[The Scribe apologizes for the quality of today's pictures, but he forgot the real camera. This is what a cell phone camera can do...]
Joy welcomed the packed house at Asheboro Rotary today with poundy Broadway hits like Strike Up the Band . Guests decorated nearly every table, 
along with red balloons and candy hearts, courtesy of Jaci B, and tasty little chocolate bon-bons at each place, courtesy of our speaker. Quite Upscale! Phil Shore caught the theme by using the invocation to seek Divine intervention to make the world a sweeter place.
We were covered up with guests today, and Rebecca Redding introduced Kim Newsome, with Talmadge Baker; Mimi and Chris Cooper, parents of the speaker, with Linda Cranford; Dr. Christine Giarmo, with Jaci B; Christie Smith with Carol Matney; Darren Allen with partner Alan Pugh; Elizabeth Mason with husband Rodney; Emily Ledwell with Jerry Hill; and Jill Hayes, guidance counselor with Randleman High. Visiting Rotarians were Jim Campbell, from the Randolph Club; former District Governor Henry Brown, from Pinehurst, and Jeannine Thompson, from the Bakersfield, CA. club.
That brought us to our numerous student guests, introduced by Mini Singh. From AHS, we had Kori Chriscoe and Julia Apoian. Kori is the daughter of Keith and Julie Chriscoe (not our Keith, but doubtless distantly related). She’s in the National Honor society and volunteers with Big Brothers/ Big Sisters, and plans to attend UNC-W and become a physician’s assistant in dermatology. Julie is the daughter of Sue and Steve Poe Apoian. She plays saxaphone with the “Zero Period” (i.e., 7:30 AM) jazz band, flute in the marching band and wind ensemble, and plans to major in chemistry and spanish at ASU, then attend Emory for medical school.
Also today we were pleased to have Patricia Fiorelli and Matt Johnson, seniors at Randleman High. Patricia is a varsity cheerleader and the key club secretary. Her father Joe is Kyle Petty’s car chief at Petty Enterprises, and her mother is a Randolph County School dropout prevention counselor. She plans to attend ASU or Chapel Hill and become a physical therapist. Matt Johnson is the grandson of Richard Earl Johnson, past District Governor and former member of this club. He plays football and basketball and plans to attend ASU. 
But he came prepared for a talent show, as he proceeded to show off his senior project: a guitar that he built himself, over the course of 61 hours of work, under the guidance of his mentor Gerald Hampton. Just to show that it works, Matt played and sang the Kenny Chesney song, “No Shoes, No Shirt, No Problem.” And he wins this week’s compulsive overacheiver award, hands down!
Past President Prithi temporarily replaced President HR at the podium this week. 
There was no revived Vegetarian Time, but Prithi did point out that research has shown that passionate love-making was the aerobic equivalent of a four-mile walk. No shoes are required, piped up George Bain, in homage to Matt’s song. And if you can’t walk four miles, come see me professionally, says urologist Dr. Prithi. Hmm.
At last we came to the real program, sponsored by Linda Cranford and the Social Committee. Did You Know, asked Linda, that 300 years ago chocolate was thought to be an aphrodisiac, and was only served as a liquid, and only to men? [Hey, it hasn't even been 300 years, and people are already swallowing Viagra and Levitra like candy!]
Leslie Cooper,
daughter of County Health Department Director Mimi Cooper (and grand-daughter of retired AHS typing teacher Anne Moore), is a 2000 graduate of Asheboro High, who majored in nutrition and restaurant management at UNC-G. She received a Grande Plume at the French Culinary Institute, worked in a number of restaurants, and finally returned to Randolph County to start her own business, Love Chocolate (www.eatlovechocolate.com), based in her grandmother’s kitchen outside Ramseur.
Leslie says that she is a custom maker of hand-made chocolate truffles and caramels, and can make about 500 pieces per day. The big chocolate gift times are Valentine’s Day, Mother’s Day, and Weddings, so she’s coming off one of her peak periods. She sells at Weaver Street Market in Chapel Hill and Carrboro, and exhibits at Bridal Shows, such as one coming up soon at Castle McCulloch, near High Point. She started her own business so she could be a leader in something in the culinary field. Commercial chocolate has a one-year package life because of added vegetable fat; her chocolate only has a one month shelf life because she uses only the most natural ingredients.
She had a power point show about the making of chocolate. 
Cocoa pods come from South American trees in the “chocolate belt” around the equator; seeds ferment in the sun until “nibs” (the actual raw chocolate) are produced. The nibs are ground to separate out the cocoa butter from the cocoa solids; then “conking” adds sugar and vanilla and emulsifiers to make the smooth creamy chocolate first invented by the Swiss. (Dutch-processed chocolate is much darker; the original beverage chocolate was very bitter, as sugar wasn’t added until Europeans started drinking it).
Leslie brought some of her bon-bons for everyone, 
and told us how she’d made them. Chocolate is delicate to cook with, and must be tempered like steel to be stronger, harder and more durable. Well-tempered chocolate is shiny, hard, snaps when you break it, and should not melt at body termperature. She melts the raw chocolate at 120 degrees, then cools it to 80, then tempers it to about 90. She pours that into a mold, then shakes and beats and bangs it to get the air bubbles out. The she flips the mold upside down and pours the excess chocolate out, creating the outside shell in the mold. When that cools she call fill it with “ganoche,” a truffle filling. The tempered chocolate will gradually cool and shrink and pop right out of the mold.
Chocolate has caffeine in it, and a chemical called theobromide which is poisonous to dogs. It hits them like a mega-dose of caffeine, but a 60-pound dog (she accidently experimented on one of her greyhounds) must eat a whole pound of chocolate to have a heart attack. 
White chocolate technically has no cocoa in it; it is made of cocoa butter, sugar, milk powder and vanilla. Cocoa butter is light colored; cocoa powder is dark, and chocolate is normally dark because the powder suspends in the fat. That’s why melted chocolate sometimes looks clear or yellow- because the fat is separating from the cocoa. Dutch-processed chocolate is much darker, and it’s dark chocolate that has the antioxidants that doctors now recommend. Drink red wine and eat chocolate every day, and live to be 100! Leslie says. (And it’s all vegetarian, says Prithi).
