Across Boston, Valentine’s Day is one of the busiest days of the year for chocolate shops. Weeks of preparation culminate in a single afternoon of unending lines and cleared-out display cases, while customers browse around for the right box to say what they cannot.
Alexandra Hogan, 33, of Westwood stood in line for a mocha beside her husband, who gently rocked the baby carriage holding the couple’s 1-year-old son.
For Hogan, Valentine’s Day is about “celebrating all the love in my life.”
Last Valentine’s, she said, her son was only a few months old.
“This is the first year where he’s celebrating love with us,” she said. “He’s very excited. He had some dinosaurs to wake up to on Valentine’s Day.”
A few steps away, a different kind of love was being celebrated.
“I forgot it was Valentine’s Day,” said Emma Vidal, 18. “But then, when I realized it was, I got really happy.”
She and her friends Aanya Bandukwala, 17, Kartiki Sarangdhar, 17, and Clarissa Truman, 18, gathered for what they called an impromptu “Galentine’s” celebration, meeting at Burdick for hot chocolate instead of dates.
“Even if you don’t have a special someone, I think it’s really fun that we’re all meeting up,” said Sarangdhar. “I think it’s also important to remember friendship in that sense, because that is a type of love.”
Not everyone was swept up in the romance of the day.
A few blocks down, outside the Lindt store, Silvana Torosian of Newton carried a bag of dark chocolate she buys once a month, not for Valentine’s but for herself.
“I eat one piece of dark chocolate every night,” she said. “It’s just my life.”
Having lived in Switzerland for 25 years, Torosian said she considers Swiss chocolate the best. She also misses the less commercialized version of Valentine’s Day in Europe that she remembers.
“In the US it’s too much commercial. Let’s buy this for Valentine’s, go do your nails. Everything is marketing,” she said. “But I think for couples, every day must be a Valentine’s day, not only once a year.”
Marketing may help sell Valentine’s Day, but behind every box of chocolates are hours of labor. A mile away at Atelier Colette, chocolatiers were hard at work crafting confections destined for date tables across the city.
Sophie Dazzi, 34, a chocolatier who lives in Medford, stood over a batch of hazelnut praline, blending roasted, caramelized nuts into a glossy paste that would eventually be piped into chocolate shells. The process takes two to three days, she explained, roasting the hazelnuts for deeper flavor, caramelizing them, cooling them, and carefully managing crystallization before the filling is coated.
“We worked four weeks just to prepare for this day,” said Dazzi, who left a career in the insurance industry 10 years ago to become a chocolatier.
“It was like a revelation,” she said. “I wanted to know how to do everything, pastry, bakery and chocolate.”
Now, she said, making chocolate gives her “freedom to create” and the satisfaction of knowing her work fuels other people’s special moments.
“Just the simple thing that you can give something to someone and please someone, that is just amazing,” she said.
Addielee Webber, 29, who also lives in Medford, has been making bread and pastries since she was a teenager but began training to become a chocolatier a few months ago, just in time for the packed holiday season.
“I loved it. It kept me on my toes,” she said. “It’s a never-ending opportunity to learn in this industry. You think you master something, you turn a corner, and then there’s so much more you can learn.”
Webber said one reason she likes working for Atelier Colette is its commitment to sourcing ingredients from France.
“We try to really keep it as authentic as possible, to really bring that French experience here to Boston,” she said.
When asked if either had any Valentine’s Day plans, both chocolatiers shook their heads and laughed.
“You know, when you work really hard for others, you’re just exhausted,” said Dazzi.
“But that’s what we live for. We get to make those moments happen for people,” Webber chimed in. “To be able to give their person the act of love of, ‘Here’s something, I thought of you.’ That’s what it’s really all about.”
Nathan Metcalf can be reached at nathan.metcalf@globe.com. Follow him on Instagram @natpat_123.
