Suchakrey (Toys) Koomplee Film 104 10/05/2013 Roberto Tschudin Lucheme and Slumdog Millionaire It was right on my birthday,

October 1, when I walked into Tschudin Chocolates Shop on Main Street, Middletown. We just finished having dinner at Typhoon and were looking for some sweet treats as our finale. So we stopped by this shop after we saw a big, cute chocolate sculpture on the sidewalk. There, we were warmly serviced by Mr. Tschudin, or Rob, the owner of the shop. He has such a fascinating character with a good sense of humor that makes me want to interview him. He was happy about it. This interview was conducted on Saturday the 5th at 10.30 a.m. at the table in front of his shop. Its been a busy morning for him since he just got an order from Yale and also a reservation for a party in the afternoon. Toys : Good morning! Nice to meet you! (laugh) Rob : (laugh) Good morning! Nice to meet you again, too! Toys : So how is your morning? Rob : My morning is fabulous. Im walking, waxing the floor, and shopping for the kids party. Wait for some staffs to come here I hope. And I. I just took my order today! Its for Yale. Oh! That was a big order so its good! And Its cash. She paid upfront, which is good. So Ill be able to cover the electric bill or maybe the rent, you know? So Im excited! Toys : Thats great. So youre excited for the party today? Rob : Oh yeah! Toys : For how many people? Rob : I got ..um.. 14 little girls that are coming. Toys : Oh wow! Rob : With.. with some little boys mixed in I dont know. So well see. Toys : That great. And you work like 7 days a week?

Rob : Yup! 7 days a week. 25 hours a day. (laugh) Toys : (laugh) Oh wow! Do you have any free time? Rob : Recently I start talking an afternoon break, and during the weekday I start shutting down in the middle of the afternoon like European style for a few hours. During the early part of the week I might change the hour because really the most of our sells are on the weekend at night, other than the kids coming and the seasoning stuffs like Valentines day, Easter, Christmas, thanksgiving. Were trying to convince everybody that every week there should be something to celebrate with the chocolate! (laugh) Toys : (laugh) We can cerebrate with chocolate like every day actually. I dont mind. Rob : Yeah! I think its the important part of the balanced diet! (laugh) Toys : Exactly. (giggle) So since you work like 7 days a week, do you have lots of free time to chill out and do stuffs like Rob : My chill-out time is the late night after weve shut the place down and then, you know, here and there sometimes when I have a staff in here Ill take off for a few hours and do something. And I still try to get out for the special event like museums and art openings, things like that. Toys : Oh! Thats good. Rob : You know I find that pretty inspirational in terms of coming up with a new idea of the sculpture, some ideas. Like recently I was in Boston auditioning for Food Channel and while I was up there, I just made sure that I went to a couple galleries and a couple museums just to try to get some idea, you know? Get some juice going on! Toys : Oh yeah! That would be fun. I love Boston. Rob : Yeah, its a great town. Toys : Do you watch movies often? Rob : I dont watch the movies as often as I used to, most of because of the time consideration. Toys : Oh yeah, since you have like 7 days of work. Rob : Yeah! But umm.. I mean I used to go the movie all the time. I use to go to

double features. I use to go to double DOUBLE features. But of course it was before the television has as many options as it does now. But yeah I think the movies are fun, especially the movie in the Theatre. Toys : Yeah! Rob : The thing about watching the movies in the theatre when you have a collective group around you to react. Its sort of a feedback that you dont get when you watch the movie by yourself. Toys : Exactly. Rob : Sometimes you get it when you are watching a movie with a bunch of people on the television, or on the DVD, or Blue-Ray for whatever your preferred technology is. I think its an amazon prime and.. and Crackle. Crackles great! Crackles free movies. Toys : Oh really? Rob : Yeah! Watch it on your iPhone, iPad and so forth. Its offering in somewhat limited but theres good sells on Crackle. Its really kinda handy when you dont have a money to go buy a movie or rent a movie. Toys : Thats really good. I would try that. (laugh) Rob : Yeah! Toys : So when I asked you about the movie that you like the most, you came down with Slumdog Millionaire and Ratatouille. Why these two? Lets start with the Slumdog Millionaire first. Rob : Well, the thing about the slumdog Millionaire is um.. I grew up in Puerto Rico. So therere lots of things that I relate to in the lives of the people that they portrait in the movie. Theres an abject poverty areas, just the most incredible slum you can imagine. Ah.. some incredible wealth.. and umm.. and then some middle class cutting in between. I grew up as the Puerto Rico developing in middle class. So its a very interesting time of the watching those hotels go up. When I was a child there were only one or two hotel on the island. And then all the sudden, there were ten, and then there were twenty, and then there were thirty, and then there were forty. And then, all the sudden, the beachfront areas were hotels. So I had some benefits, you

know. I can show the girl so the beach after they came off from the ship, You know. Toys : So that kinda reminds you of the neighborhood, like the place where you grew up. Rob : Yeah! Toys : Oh thats really good. What about Ratatouille? Rob : It was right when I learned about the position in the kitchen. So when I was first into the culinary career, Ratatouille is the great way to learn as theyre explained through the rat in the kitchen. Actually it was through the guy that owns the rat. Toys : Yeah! I really like that movie. Rob : Yeah! And then plus, Im related to the combination we get to see by the bolt of lightning, and its some chees and the mushrooms whatever theyve gotten. Toys : Yeah! I can see that its like the way you working with your chocolate like mixing flavor. Rob : Yeah! Thats why we do a lot of exotic flavors, which is the reason that I got attracted to the chocolate, you know, Italian cuisine, French cuisine. Also the reason that chocolate sets out was umm.. when I realized that I can also infuse the flavor to the ganache that is set in the part of chocolate. So same technique that is used in juice making basically applies to the chocolate work, taking some oil, some flour and some herbs.. spices.. and then.. bury them in fat and extract the flavor that way. Then we combine the fat with other ingredients. I also realized that I can play with the different sense in your mouth. You know because therere more than the sensory senses on your tongue. So I just tune the small part that could go up to your nasal cavity and then other senses, pick up the sense there, translate it back. And then you also have the texture, so which chocolate you do texture both by varying the cocoa butter, and also by what you include in the chocolate. Theres a lot of science to play with. Toys : Wow Thats really complex. I didnt think that making chocolate is gonna be

complicated like that. Rob : Yeah! Toys : So, about the Slumdog Millionaire, if you want to compare a movie with a chocolate, maybe like in your store or the thing that youre gonna make up. How would you describe that chocolate is gonna be just like to represent the movie? Rob : Well I have one! I have the Garam Masala. Toys : Oh! Really? So thats like the one from the movie? Rob : Yeah! Basically, if you wanna stereotype 3 basic style of the indian cuisine, there is what you may call the indigenous style of Indian cuisine Then theres a weaker Indian cuisine which is the British colonial fusion cuisine that was developed during the colonization. Third category is the Maharaja version, which was preserved the very least of that society. And so once I spent time in London, I actually had a chance to expose to anything that is other than the British colonial. There was one restaurant that has 3 different menus. So you wait back and forth and tell the differences. And that really opened my mind that the curry can be something other than yellow and flavored with herbs and spices. Therere a lot of crossovers between what you can describe thats a curry. But our Garam Masala is really floral, using roast petal kinda thing. And probably to the American palate would taste more reminiscent to the gingerbread than it would to the curry. Toys : Wow, I would love to try some. Ill get some. Rob : Ill make sure that you get one before you leave this interview. (laugh) Toys : (laugh) I will! So the movie is about pairing a question with the incident of the guys (Jamal) life. Is there your favorite question or your favorite event or scene Rob : Augh! Toys : Yeah.. something like that? Rob : Wow! Therere so many. Well, certainly therere a lot of revealing questions. I

mean certainly one that stands out right away is the conflict between the Hindus and the Muslims that leads by the question about what does this God represent. Toys : Right. Rob : That was certainly, you know, one. But it was interesting the way the whole movie weaves the questions with umm ***At this point, his timer for the waxed floor rang. So he had to wax the floor again really quick. The interview was paused about 10 minutes. Toys : Alright, so lets see where we are now Rob : About the scenes that are all related... Toys : Oh yeah yeah. Rob : Alright, um.. So the another one that sticks in my mind is the, which president was on the hundred-dollar bill, and it caused that whole scene. I mean the whole way the movie is constructed is just fabulous, because its different from the typical flashback movie. And it has a series of flashback, and the whole part of Who wants to be a millionaire you know? And then the love story, it all because basically hes hoping by getting on the tv show, he is gonna find the love of his life. I was hoping the same way when I got on the sweet genius but I didnt win. Damn it. (laugh) Toys : Yeah, the movie is really well made. I thought like its gonna focus on the game and just go on to the real life like how he spends the money, something like that. Then I see and I was like.. oh wow! And I see how the movie weaves each events, like the questions, how coincident and like Rob : Yeah, and all the thing behind the scene that the game show host try to feed him the wrong answer. Toys : Yeah that was really surprising. I was like.. wow!! .. So why do you think that he decided not to believe that guy? Rob : Thats a really interesting question. First I try to remember which question that was, and the man just try to relate it to his background that I just cant recall, whether he took the wild guess on that one. Remember theres the one that he took a guess.

Toys : Yeah. That was the last question. Rob : Yeah.. but I dont know. Maybe that intuitive sense developed across the time. Obviously your mind is onto the computer. So you start to digest experiences. And we all stereotype, which is natural. So you try to fit what you see in world and then try to match it to see if the pattern matches. So they play on the stereotype of what we think what nice people are like and then turn out that theyre not nice people. Toys : I see. Its like lots of twists and turns. Rob : Yeahh!! But I thought what was interesting about the movie is that the fabric of the movie is really interesting. And I also thought it was an interesting reaction of the Indian American community after the movie came out. In my perception it was totally divided between those people who say Oh! Thats the way it is and the people who said No! Its not like that at all!! (laugh) and it also exposed the racism in a different way because in my travel around the world, I have got to be in culture conference. How they categorize is by color, by economic status, or what the margin lines are from place to place. Its like they can come down to write a song that everybody can look down on. Toys : That is sad. Rob : But thats the way it is, you know? Its whether finding people by a religion, height, you know? There are so many ways that people took to categorize other people, and may extend to dehumanize them, Which is a sad thing, like you, too, can be categorized, you know, and perceived to be a shape or form in a very desirable or in a very very less desirable way. Toys : Its just like the way people judge each other these days, pretty much. Rob : Yep yep yep. But yeah therere a lot of interesting moments in that whole movie. I think one of the neat thing is the.. the theme of love which is transcend all these horrible things. And then, even though I have never had a garbage sheet on a regular basis, I did live on it one time when I was travelling. Toys : Huh?

Rob : So yeah, I lived in that. I was travelling to Morocco and um.. you know, I knew it that today people sleep on the beach and the garbage tub was a really safe place, which was right. Toys : Wow! Rob : Yep. Therere people sleeping on the beach and then they got in to a trouble, and nobody looks for the travelers on a garbage sheet. (laugh) Toys : There was like a big news in Thailand long time ago. People went to the beach and sleep in a tent. And the coconut tree just fell down and crash the tent and they all died. Rob : Oh no no. The problem in Morocco is that on the certain beach, in a certain area is targeted to be for a rob. I mean how many Moroccan people sleep on the beach, you know, not that many. So for me is just to find some place where nobody would expect to look. Toys : So you get a real sense of a scene in a movie, right? Like.. aha!! Ive been there. (laugh) Rob : Yeah Yeah! The thing is that there werent many exposed garbage by the time I got there. And again, not some place that anybody would be looking. So many other great scenes, some violence, and then also look at the characters and people. Umm.. its like I grew up with the terrorist. So there some fact that people always change. I always like to optimistically think that the people cant change. But you know, we all have the experience of walking back in time, running into somebody that maybe you havent seen since you were nine or ten years old, and you know theyre adults now, or young adults, but their sets of characters are still the same. They were nice then and theyre still nice now. Pain in the ass then, still pain in the ass now. (laugh) you know? Toys : Yeah, it just happens. I kinda like the way that people dont change, but sometimes they just totally change themselves to be another people. Rob : Well that is one of the great thing about America. I mean, its reinvention. You reinvent yourself. So certainly you have your classic example: a dirty kid that doesnt have much going on, and by just by changing his wardrobe, grabbing

a pipe and putting on an attitude is able to change his whole life to the completely different direction. I say that without making judgement that whether its a wise choice or not. But yeah I think that the movie is fun. And first I thought the movies dance number at the end was great! Toys : Exactly, I didnt see that coming. Rob : And the soundtrack! And you would have thought that the soundtrack was done for the movie. Instead, the soundtrack was actually done before the movie. Toys : Oh really? Rob : Yeah! That music was out there before. And it just fits in. Toys : Wow! and it was like so catchy too. Rob : Yeah! Toys : I just find it a little contrast with the movie, because the movie is a kinda stressful, but the song is kinda fun. I think it shows the joy of the couple too, like they find each other eventually. Rob : Right! But I mean a lot in the movie made it just umm.. it just fits. You know? It just captures it. You know? Really cool! Toys : Thats awesome. Rob : So whats the other question that I might have avoided the answer. (laugh) Toys : I think were good now. Rob : Alright. Toys : Well, thank you very much. Nice talking to you. Rob : Nice talking to you too!