began by traveling to the source of great cheesemaking: Italy. Her first stop at a small, family-owned cheese factory at the foot of the hills in Assisi. “It wasn’t a place where the milk went into a tube and you never saw it again,” she recalls. The family welcomed her to spend time and learn the process.

“They just let me put my hands in it and let me touch the cheese and ask all the questions and make notes and take photographs,” says Lambert, who spent a month observing and learning.

From there she went to visit a renowned professor at a government-run cheesemaking trade school in northern Italy. He, in turn, referred her to a young professor, who was excited by the idea of a trip to Texas to help set up a cheese operation.

Back home, Lambert set to work converting an old drugstore in a warehouse district on the edge of downtown Dallas’ Deep Ellum neighborhood and in 1982, The Mozzarella Company was born. Paula was ahead of her time but her will still held. After three years of losing money, it moved into the black.

When asked what made her successful, Paula replies, “Owning a business is always harder and takes more time than you anticipate,” Lambert says. “But if you love what you do, it’s not really work.”

Today, Paula’s hand-crafted, award-winning specialty cheeses are sold throughout the United states to restaurants, hotels and gourmet shops, as well as to cheese lovers. She and her staff of 18 produce 27 different cheeses. A James Beard Foundation “Who’s Who,” Paula can be credited among the earliest artisanal cheesemaker pioneers in the United States.

Over the years Paula’s cheeses have become famous. They have been featured in publications such as Gourmet, Food & Wine, Bon Appetit and The New York Times. And they have been served at the Academy Awards.

Best of all, Paula’s work has enabled her to travel extensively, to teach, to write and to become a leader in the hospitality industry and a respected community leader too. She has created a life.

Getting Started:

If you’re like Paula and have a passion to make cheese, you may have to chart your direction, find your own way. It may be as simple as taking course and getting started.

Besides investing in Paula’s book, may I also suggest The Cheese Chronicles: A Journey Through the Making and Selling of Cheese in America, From Field to Farm to Table by Liz Thorpe.

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Jacques Torres

The enormously talented and exuberant Mr. Chocolate, Jacques Torres of Jacques Torres Chocolate, has had a career rich with many firsts, lovingly wrapped in chocolate. (World-class pastry chef, Dean of Pastry Arts at the French Culinary Institute, James Beard Foundation Award Winner, TV host, author, humble chocolatier, to name a few.)

Why chocolate? “Chocolate is a magical product, the food of gods and lovers,” he says.

When asked: What is the best training to follow to become a chocolatier?

He answers: “Education trains your mind. Practice trains your hands. You have to be willing to make lots of mistakes and that will undoubtedly lead to many discoveries. Work in the best quality places—start where you want to end up.”

And: What advice do you have for someone looking to follow your footsteps?

He responds: “Work hard, stay late, arrive early, never compromise on quality, try to learn from the people who are already in the profession and are having success, ask questions, listen to the answers.

You must have passion for this business. You can’t learn to have passion. You either have it or you don’t. Don’t get into this business unless you have that passion. If you do, then the long hours and hard work won’t matter to you.

Always stay positive. Your mind has great power. If you continually think positive thoughts, you will be more likely to succeed. Never let those around you know when you’re stressed or tired. Take control of your emotions by focusing on the good.”

Jacques Torres shop, NYC

According to a 2009 Forbes article, Jacques Torres Chocolate, launched in 2000, today comprises 50+ employees, two factories and five retail stores in New York, Atlantic City and Michigan, while pulling in $10 million in revenue in 2008, up 43% from 2007.

Forbes further reports: “That’s some tasty growth in a crowded $16 billion industry, especially at the high end where Torres plays. Small gourmet shops have caught fire in the last decade. About a dozen niche chocolatiers have popped up in New York City in the last five years. Even Hersey has piled on: spending $60 million to acquire Joseph Schmidt Confections and Scharffen Berger Chocolate Maker, two San Francisco chocolatiers, and a year later, scooping up Dagoba Organic Chocolate in Portland, Ore.”

If you think the sweet smell of chocolate  is calling your name toward pastry arts school, it is only a matter of finding a place to learn.

Matters Of Fact:

• Many Americans believe that chocolate has a positive influence of their psychological and physical well-being — 52% say chocolate boosts morale and 46% say it revitalizes them.
• New advertising messages suggest that chocolate is heart-healthy (especially on Valentine’s day).
• When people say they’d kill for a chocolate bar, they don’t actually mean what they say: strictly speaking, an addict may kill for a fix but chocoholics experience a craving — not an addiction.
• Video game makers have developed a series of chocolatier adventures with sweet success similar to the Farmville experience.
• The Lindt chocolate company has annual sales of $2.1 billion. The Barry Callebaut company has annual sales of $3.5 billion.

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