Catherine grew up in the Netherlands, finished her schooling in Paris (went to the Sorbonne University and worked as an Au Pair). Speaks 5 languages
Worked for the Airlines then moved to Southern California in the 70's. Met her husband Jose Luis on a cruise ship in 1980 (They have been married 26 years and live in Florida).
Jose Luis is from Argentina, moved to the States in 1974 and has been working in Hospitality since. He lived briefly in Marbella, Spain. He has worked for major resorts, restaurants, cruise line. He speaks 3 languages

We are definite foodies and lean towards ethnic cuisines and have owned restaurants for the past 18 years, where Jose Luis is the chef and Catherine Pastry Chef -currently we own ELEMENTS GLOBAL CUISINE in Gulfport Fl., a smart contemporary restaurant. Anytime we can take some time off we are on a plane and seeing the world (so far 60 countries) and actually combining our two loves: food and travel got us started on a blog recently. www.travelpod.com/members/pawelek

Food & Drink > Candy & Desserts Is Swiss chocolate the best in the world?

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I grew up in Holland and even after travelling to over 60 countries, invariably, I want to say that I find that Dutch chocolate is the best.

Even though both Hernan Cortes and Christopher Columbus, during the 1500's, returned to Spain from the Americas, bringing with them the wondrous cocoa (cacao) bean, which was initially

snubbed by the Europeans, it was not until 1828, when Dutch food chemist

Conrad Van Houten perfected the technique of mixing cocoa powder with cocoa butter so it would melt in your mouth.

It was his contribution that made chocolate a more mainstream treat.

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