Alice Medrich is a businesswoman, baker

Baker

A baker is someone who bakes and sells bread, Cakes and similar foods may also be produced, as the traditional boundaries between what is produced by a baker as opposed to a pastry chef have blurred in recent decades...

 and cookbook

Cookbook

A cookbook is a kitchen reference that typically contains a collection of recipes. Modern versions may also include colorful illustrations and advice on purchasing quality ingredients or making substitutions...

 author

Author

An author is broadly defined as "the person who originates or gives existence to anything" and that authorship determines responsibility for what is created. Narrowly defined, an author is the originator of any written work.-Legal significance:...

 with a particular interest in chocolate

Chocolate

Chocolate is a raw or processed food produced from the seed of the tropical Theobroma cacao tree. Cacao has been cultivated for at least three millennia in Mexico, Central and South America. Its earliest documented use is around 1100 BC...

. She founded the Cocolat chain of chocolate stores, has authored numerous cookbooks, and is referred to as the First Lady of Chocolate.

California Truffles

The New York Times

The New York Times

The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...

 reported that "Chocolate truffles were virtually unknown in the United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 when, in 1973, Alice Medrich started making and selling them from her home in Berkeley

Berkeley, California

Berkeley is a city on the east shore of the San Francisco Bay in Northern California, United States. Its neighbors to the south are the cities of Oakland and Emeryville. To the north is the city of Albany and the unincorporated community of Kensington...

." Because Medrich's truffles have soft centers, when coated they have a characteristic larger, "lumpy" shape compared to French truffles, and have come to be known as California truffles.

Books

Alice Medrich's cookbooks include Cocolat: Extraordinary Chocolate Desserts (Warner Books, 1990), Chocolate and the Art of Low-Fat Desserts (Warner Books, 1994), Alice Medrich's Cookies and Brownies (Warner Books, 1999), Bittersweet: Recipes and Tales from a Life in Chocolate (Artisan, 2003), Chocolate Holidays (Artisan, 2005; originally published as A Year in Chocolate [Warner Books, 2001]), Pure Dessert (Artisan, 2007), and Chewy Gooey Crispy Crunchy Melt-in-Your-Mouth Cookies (Artisan, 2010). She is one of the authors of A Baker's Dozen Cookbook (HarperCollins Publishers, 2001) and contributed to the 1997 Joy of Cooking (Simon and Schuster, 1997).

Cocolat won the Cookbook of the Year and Perrier Best Food Photography awards from the James Beard Foundation

James Beard Foundation

The James Beard Foundation is a New York-based national professional non-profit organization named in honor of James Beard that serves to promote the culinary arts by honoring chefs, wine professionals, journalists, and cookbook authors at annual award ceremonies and providing scholarships and...

, and the Julia Child Award: Best First Cookbook and the Best Book: Bread, Other Baking and Sweets award from IACP

International Association of Culinary Professionals

The International Association of Culinary Professionals is a United States based not-for-profit professional association whose members work in culinary education, communication, or the preparation of food and beverage....

; it was also named one of the best thirteen baking books by the Beard Foundation in 2010. Chocolate and the Art won the Cookbook of the Year Award from the James Beard Foundation, and was named one of the best books of the last fifteen years by Epicurious.com

Epicurious

Epicurious is a website dedicated to recipes, cooking, drinking, entertaining and restaurants, and its existence hearkens back to one of the World Wide Web's earliest presences. It is owned by Condé Nast. The site also includes recipes from Bon Appétit magazine and now defunct Gourmet magazine. The...

 in 2010. Bittersweet won the Cookbook of the Year and Best Book: Single Subject awards from IACP. Chewy Gooey won the Best Book: Baking Sweet or Savory award from IACP. Cookies and Brownies, Bittersweet, and Chewy Gooey all won Best of the Best Awards from Food and Wine Magazine

Food & Wine

Food & Wine is a monthly magazine published by American Express Publishing. It was founded in 1978 by Ariane and Michael Batterberry. It features recipes, cooking tips, travel information, restaurant reviews, chefs, wine pairings and seasonal/holiday content and has been credited by The New York...

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Cocolat

Medrich founded the Cocolat chain of chocolate stores in 1976. By 1990, Cocolat had expanded to seven stores in the San Francisco Bay

San Francisco Bay

San Francisco Bay is a shallow, productive estuary through which water draining from approximately forty percent of California, flowing in the Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers from the Sierra Nevada mountains, enters the Pacific Ocean...

 area. However, the company got into financial difficulty after an arson fire destroyed its Berkeley headquarters in 1991, causing damages estimated at $2 million, and the embezzlement of $500,000 by an employee. The latter forced Medrich to sell her interest in the company. It went out of business several years later, among not only financial difficulties but allegations that the new owners had harassed employees who were not Scientologists

Scientology

Scientology is a body of beliefs and related practices created by science fiction and fantasy author L. Ron Hubbard , starting in 1952, as a successor to his earlier self-help system, Dianetics...

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