Max Brenner - Chocolate: A Love Story: 65 Chocolate Dessert Recipes from Max Brenners Private Collection

Copyright 2009 by Max Brenner International, Inc.

Translated and adapted from the Hebrew by Evan Fallenberg

All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

Little, Brown and Company

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First eBook Edition: November 2009

Little, Brown and Company is a division of Hachette Book Group, Inc. The Little, Brown name and logo are trademarks of Hachette Book Group, Inc.

ISBN: 978-0-316-08252-5

Very special thanks to the people who helped make this book happen and who were inspirations for this book. To Keren Hazan and the entire Max Brenner marketing team, Dudu Vaknin, and the entire team from the Max Brenner Chocolate restaurants. Special thanks to Uri Zohar and Danielle Sarna. To Yaniv Shtanger; Giora Bar-Dea; Alexey Kletzel; Yoram Aschheim, photography; Sarah Lagrotteria, recipe consultant; and Nachman Bensimon, chef consultant, thank you for all your hard work. And to Liron and Nellie, Efrat, Daniel, Eli, Hillel, and Mom and Dad.

Almost always, when meeting someone for the first time, Im asked how I actually started out making chocolate. I usually tell them that when I was ten years old, I read Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, by Roald Dahl, and I swore that, one day, I would find a river of chocolate and sail in it. I also tell them about Anna, who was my first love, and who could not fall asleep without eating a piece of milk chocolate before going to bed, because otherwise she would have bad dreams.

But the truth is that I wanted to be a writer. One that gets up at noon, sits in cafs, writes until the following morning and devotes a book to an impossible, eternal love.

At the age of twenty, I thought that in order to find inspiration for my first novel I needed to be alone. I needed to walk in narrow streets, sit in a dark room with a candle, feel the longing, and write. I went to live and work in the seventh arrondissement in Paris with a French chef who looked like Geppetto. I was an apprentice for six years. He taught me how to make toffee, marzipan, and nougat. He told me stories that are only passed on from teacher to pupil. I was lonely and did not write.

Later I started searching for romance as a source of inspiration. I wanted to live in a small house, ride my bicycle to work, make colorful sweets in big jars, and write. I opened a chocolate workshop. People fell in love with the movie that was my life. I was living the magic of romance, yet was making so many sweets that I had no time left to write.

Then I wanted to experience decadence to get a sense of real, raging inspirationlike the one described in the biographies of great writers. I wanted to wear Versace suits with tight pants, drink lots of wine, fall in love with the prettiest women, and write. I designed and created a lifestyle of chocolate with its own saying. I dived into decadence, but most of the time, I was drunk and did not write.

More than ten years have passed since I started looking for inspiration for my writing. I have yet to start writing. Recently, I bought a special feather pen and a thick leather-covered notebook. I am starting to write a novel soon.

Ive been making chocolate for more than ten years. Almost without noticing it, I find myself telling its story. Maybe through the telling of its story, I can also tell something about myself, something about the longings, the romancethe decadence.

I invite you to watch, smell, taste, and feel my love story.

Yonatan is not a man of words. You have to meet him in order to get to know him.

These are the words the friend who introduced us many years ago used, to tell me what I now know for myselfthat Yonatan Factor is a man of drawings.

Today, however, as Yonatan and I are publishing an album of our work together, I want to switch places with him. For the first and perhaps only time, I wish to draw him in my own way, which is of course with words.

We planned to meet for the first time in South Tel Aviv, where Yonatan was born and still lives and is always just about to desert, to split from, because thats the way it is with stormy, sensuous love; like the kind he feels for the city that fills him with inspiration.

This is what he looked like at that first meeting: heavy brown hiking boots, a huge tattoo running up his leg that had been covered with a tattoo of a blue rectangle, because he was sick of what hed loved the day before. Khaki shorts that reached his knees, a red kids T-shirt. The body of the most muscular Irish boxer you can imagine, topped with a round head whose contours were hidden behind a pair of thick, black glasses that looked like they should be worn by a physics professor who never stopped reading. The spiky blond hair of a newborn chick. And even though you couldnt see it, stuffed inside was the romantic soul of a starving Russian poet.

He took me to eat at his favorite restaurant, a dive where the locals eat, and when I walked in I was convinced hed actually taken me to see a play.

This is what food should be like, he told me then. Like a stage actor. Bathed in the bright light, in colors and sounds, with a strong text so it can express itself and bring out the magical personality hidden inside.

I didnt say a word. But late that night, when we left a dark bar together, I started talking and Ive been talking ever since, and ever since then hes been drawing the most perfect scenery for our play that weve written togetherour big chocolate stage play.

Chocolate is not just about taste. It is not just about mixing exotic spices or creating delicate mousses. It is absolutely not just an excellent gourmet product.

Chocolate, much more than other food, is associated with different aspects of life. It is a symbol of contradictory emotions and sensations.

On one hand, it is the most romantic gift; on the other, a commodity that is traded in the bourse.

It is sold like precious jewelry that is picked carefully from a crystal glass, but also is an addictive snack in every corner kiosk. It is tasted like a fine wine and licked straight from the bowl.

It is sexy. It is nostalgic and its a fantasy object for children and grown-up children.

These diverse aspects of chocolate and of life are the inspiration for our book.

with dark chocolate chunks and a moody coconut sugar glaze

Just like every other morning, I entered the coffee shop across the street from my home. This morning you smiled at me. The cupcake was so fresh and the glass of hot milk more organic than ever. Now, just like every other morning, I understand anew that my taste changes according to your daily recipe of whims.