The captivating and fascinating qualities that characterize perfect chocolates are their shine, smoothness, crisp bite and creamy texture. But the funny part is that these qualities are not original to chocolates. They are acquired only when you temper them by melting and cooling them to specific temperatures.

In addition to imparting these qualities in chocolates, tempering keeps blooming from attacking chocolates. Blooming makes chocolates lose their sheen, the chocolates become dull and grainy and they also crumble when you try to break them.

Chocolate making has changed drastically with the launch of the tempering machine but even now, some chocolatiers temper chocolates only by hand because they think that manually-tempered chocolates is the key aesthetic quality missing in machine-tempered chocolates. But tempering by hand is a real challenge for learners and equally so for experienced chocolatiers.

Properly-tempered chocolates have large quantities of type V crystals that are instrumental to transforming chocolates into smooth, shiny and crisp delights and for increasing their shelf life. But the major impediment to the tempering process comes from the fact that the fatty acids of the cocoa butter crystallize into six crystal types. At six certain temperatures, these crystal forms dominate and make the tempering process difficult.

To amplify the production of type V crystals, you need to stop the domination of the five other crystal types and this means maintaining chocolate temperatures in which only type V crystals can be produced. If you do not maintain this temperature or if your thermometer is not accurate, your tempering process will be a failure and hence you should do re-tempering of chocolates.

Tempering by hand is done using two methods. The first method, tabliering, is done by melting and cooling the chocolates to specific temperatures and cooling is done on a heat-absorbing surface like a marble slab.

The second method is called “seeding” in which you use already tempered chocolate bits for tempering your melted chocolate. Both in tabliering and seeding, maintaining specific temperatures is the most difficult but important step.

When you plan to produce large quantities of chocolates, only a tempering machine and not manual tempering will facilitate the process well because you cannot have chocolates of homogeneous quality with manual tempering.

A tempering machine has a computer chip to take care of keeping temperatures specific; is automated to produce more quantities of type V crystals; and will maintain standard and high quality in the chocolates produced.

The entire tempering operation is automated in a tempering machine and hence you have a lot of free time that can be used constructively for devising ways for better handling of your business and for having concrete plans in improving the quality of your chocolates.

Lucca is a dazzling city with many great attributes. It is located in Tuscany in central Italy. It has extraordinarily fruitful soil because it is located on stream Serchio, which is found in the Province of Lucca. Lucca has a rich cultural history that’s seriously mirrored in the quantity of festivals that are celebrated in the City. You will find Luccan culture well represented in the Lucca Comics and Games, which is held once a year. The holiday heralds new and famed artists, including comedians, from the locale.

Famous museum in Lucca include the Nazionale di Palazo Mansi. This building is rich in culture, which began as early as from the 16th Century and stayed all thru to the 19th Century. You will find work by Correggio, Beccfumi and Bronzino throughout this museum. Correggio is well known for the painting of Madonna while Agnolo Bronzino is respected for painting the Cosimo picture in more than one version. This museum offers the best opportunity for any art lover to make contact with Italian artistry and thru possessing a deeper appreciation of the country and its residents. The Nazionale di Palazo Mansi is an example of a monument that’s able to educate, instill the love for culture, and make a good topic over family dinners. If it is a place you would like to experience, it is open to the public, 5 days a week.

Visit the churches, like the Saint Martino and the Saints Giovanni, and you’ll get to see more famous works of art. The history of the churches will dazzle you, due to how old they’re and what’s happened within them. Because weddings, baptisms, and funerals play such an important part in the final culture of Lucca, many residents cherish these buildings for the memories they house. They also display such magnificent works of art as the Last supper painting by Jacopo Tintoretto and Trono by Ghirlandaio. Find a Boutique Hotel in Lucca and enjoy your upcoming vacation!

Like all artwork designs, there aren’t any hard and fast rules for scrapbooking (that’s the beauty of making a scrapbook!). All the same, if you are just starting out, being mindful of some common rules of thumb is useful:-

Consider the subject of your scrapbook. The subject should dictate the style and presentation of the scrapbook. For example, if you are designing an album to remember your a child being born or marriage ceremony, then you should select papers, embellishments and colours that create one united theme around that topic.

OK, now a theme has been picked out, consider the cloths, fabrics, and papers you want to use. For example, you may want to use scrapbooking haberdashery in the scrapbooking projects.

A useful tip to defining the focus of your page is to give it a title. Apply die cut letters or stickers to write your title, or simply print it out from your computer.

If you’re composing a small description on the page, write it out on notepaper beforehand to perfect the wording.

There’s no hard and fast convention regarding the number of photographs to stick on any one page, but they should have some kind of relation to your subject. Pick out a mixture of photos that you can use as you layout the page.

The main aspect is that you enjoy the process of developing your scrapbook. Scrapbooking is a hobby that many individuals enjoy and you will find there’s a wonderful online community willing to share their points and help you in your scrapbooking endeavours.

If your family is like mine, everytime you get together you tell stories. No matter who starts the story, before long, everyone is adding bits and pieces of what they remember until you have a group-telling of the story.

The world of business does something like this. There is a performance evaluation tool called a 360 Degree Review where a person’s performance is evaluated by her peers, employees, and customers, instead of just her boss. The idea is to get a well-rounded view of her work by asking people who have different relationships to them to evaluate her performance. We can adapt this idea to make a fun video.

Let’s create a video project that captures a 360 degree group-telling of a shared story. Fancy lights, expensive tripods, and complicated video editing systems are not required for this one (although, if you have them, feel free to use them!)

What You Will Need:

• Quiet Room or Area
• Video Camera
• Tripod
• Microphone (preferably a lapel mike)
• Blank videotape
• Lights (this is optional. You can use whatever lights are available.)

What To Do

Set-up the video camera on the tripod, hook up the microphone, and set-up or adjust any lights you want to use. Ideally you want to do this in an area where each person will be away from the group when they tell their version of the story.

One-by-one, bring each person into the recording area and ask them to tell the story as they remember it. Keep the camera zoomed out wide enough so the subjects can move around freely without going out of frame - a medium shot should do the trick. Also, don’t interrupt unless the subject is nervous and needs reassuring. You want a quick snapshot of what they remember right now and you want them to come across comfortable and natural on camera.

Pause the camera and bring in the next person. Repeat the process until everyone who was a part of the story has spoken. Rewind the tape, connect the camera to the nearest TV, and let everyone watch the story be told all the way around - 360 dgrees!

Don’t be surprised if everyone wants a copy of this video!

Suggestions

This is a great project to do at family gatherings and parties. Since it requires so little setup you can bring your camera and, if the opportunity arises, quickly prepare and record.

Consider a 360 degree story as a birthday or anniversary gift. Have people tell the story of a couples wedding day and give it to them on their first anniversary (you can even make this at the reception and save it for them.) Or, get children to remember the day dad got his new boat and present it as a birthday present.

Best of luck with your Reel History project!

Andrew Seltz has been producing film and video projects for more than 10 years. His work has included many documentary projects which inspired him to begin documenting his family’s stories. He is now helping others do the same through his website http://www.ReelHistories.com