I’m sure there any many things that I couldn’t live without, but at the moment all I can think about is one thing that I definitely, most certainly, without question could live without. And that, is tempering chocolate.

A teacher of mine from high school used to say something along the lines of, “If you begin to have dreams where you’re speaking a different language, you’re fluent.” Well, last week I was having dreams about tempering chocolate. And believe me, I am in no way speaking that language correctly.

As an evaluation in Level 3, each person in my class has to create a chocolate showpiece that weighed exactly 1000 grams. Made entirely of tempered chocolate.

Technically speaking (and as I had to remember for my written test Friday), tempering chocolate is the re-crystalizing of beta-crystals in chocolate to produce a realignment. This is done by controlling the temperatures at which the chocolate is heated, cooled, reheated, and maintained. When chocolate is “tempered” it produces a hard, shiny, snap-able chocolate with a good “mouthfeel.” Each type of chocolate (dark, milk, white) has different temperatures.

Most major chocolatiers have tempering machines, as students we need to learn how to do this by hand. Thus, the story of my chocolate showpiece begins. Our theme was, “What you can’t live without …” And the mission was to “tell a story” using the vehicle of chocolate.

Um, splendid. Where do I begin? Well there’s two things I most definitely cannot live without (besides friends and family, but they’re hard to create) are the beach and ice cream. And usually they occur on a daily basis for me during the summer. So that was the idea behind mine, the execution was a little more shaky.

I remember touring the school last spring with my Dad and being shown the “chocolate showpieces” by our tour guide. As the guide continued along, my Dad and I looked at each other thinking, “These kids have been here for this long, and this is their “showpiece?” It looks like a kindergardener did it.” At that moment I knew my father was questioning where his money was going …

Well, let me tell you. Don’t speak before you try it. If those were kindergardener creations, move over Jacque Torres, there’s a child prodigy in the room.

So in creating a remake of what I can’t live without, I decided I’d tell a story by giving details of who I am as a person. A sweet tooth, check. A beach bum, check. A klutz, check check.

My showpiece was in short, a girl carrying an ice cream cone on a boardwalk, with the beach in the background, and her tripping, thus spilling her ice cream .

Last week I was stressed beyond stressed because of this project. It involved a written test, two diagrams, sketches, cut-outs, life sized models, special tools, measurements, you name it. So when I began the project last week the only thing I kept thinking was, “It’s over on Monday at 1:30, it’s over on Monday at 1:30, it’s over on Monday at 1:30.”

And I’m proud to say, “it’s over (now that its 7 pm) on Monday.” Didn’t mean it went too hot, but despite how embarrassing it looks. Feel free to mock, I would. I finished, AND I was proven that karma has a funny sense of humor.

So in full irony, to top off the fabulous accomplishment of both being “done” and not doing as poorly as I thought, I broke the structure in moving it to storage.

Did I mention we weren’t getting graded until tomorrow?

So now, I have a broken chocolate stand.

Whatever, you live and learn. I always knew I wasn’t the most agile of creatures. Coincidence that my character’s ice cream AND my chocolate stand had the same fate? Maybe.