After many years and other interesting careers, a longtime hobby became a business for Susie Norris. She started in advertising in Boston, focusing on broadcast production. Next she moved to Los Angeles and worked for NBC, CBS and eventually in children’s programming with Nickelodeon and finally Disney.
As fun as that sounds, it was very corporate and Susie says she realized, “I need to be with my dough. I need to bake.” Not content to merely pursue baking as a hobby, she went to Epicurean, a small culinary school in Los Angeles, and got her certification in professional baking and pastry.
“Building on that foundation, I realized I really belonged in the food business.” Susie taught in the bakery and pastry department of the California School of Culinary Arts Le Cordon Bleu program in Pasadena. “As a Le Cordon Bleu affiliate, it attracted students from all over the world. I learned their secrets, what they knew from their own cultures. Students brought all sorts of treats to class. We’d be snacking on dim sum while we were making a classic Black Forest Cake!”
At the same time, Susie started Happy Chocolates, taking the name as a spin off the simple names one often sees in Chinatown. “Teaching and making chocolates worked well together.” Happy Chocolates now has workshops in both California and Massachusetts.
During a trip to Russia, she was struck by how universal the love of chocolate is. “Chocolate started out as a traveling food. In the Mezzo American cultures it goes back 2,000 years. Cocoa beans were used as currency. The Spanish brought it to Europe, and it has become global, inspiring people all over the world.”
A book idea began to germinate, which resulted in Chocolate Bliss, which Susie describes as a “lifestyle recipe book.” She is now at work on her next book, Vanilla Bliss.
Full of user-friendly cake and pastry recipes for home cooks, Chocolate Bliss also “looks at the positive force that chocolate is in various cultures, the wellness aspects, it’s ecological importance to rainforests, skin care (cocoa butter in moisturizer, for example), and how to taste chocolate.”
Partnering with her husband, a writer/producer, Susie still is a freelance television producer, most recently on a project with MTV and also at “The N” division of Nickelodeon. “It’s wonderful balance,” she says. Chocolate is somewhat seasonal, so the different aspects of my life balance each other out.”
The name Happy Chocolates sums it up. “No matter where you are in the world, eating chocolate makes you happy!”
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