In 1996, John Scharffenberger founded Scharffen Berger Chocolate Maker with friend and business partner Robert Steinberg. Already an accomplished winemaker, Scharffenberger’s entrepreneurial spirit, astute palate and passion for artisanal foods translated perfectly into the production of the finest chocolate. Using the highest quality cacao beans from around the world, Scharffenberger helped to create the first new premium American dark chocolate in decades.

Today, John Scharffenberger is known world-over as a chocolate expert leading classes and demonstrations on the history of chocolate including how to taste and experience the world’s best chocolates.

With her spiky platinum hair and unstoppable creativity, Elizabeth Falkner has become one of the most recognizable faces of the culinary world on the Food Network, Bravo and beyond. She has been a frequent contestant, judge, and guest on Iron Chef America, Top Chef, Sugar Rush, Tyler’s Ultimate with Tyler Florence, Martha Stewart Living and more.

Orson, her second restaurant in San Francisco, follows her original hit, the restaurant/patisserie Citizen Cake. Awarded a recommendation by Michelin in 2007, Citizen Cake has scooped up numerous commendations from media nationwide. Elizabeth herself has received many awards and accolades over the course of her career, including being named by Bon Appétit  magazine as one of America’s 10 top pastry chefs and, in 2006, “Pastry Chef of the Year.” San Francisco Magazine hailed her “Best Pastry Chef” several years ago and the San Francisco Chronicle awarded her the moniker of Rising Star Chef in its culinary star-studded city. Her dramatically architectural “cakescapes” and whimsically deconstructed dessert have been featured in dozens of magazines, including Conde Nast Traveler, Gourmet, Food and Wine and Travel and Leisure. In 2007, Elizabeth’s first cookbook, Demolition Desserts, was published. It lays out the elements of many of her contemporary desserts in inventive combinations that are easily accessible to home chefs.

Author, pastry chef, and teacher, Alice Medrich is one of the country’s foremost experts on chocolate and chocolate desserts. She is the only three-time Cookbook of the Year Award winner. Her fifth book, Bittersweet: Recipes and Tales from A Life in Chocolate (Artisan, 2003) was named IACP Cookbook of the Year in 2004, and she won the James Beard Cookbook of the Year award for both Chocolate and The Art of Low-Fat Desserts (1994) and for Cocolat: Extraordinary Chocolate Desserts (1990), which also won the Julia Child Award for the Best First Cookbook.

She opened her renowned dessert company, Cocolat in Berkeley, California in l976 to national accolades. Gourmet Magazine said, “Cocolat is to chocolate what Tiffany’s is to diamonds”. Medrich sold Cocolat in 1990, but continues to influence chefs, chocolate makers, and home cooks, by writing, teaching and consulting. She appeared in the Food Network’s "Chef de Jour" and "Baker's Dozen" series and with Julia Child in the PBS series, “Baking with Julia”. Alice’s newest book, a James Beard Award nominee, is Pure Dessert: True Flavors, Inspiring Ingredients, and Simple Recipes (Artisan 2007).

Food photographer, art director, designer and blogger Matt Armendariz is a man obsessed with food, drink, and everything in between. As a former art and creative director for companies like Whole Foods Market and Bristol Farms, Matt has been immersed in the world of food for 20 years.

In 2005 Matt started Mattbites, a food blog recently recognized as one of the world's 50 best food blogs by London Times Online. He appeared in an episode of The Martha Stewart Show dedicated to blogging and prepared his favorite recipe for alfajores alongside Martha herself.

As a photographer he's worked with clients and chefs like Nancy Silverton and La Brea Bakery, Mark Peel of Los Angeles' esteemed Campanile Restaurant, Mary Sue Milliken & Susan Feniger, Curtis Stone and Jimmy Shaw. His work has appeared in a variety of popular food publications, including Time Magazine, Martha Stewart, and Bon Appetit.com.

When he's not in his studio, with his clients or at home cooking, you just might find him teaching food photography workshops all around the world.

Lisa Schiffman is the director of the Chocolate Adventure Contest and the founder of TuttiFoodie— a popular blog for adventurous food lovers who care about a sustainable world. Schiffman—who earned a degree in social anthropology from Oxford University with a focus on food and cultural connections—spent several years on fellowship in Asia, where her palate awakened to the excitement of unfamiliar ingredients and the merging of sweet and savory in one mouthful. She is especially interested in the way a single exotic ingredient can change the familiar into something surprising. These days, she spends her time continuing to build the TuttiFoodie community nationwide and searches out interesting ingredients near and far. Her bedrock belief: trial and error is an inherent part of culinary discovery.