Jacques Torres on Becoming Mr. Chocolate [1/2]

If you love chocolate–and what Serious Eater doesn't–you won't want to wait to savor every morsel of the Special Sauce episodes featuring Mr. Chocolate himself: chocolatier and pastry chef extraordinaire Jacques Torres.    Jacques knows more than a few things about chocolate. He grew up in Bandol in Provence, France, and first started working at the local pastry shop when he was fourteen. He says he was hooked on the very first day. "Oh my God,' he recalls, "That sweet sticky stuff, I want to do that for the rest of my life." Jacques has since won a James Beard Pastry Chef of the Year Award, established his own bean-to-bar chocolate manufacturing facility in Brooklyn, and he's even opened Choco Story New York, an interactive chocolate museum in Lower Manhattan.    On today's episode Jacques has some hilariously pointed advice for the best way to store chocolate: "The best way to store chocolates that we make in a store like mine, the best way to store them is in your stomach, because they don't age very well. Eat them fresh."    His pastry- and chocolate-centered life has had many (mostly sweet) twists and turns, but for more specifics, you'll have to listen. Just make sure you have a piece of chocolate handy when you do.