About Alice
My career started with a handwritten recipe for the tiny, cocoa-dusted chocolate truffles given to me by my Paris landlady in 1973. Those truffles captivated me with their pure bittersweet flavor, and the recipe changed my life. I brought Madame Lestelle’s directions, scribbled on the back of an envelope, back to California and began making and selling bittersweet chocolate truffles—to immediate acclaim—at Pig-by-the-Tail Charcuterie in Berkeley’s “gourmet ghetto.” Happy accidents coupled with local tastes and predilections led to the development of a larger “American” chocolate truffle, a confectionary phenomenon that culminated in the opening of Cocolat, my own chocolate dessert shop, in 1976. Since those heady days (and the sale of what had become seven Cocolat stores in 1989), I’ve created thousands of recipes and published over a dozen cookbooks, three of which are Cookbook of the Year Award winners and most of which received James Beard and/or IACP Awards. I’ve appeared on television with our beloved Julia Child, taught baking and dessert classes across the country, and written numerous articles and essays, including an award-winning column for Food52. I’ve consulted for venerable chocolate companies and cutting-edge chocolate entrepreneurs, and (most recently) I’ve worked with visionary upcycled food companies. From that first chocolate truffle to today, I’ve continued to experiment with new ingredients and techniques and to apply my quirky way of thinking to new challenges.
Today I am creating plant-based recipes and products made with upcycled ingredients. I’m deeply grateful for the opportunity to shape the future while also doing work that challenges me. What could be better than using old skills to solve new problems? I’m still learning, and I’m still having fun.
Biography
Author, pastry chef, teacher, and product creator Alice Medrich established a reputation in the 1980s as one of the United States’ foremost experts on chocolate and chocolate desserts. Primarily self-taught, Alice advanced her pastry skills with brief stints at the prestigious L’École Lenôtre in France before and after she opened her influential dessert shop, Cocolat, in Berkeley, California, in 1976.
Since then, she has influenced generations of confectioners, pastry chefs, authors, and home cooks with her commitment to quality ingredients, innovative ideas, and meticulous recipe testing. Among her early accomplishments, Alice is credited with popularizing chocolate truffles in the US and later introducing the larger “American” chocolate truffle, which became a mainstream confection.
In the decades that saw the gourmet and specialty food segment take on national culinary stature, The New York Times recognized Alice for creative leadership. She was a featured case study in Growing a Business Paul Hawken’s book and TV series profiling successful entrepreneurs. Alice also appeared in the Food Network’s Chef Du Jour and Baker’s Dozen, Joan Nathan’s Jewish Cooking in America, and Julia Child’s PBS series Baking with Julia, which can be watched here.
After selling Cocolat in 1989, Alice became an award-winning cookbook author, receiving more Cookbook of the Year Awards and best in the dessert and baking categories than any other author. Her first book, Cocolat: Extraordinary Chocolate Desserts (Warner Books, 1990), also won the coveted Julia Child Award for the best book by a first-time author; it was revised, updated, and republished by Dover in 2017. A list of books and awards can be found here.
Alice’s unique approach to gluten-free (so-called alternative) flours in her book Gluten-Free Flavor Flours (Artisan, 2014) attracted the attention of a new generation of visionary entrepreneurs focused on fighting food waste and promoting a more sustainable food system by using upcycled ingredients. Several of these new companies reached out for help with ingredient testing, product ideas, and formulation.
Alice currently creates plant-based, gluten-free products and consumer recipes using upcycled ingredients—notably okara flour, a high-fiber and high-protein flour made from the nutritious pulp left over from the production of soy milk and tofu. She has created branded products for Renewal Mill, including collaborations with innovative companies such as Diaspora Co Foods, Burlap and Barrel, Oaktown Spice Shop, Just Date, and Tia Lupita Foods, as well as private-label products for national supermarket chains and retailers.
About working with upcycled ingredients at this stage of a long career, Alice has said, “I’m excited about doing work that hasn’t yet been done—it feels like a contribution to a more sustainable future. It also gives me an opportunity to work with a new and creative generation of doers and thinkers. Meanwhile, it’s a tremendously engaging personal challenge.”
Alice lives in Berkeley, California.
Photo by: Annelies Zijderveld