In order to succeed, you have to fail, no? You ride a bicycle, you fail; you try a few times, you succeed.
Valentine's Day is the biggest single day of the year, the biggest sale day of the year.
My chocolate is special because it's real. My pistachios are from Italy, and the almonds are from Spain. We make our own marzipan. If I sell a product that says 'raspberry,' it's real raspberry. My plan was to make the best product possible and be the least expensive of the best chocolate makers. That's still our position.
We eat raw dough. We eat raw cookie. We eat massive buttercream in cakes that are still warm. We eat salt. We have to taste things that you will not put in your mouth. But you know what? That's television. You have to do it.
It take me one year to lose all that weight. Look, it takes a long time to put it in; it takes a long time to take it off. It's a struggle in the beginning, and then you get used to it. I work also with a nutritionist, and she helped me. She became a friend.
The first time I baked, I failed a couple of times, and I made some mistakes and perhaps ended up with something inedible. Then I was a little bit more careful, and I learned how to do it right.
I have spent more time in my life working and being in restaurants than being at home. I immediately feel comfortable entering a restaurant, and I feel even more comfortable in the back with the chef and cooks.
You really have to be a good entertainer, or the show won't work. For me, it was all about having fun with the audience, which meant that I could usually forget that the camera was there. It was kind of like being in the classroom.
Chocolate cornflakes are a hit. Mixing chocolate with cornflakes to make dollops of candy with that crunch and saltiness just has a magic to it. People watch you do it and think, 'Oh it's so easy,' and then they taste it and say, 'I want to do this.' It's recipes like this that are very successful on TV, because they're so simple.
I come from a family of craftsmen. We like to make things with our hands. Better than the pleasure of making money is the pleasure of making the product and saying, 'Wow. I did that.' I couldn't see myself doing anything other than making good things to eat.
I decided on a chocolate business. I love the history of chocolate and making it and the fact that people of any gender, age, and race enjoy it. I found a space in Brooklyn that had not been used in 30 years. Then I talked to an investor who wanted more than 50 percent of the business.
In 2004, we opened our first store in Manhattan. I installed a big window so people could see me making the chocolates. That store cost $1.8 million. It has a 45-foot-long chocolate counter and a hot chocolate bar made in Louis XVI style because that's when chocolate arrived in Europe.