For any of you chocolate freaks out there,
Cooking with Chocolate is a must-have book. It's a collaborative effort from eight master chocolatiers of École du Grand Chocolat Valrhona (a very highly respected school). Edited by Frédéric Bau (one of my favorite pastry chefs), and with a forward from Pierre Hermé, this is as close as being at the École as most of us will ever get. (My dream is to attend some day...I know a number of people who have, and they cannot sing the praises of the school highly enough.)
We just started doing a riff on one the recipes at the restaurant, and it's unbelievably good, and unbelievably popular. Our servers are selling it like crazy.
There's an accompanying DVD on techniques which makes this very useful to those who need some guidance on how to work with chocolate.
Highly recommend this book.
Amy