Elaine Sherman, 63, 'Madame Chocolate'

Elaine Sherman ignited the culinary scene in Chicago with the sameenthusiasm Julia Child displayed revolutionizing the nation's cookingand eating tastes.

Ms. Sherman showed people how to be great cooks, helped them findcutting-edge ingredients and professional cookware, and promotedchocolate of the finest quality and in every imaginable form untilher colleagues dubbed her Madame Chocolate.

Ms. Sherman, a resident of Northbrook, died Friday at EvanstonHospital after a long illness. She was 63.

She was born Aug. 1, 1938, in Chicago, the daughter of Arthur andSylvia Friedman, and attended Northwestern University.

When her first marriage fell apart she was left with threechildren to support. Always a great cook, she studied at Dumas Pere,L'Ecole de la cuisine francaise and taught cooking for continuingeducation courses and in people's homes.

"She really ignited the whole food movement in Chicago," formerChicago Sun-Times food editor Bev Bennett said.

She opened one of the region's first gourmet cookware stores, rana chocolate warehouse, wrote a cookbook and did free-lance foodwriting including for the Sun-Times, and constantly promoted greatfood.

"She was very generous. She would always call up and say, 'Bev,you have to try so and so's such and such.' A, she would be right,and B, she was promoting someone else, not herself," Bennett said.

When young Bob Piron started his Belgian Chocolatier business inthe mid 1980s, she bought and sent boxes of his chocolates to keyfood writers and industry members to introduce him.

"It was absolutely selfless help. If she liked your product or sheliked you, without any personal gain she would introduce you to theright people, she would give you marketing ideas, she would put youtogether with other people so you could brainstorm. I've never metanyone quite like her," Piron said.

Many people knew her through the chocolate weekends she organizedhere and in Las Vegas.

Ms. Sherman discovered that her students didn't have the equipmentneeded for great cooking, not even a whisk. She talked a wholesalerinto letting her buy one piece of equipment at a time and became oneof his biggest customers as she resold great pots, pans and gadgetsto her students.

She teamed up with Wilma Sugarman in 1976 to open The CompleteCook store. They offered cooking classes featuring some of the greatnames on the American culinary scene. Even the great James Beardtaught a class there.

In the early 1980s, Ms. Sherman began selling gourmet importedchocolate for baking and candymaking by mail order. It was the firsttime many home bakers had access to some of the great chocolate ofEurope.

Her 1984 cookbook, Madame Chocolate's Book of Divine Indulgences,is a classic compendium of great chocolate-based desserts and sweets.

A warehouse fire eventually put her out of the chocolate business.She became director of marketing for airline caterer Sue Ling Gin,then became a consultant on food management and marketing.

She married Jerry Spiegel in 1989.

Survivors in addition to her husband are two sons, Steven andDavid; a daughter, Jaime Touras; a stepdaughter, Sharon Cohen; astepson, Alan Spiegel; a brother, Stanley Friedman, and sevengrandchildren.

Services were Monday at Weinstein Family Services Wilmette Chapelwith burial in Westlawn Cemetery, Chicago.