"That chocolate from New York sho is good,"

Aunt Mae said to me in 1991, about a box of Godiva chocolate I had hand carried on Amtrak all the way from New York to Virginia. "I believe it's even bettah than the Whitman's Sampler we get down at Rite Aid."

If only Aunt Mae had lived to see this day, when Florence Fabricant of the New York Times implied that she thought that fudge from Brooklyn (based on Aunt Mae's recipe), "sho is good," and from what we can surmise, possibly something she finds more satisfying than a Whitman's Sampler from Rite Aid.

I am so honored and touched that Ms. Fabricant liked the product, and was kind enough to write about it. It makes me grateful for all the people connected with Brooklyn Fudge, living and dead.

Ben Franklin said "lest you be long forgotten soon after you are dead and rotten, either write something worth reading, or do something worth writing about." Apparently my great aunt, who had a 7th grade education, and never wore pants or learned to drive did both, and continues to have an impact on me and many other people more than a decade after her death. Watching this lesson unfold on a daily basis has been the greatest joy of this business and this phase of my life.

Aunt Mae basically stayed home all day, and spent about 8 hours a day involved in food preparation, and about 18 hours a day talking: talking to people at the house, talking to people on the phone, talking about people in the paper, talking about people on television, talking about people who were dead, talking about people who were alive. If she heard someone roll over in bed in the middle of the night, she would assume they were awake and start talking to them. She didn't do anything big, she didn't have a career or an education, yet she left a huge impression, and continues to make an impact. This one product based on just one of her recipes has created jobs, has delighted people all over the world, has inspired people, and I look forward to all the all the other positive things we can do with it.

Aunt Mae treated everybody that came into her house like they were the most important person in the world, as if they had great value, and I now think that that's true, that each of us does have great value, and often just being who we are is just as important as doing what we do.