These folks have figured it out: Their site contains a blog and member interaction. They have a Facebook page with (as of this writing) about 36,000 fans. They have how-to videos as useful as anything on television. You can customize your profile. There are newsletters and an RSS feed, and most useful of all, an iPhone application, with more than 30,000 recipes — by meal, by ingredient, by event (Mardi Gras, Super Bowl, you name it).

The app features customer reviews and even generates your own hand-held shopping list. How our mothers ever put a meal on the table sans technology is beyond me.

— By Erika Stutzman

Eating about one and a half ounces of dark chocolate a day for two weeks can reduce levels of stress hormones.

Antioxidants and other components in dark chocolate may also reduce the risk of heart disease.

Source: American Chemical Society.

Linda Willetto journeyed from her Easy Bake Oven in elementary school to starting Indulge Bakery with her husband Thomas Willetto in November 2006.

Linda, now 46, knew she wanted to be in the restaurant business after taking a cake decorating class in seventh grade.

“I’ve always liked cooking,” Linda says. “I’d make cakes for my friends (in junior high). I didn’t make a wedding cake until I was in college.”

In their 20 years of marriage, the couple shared the idea of opening a bakery. Having three children of their own, they created a family-friendly environment and a European-style shop where children can peer into cases of specially decorated cakes, cookies and other pastries. These goodies have no preservatives and most are made from scratch.

“We are accommodating to what our customers want,” Linda says.

Recently, the Willettos started making gluten-free goodies, and now the couple is attempting to make delicious dairy-free baked goods.      “Our No. 1 rule: If it doesn’t taste good, we won’t sell it,” Thomas says.  

Concertos in Chocolate, 6395 Gunpark Drive, suite R, Boulder.

Stepping inside Concertos in Chocolate makes your nose tingle with excitement from the rich, fresh smell of chocolate.

Having a lifelong love for chocolate, Chris Widlar, 50, of Boulder County, searched for better tasting chocolate that did not contain artificial flavor and ingredients and opened Concertos in Chocolate in 1999.

“I started out in my garage and had really just planned some seasonal chocolate and chocolate for corporate gifts, and it kept growing and growing,” Widlar says.

Widlar’s secret weapon is her own all-natural, handmade caramel. It is richer than traditional American-made caramel because of the heavy cream and butter, she says.

Alongside her specialty caramel, she makes 25 different flavored truffles, fruit gigs, toffee, marzipan and other mouth-watering confections. Of her products, 95 percent are all natural.

Shamane’s Bake Shoppe, 2825 Wilderness Place, suite 800, Boulder

Every day is Valentine’s for Shamane Simons and her husband Matt Dessi, Simons says.

“Our relationship is 99 percent laughter,” she says.

She laughs remembering one Valentine’s Day when the couple wanted to go to a new restaurant to celebrate. They made reservations, but when they arrived they discovered they were not on the list. Instead, they made the best of it sitting at the bar laughing about how it felt like prom night.

The two Boulder residents have been married almost seven years. Simons, now 38, met Dessi, 37, nine years ago through her roommate. Dessi’s Italian heritage caught her attention.

“I was intrigued by him because he grew up in an Italian family in New York and his family owned a bakery in Little Italy,” Simons says.

Along with pastries and local coffees, black and white photos of his family business, Pradella’s Italian Bakery, decorate Shamane’s Bake Shoppe. On one wall, Dessi’s great aunt smiles and stares out the front glass window of the old bakery. On the neighboring wall, two of Dessi’s uncles hold a basket of fresh bread. Below the photo, Dessi’s great uncle shyly smiles from under a fedora hat.

“The photos have sentimental value,” Simons says. “They make great decorations but have a story behind them.”

The couple tries to spend time together, despite Simons’ busy schedule and late nights at the bakery. The couple has date nights at the shop, where Dessi brings dinner and puts on music while Simons finishes up her work.

“What brought us together were my passion for food and his family’s traditions with food, and his passion and talent for music and my love for music,” Simons says.

— By Emily Burrows-Poretsky

New kid on the block

Vanessa Metalli Dionne grew up near Rome working in her parents’ restaurant, baking and making pastry. But it wasn’t until she moved the United States in 2003 that she became interested in chocolate.

“The more I studied, the more I discovered about chocolate,” she says. “I got a little bit addicted. Dark chocolate … the flavor and the way I can manipulate it to make chocolate. I can use my artistry and my passion for baking and pastry and combine it. It’s my perfect medium,” she says.

Dionne started her company, Desiderio Chocolates, in 2008.

“I make molded chocolates. I like to paintbrush them,” she says. “I use ganache filling with fresh cream, local and organic as much as possible, butter, organic nuts and organic fruit purees.”

In a couple of her chocolates, she uses brews from Left Hand Brewing Co. Dionne works out of the Glacier Ice Cream store in Longmont, and her chocolates are available there and at Cheese Importers in Longmont.

— By Cindy Sutter

April 1 - The Motet with Euforquestra. 8:30 p.m., Fox Theatre, 1135 13th St., Boulder, 303-443-3399. www.foxtheatre.com. $10 in advance, $12 at the door.

April 4 – Easter Brunch Buffet Sunday. 10:30 a.m.-2:30 p.m. Hotel Boulderado, 2115 13th St., Boulder, 303-440-2880. www.boulderado.com/easterbrunchbuffet. Adults $35.95, Children 6-12 $17.95, Children 5 and under free.

April 5-9 - 62nd Annual Conference of World Affairs. 8-:30-9:30 p.m., CU Boulder Campus, Boulder, 303-492-2525. www.colorado.edu/cwa/. Free.

April 9 - Dark Star Orchestra. 9 p.m., Boulder Theater, 2032 14th St., Boulder, 303-786-7030. www.bouldertheater.com. $30

April 17 – 10th Annual Highlife Concert. 7:30 p.m., Macky Concert Hall, 1595 Pleasant St., Boulder, 303-492-8008. www.cupresents.com. $10-35.

April 21 – The Avett Brothers. 8 p.m., Boulder Theater, 2032 14th St., Boulder, 303-786-7030. www.bouldertheater.com. $34.

April 22-24 - Our Town. 7:30 p.m., Imig Music Building, Euclid and 18th St., Boulder, 303-492-6576. www.cupresents.org. $16-26.

April 25 - Taste of Pearl. 2-6 p.m., Pearl Street, Boulder, 303-449-3774. www.tasteofpearl.com. $52.80.

March 1 - Los Lonely Boys, Alejandro Escovedo & Carrie Rodriguez. 7:30 p.m., Boulder Theater, 2032 14th St., Boulder, 303-786-7030. www.bouldertheater.com. $29.50-36.50.

March 2-3 - Banff Mountain Film Festival. 7 p.m., Boulder Theater, 2032 14th St., Boulder, 303-786-7030. www.bouldertheater.com. $18.50.

March 6 - Seventh Annual BaoBao Festival. 7 p.m., Boulder Theater, 2032 14th St., Boulder, 303-786-7030. http://baobaofest.org/baobao-festival-at-the-boulder-theatre. $19.

March 7 - Zakir Hussain & The Masters of Percussion. 7:30 p.m., Boulder Theater, 2032 14th St., Boulder, 303-786-7030. www.bouldertheater.com. $32.50-43.

March 11 – Fashion Under the Flatirons. 7:30 p.m., Boulder Theater, 2032 14th St., Boulder, for tickets: 303-786-7030, for information: 303-449-3774. www.bouldertheater.com. $35-100.

March 12 - CU Opera: Don Giovanni. 7:30 p.m., Macky Auditorium Concert Hall, 1595 Pleasant St., Boulder, 303-492-8008. www.cupresents.com. $12-36.

March 13 - Shake, Sizzle, Stir. A cocktail class. 1:30-3 p.m., The Bitter Bar/Happy, 835 Walnut St., Boulder, 303-442-3050. www.happynoodlehouse.com. $35.

March 14 - Boulder Spring Half Marathon. 9 a.m., Boulder Reservoir. www.bouldermarathon.com. $65.

March 16 - Mike Doughty. 9 p.m., Fox Theatre, 1135 13th St., Boulder, 303-443-3399. www.foxtheatre.com. $22.

March 17 - Angela and Chopin. 7:30 p.m.., Macky Auditorium Concert Hall, 1595 Pleasant St., Boulder, 303-444-7328. $13-70.

March 19 – Murder Mystery Dinner Date. 6:45 p.m., Hotel Boulderado, 2115 13th St., Boulder, 303-440-2880. www.boulderado.com/murdermysteries. $64 per person.

March 20 – Tango Among Friends. 1-2:15 p.m., every Saturday, Pearl St. Studio, 2126 Pearl St., Boulder, 303-443-9699. www.villageartscoalition.org. $5.

March 21 - Winter Chamber Concert. 2:30-4 p.m., Chautauqua Community House, 900 Baseline Road, Boulder, 404-499-1397. www.coloradomusicfest.org. $15.

March 26 – Boulder international folk dancing. 7:30-11 p.m. every Friday, Pearl Street Studio, 2126 Pearl St., Boulder. www.boulderifd.org. $4.

March 27 - Gear and Cheer. An evening of live entertainment, a fashion show, local beverage and food tasting as well as an amazing auction of high performance outdoor gear, great local services and exciting trip packages. 6 p.m. The Spot Bouldering Gym, 3240 Prairie Ave., Boulder, 303-938-9191. www.womenswilderness.org. $35 before March 26, $40 at the door.

Pair with rich chocolate desserts — The cherry wine from Carlson Vineyards. Serve chilled. For a real treat, serve with melted Enstrom’s dark chocolate (or any quality dark chocolate) on the rim of the wineglass. Very decadent.

With fruit tarts but sweets (but not rich or heavy) — Fruit wines, like peach, apricot, plum and pear.

The best match for all chocolates — Colorado dessert wines, like ports and Late Harvest wines, including Canyon Wind Cellars, Two Rivers, Graystone, Guy Drew, Whitewater Hill and Plum Creek.

Tip: When pairing cabernet sauvignon with chocolate, you run the risk of ruining fine wine and fine chocolate. But if you insist, it is recommended that you use only dark chocolate and a low-tannin cabernet. The same holds true for merlot or cabernet franc.

— By Claire Tindall, with the Fresh Ideas Group

Pam Schumacher pours chocolate into the machine making Sun Cups at Seth Ellis Chocolates in Boulder

According to Consumer Reports’ www.greenerchoices.org, many of the world’s cocoa beans are grown in ways that are not good for the earth or workers who harvest them.

Much as with commodity coffee beans, workers in tropical regions without access to markets, are paid bare subsistence earnings. In some areas of Western Africa, where most cocoa beans are grown, forced child labor and other labor abuses have been documented.

In addition, new plant varieties that grow in the sun rather that the traditional shade habitat are being introduced. That leads to less biologically diverse habitats and potentially deforestation. Extremely toxic pesticides such as lindane, which is related to DDT, may be used, since the plants are vulnerable to many pests.

It’s enough to make you give up chocolate, but fortunately you don’t have to.

If you live in Boulder County, you have a couple of good local options for chocolate eating that can relieve the weight on your eco-conscience, if not the potential pounds you might gain indulging in the good stuff.

Chocolove
www.chocolove.com
17 different types of premium chocolate bars with ingredients such as raspberries, orange peel or crystallized ginger
Available in natural foods stores and Target locally

Seth Ellis Chocolatier
www.sethellischocolatier.com
Truffles and fine chocolates
Available at Whole Foods, Ozo Coffee, Brewing Market and Glacier Ice Cream in Longmont

— By Cindy Sutter

But it’s so much more than that. The online dashboard shows your splits — how fast you’re running over the course of a run — and audio cues tell you how far you’ve gone and your average speed.

You can program your own workouts. You can join a team of fellow runners to inspire you and to compete with. You can manually enter gym workouts, and the GPS will also track your bike rides, your ski runs, your walks.

The extremely passionate users are on Facebook, offering support and tips. Measure your week-to-week progress with a simple bar graph. Want a smaller butt? Want something to inspire you to get out of bed in the morning? Yeah, there’s an app for that.

— By Erika Stutzman

Or maybe not. In the United States, HIV infections among some demographic groups are on the rise.
Meanwhile, AIDS continues to utterly ravage Africa.

Fairview High School graduate Nicole Itano, who spent five years living in South Africa, wants America to know that the epidemic is anything but over. In fact, some 7,000 South Africans die every day from the disease; that’s more than 2.5 million a year.

But rather than write a remote or scholarly book on the issue, Itano did what good journalists are supposed to do (and used to do): Talk to those most affected by the disease.

For two years, she “ate meals with them, helped wash their laundry and harvest their fields, and even occasionally slept at their houses,” she writes in an introduction.

Itano also recognizes that traditional journalistic “objectivity” and distance is hard to achieve when you’re working at that level, and hints that she finds that “ethic” suspect. As a result, she gives the reader a deeply personal, informative, affecting and true portrait of a story most Americans know nothing about.

Throughout the book, Itano bluntly exposes Western beliefs about the African AIDS epidemic for what they are: Typically uninformed and loaded with prejudice.

But it’s the personal touch of Itano’s time spent with women suffering from the epidemic that make the book more than just another Western “analysis” of a crisis in a far-flung land.

There is new hope, she says, as money, retroviral drugs and attention to the problem flow into Africa, demonstrating “what can be done if the global community works together to combat a pressing problem and (proving) wrong those who say the continent’s problems are too vast and hopeless.”

— By Clay Evans

If you have a passion for…

The arts:
The Dairy Center for the Arts, www.thedairy.org.
Donations help expand and sustain this Boulder-based nonprofit cultural arts organization, its gallery, events, arts education, fundraising, equipment and maintenance of the building.

The holidays:
Share-A-Gift, www.shareagift.org.
Help by donating cash, bikes, books or toys to children of local low-income families. Each year, about 2,000 children receive gifts. This year, gifts will be distributed Dec. 19.

Animals:
The Humane Society of Boulder Valley, www.boulderhumane.org.
Help homeless animals by donating online or sponsoring a specific dog or cat at the adoption center. You can also buy a commemorative tile, a great way to honor a loved one.

Youth:
Project YES, www.project-yes.org.
Make a monetary donation, check out the Web site’s wish list or donate your time to this safe community space for local kids.

Women making a difference around the world:
BoldeReach, www.bolderreach.org.
This women-run nonprofit raises money every year for organizations worldwide that help women and children in extreme need.

Health and prevention:
The Boulder County AIDS Project, www.bcap.org.
Due to budget cuts, BCAP is facing a major funding shortfall of $71,000. This nonprofit works to improve the quality of life of people affected by HIV and AIDs and supports prevention programs.

The streets:
Boulder County Cares, www.bouldercountycares.org.
This program provides life-saving supplies to local people living on the streets. Help by volunteering, donating money or materials or simply contacting the program if you encounter a homeless person in need.

— By Aimee Heckel