There’s nothing quite as satisfying as rich, delicious chocolate—and the health benefits are pretty sweet, too. Chocolate is rich in antioxidants, which help protect our cells from damage. Research links the antioxidants in chocolate to heart-healthy benefits, including a decreased risk of cardiovascular disease and stroke.

But don’t just reach for any type of chocolate. A good rule of thumb when it comes to chocolate is the darker, the better. Dark chocolate, which is less processed than milk chocolate, contains higher antioxidant levels. Also be mindful of calories—a dark chocolate candy bar with caramel and marshmallow is by no means a heart-healthy option. Go for plain dark chocolate and consume it in moderation.

Looking for a healthier treat for your sweetheart this holiday season? Dip cherries in melted dark chocolate and let them harden on a parchment paper-lined baking sheet in the fridge for about 15 minutes. Have a small piece of dark chocolate with a few almonds and walnuts to snap you out of that midday slump. This simple snack will provide antioxidants, healthy fats, and protein—and satisfy your sweet tooth.

You may think the term “potluck party” has an old-fashioned ring to it, but in reality, potluck dinners are an ideal form of entertaining for today’s host or hostess who would like to gather with friends but is too busy running between the office and the soccer fields to pull off a formal party. Whenever the impulse to have a casual get-together strikes, you can call your friends, neighbors, or family, tell them you’re organizing a potluck, and ask them to bring along one dish to share with the rest of the group.

Organizing Your Potluck Party

Although the term “potluck” suggests a random assortment of dishes, it’s likely to turn out better when the host does a bit of organizing. If you don’t want to risk the chance that all of your guests will bring only desserts, begin by assigning them a specific course to bring along. Next, ask each guest to commit to a general category of food even if they’re not prepared to tell you the exact recipe. After all, as much as I love brownies, five plates of them wouldn’t give much variety to the menu!

When you’re the host, remember to dig out extra serving platters, baskets, and utensils before your guests arrive. Not everyone brings food ready to be served, and you don’t want to be distracted from your guests because you’re pulling things out of your cabinets or searching your attic for a serving tray.

Don’t forget that someone needs to be responsible for beverages. The host can supply them, or ask everyone to bring something they would like to drink with their dish.

As host you can choose what your contribution will be. If enough people are coming, providing the location for the party and the dinnerware can be enough. Sometimes the host will stock the bar with alcoholic and non-alcoholic drinks including juices, water, and soft drinks. Often the host will provide the main course such as a turkey or hamburgers on the grill and ask guests to bring side dishes and desserts. It’s really up to you based on the size of your guest list.

Food Suggestions

Whether you’re hosting the potluck or are simply invited to attend one, here are suggestions for the kind of dishes that work best.

• All dishes should be prepared in advance.
• Nobody should do more in the kitchen than pop something in the oven for reheating. The dishes should be easy to transport.
• If there are many people attending the party, the serving size of each dish does not need to equal the number of guests. Everybody will take only a small portion of each dish when there are many from which to choose.
• Traditional potluck dishes include casseroles, chili, bar cookies, salads, and breads.
• Recipes don’t need to be fancy. Dishes that have been handed down through the generations are often the most popular.

Ending a year of layoffs, cutbacks, and no annual raises or bonuses, this season many office managers and business owners are looking for new ways to fittingly acknowledge and thank employees for their service throughout the year. Recognizing that it is difficult to justify party expenses during these tough economic times, the office party planner needs to become creative.

1. Have your party AFTER the holidays: This works especially well for the employees of those businesses and organizations which are particularly stressed and overworked during the season, but will be a welcome treat for all in dreary, January. It also works for the budget-minded, as prices are reduced and reservations and venues are no longer in demand.

2. Have your party during the day: An event away from the office during the working day not only gives the staff some time off, but opens some interesting possibilities, such as a brunch, breakfast or lunch—maybe with company officers serving behind the buffet table while thanking their employees.

3. Have your party at a new or unusual venue: The boss’s home, the staff’s favorite pizzeria, a park, a local museum, or a sports venue.

4. Customize for your culture: Will most want to bring their spouses/significant others, their young children, their teenagers, their pets? Do you need to include foods, music, and activities which will appeal to the diversity of your organization?

5. Join forces with another company: Consider people on your floor, in your building, or one you work closely with throughout the year. This approach will make for more interesting and lively conversation, a smaller budget, and maybe even result in more business.

6. Plan something different: A group of young people might enjoy a trip to the bowling alley with some team competition and prizes built in. Include young children with a block of circus tickets and coupons for cotton candy. Take staff to a dinner theater or musical. Invest in tickets to a sporting event and plan a tailgating party. Participate in a day of winter sports. Plan an amusement park or carnival outing. Investigate the local aquarium and its dining facilities.

7. Involve employees in the planning process: Ask a social member of the staff to help with the planning, create a planning committee with representatives from each department, or present several ideas to the staff for them to choose from.

8. Facilitate learning about each other on a social level: Select games, gift exchanges, lotteries, competitions which engage all guests, allowing them to learn about and enjoy each other on a social level. The customary gift exchange could in 2011 become an exchange of promised tasks to be performed for the recipient—making copies, proofing a contract, delivering lunch, organizing files, and providing transportation.

9. Take the nontraditional approach—no party or event: Give each employee an extra paid day off in the coming year; a gift card and 1/2 day to go shopping before Christmas; “Good For” cards related to their needs. Accompanying any of these with a personal thank you note usually means more than the actual gift. Everyone wants to feel appreciated.

10. This is the year to give back: Maybe your staff would receive more satisfaction from helping others. They may wish to vote on their favorite charity or charities, then sponsor and run an event at the local children’s hospital, dressing as elves and Santa. Start a coat drive in your neighborhood or among your customers for the needy in your community, or provide all of the volunteers for serving a holiday meal at a nearby soup kitchen, church, or synagogue.

Dawn Bryan is the author of the best-selling “The Art and Etiquette of Gift Giving.”

Treat family and friends to this fun, elegant dessert

• 5 large eggs, separated
• 1/2 cup molasses
• 1/4 cup dark brown sugar
• 2 Tbsp finely grated fresh ginger
• 3/4 cup cake flour
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1-1/2 tsp ground ginger
• 1/2 tsp ground allspice
• 1/2 tsp freshly ground black pepper
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1/4 cup plus 2 Tbsp granulated sugar
• 1 tsp unflavored gelatin
• 1 Tbsp cold water
• 4 oz cream cheese, softened
• 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
• 12 oz crème fraîche
• 1/2 cup confectioners’ sugar

1. MAKE THE CAKE. Preheat the oven to 325°. Line a 12-by-17-inch rimmed baking sheet with parchment paper. In a large bowl, using an electric mixer, beat the egg yolks until pale, about 2 minutes. Add the molasses, 1/4 cup of the brown sugar, and the fresh ginger and beat until combined. In a medium bowl, whisk the flour, baking powder, ground ginger, allspice, black pepper, and salt. Beat the dry ingredients into the egg yolk mixture until combined.
2. In a clean bowl, using clean beaters, beat the egg whites until soft peaks form. Gradually add 1/4 cup of the granulated sugar and beat until firm and glossy. Fold the egg whites into the batter until no streaks remain. Spread the batter onto the prepared baking sheet in an even layer. Bake for about 15 minutes, until lightly browned and firm to the touch. Transfer to a rack and let cool for 10 minutes.
3. Sprinkle the cake with the remaining 2 tablespoons of granulated sugar. Run the blade of a sharp knife around the edge of the pan. Cover the cake with a clean kitchen towel and top with a large cutting board. Holding the pan, towel, and cutting board, invert the cake onto the cutting board. Remove the pan and carefully peel off the parchment paper. Cover loosely with a kitchen towel and let the gingerbread cool completely.
4. MEANWHILE, MAKE THE FILLING. In a small microwave-safe bowl, sprinkle the gelatin over the cold water; let stand until softened, about 5 minutes. Microwave at high power until the gelatin is melted, about 10 seconds. In a clean bowl, beat the cream cheese with the cinnamon and melted gelatin until smooth. In another bowl, whip the crème fraîche with the confectioners’ sugar. Fold the cream cheese into the crème fraîche.
5. Spread the filling evenly over the entire surface of the cake. Starting at a short end, roll up the cake jelly roll–style. Wrap the gingerbread roll tightly in plastic and refrigerate until firm, at least 3 hours.

The finished roll can be refrigerated overnight.

Recipe adapted from Jennifer Giblin, Blue Smoke, New York City, originally published in Food & Wine.

by Mark Dantos

Marc & Patty Milowsky

If the restaurant business is like show business, Marc Milowsky is one of the region’s leading directors and producers. “You get to create a set, pick the actors, and put on a show every night,” says the owner of Upper Valley dining institutions Jesse’s, Molly’s, and Lui Lui.

A New Jersey native, Milowsky attended the University of Vermont with plans to go to medical school, but he got hooked on hospitality while waiting tables at a steakhouse. There Milowsky discovered his career and met his future wife, Patty. The couple cofounded Jesse’s Steaks, Seafood, and Tavern in 1976. Thirty-five years later, Milowsky says he wouldn’t change a thing.

What was your favorite job as a teenager?

Working in a recording studio in New York City. I got to sit in on some sessions with James Brown, Benny Goodman, the Tonight Show orchestra, and others.

How would you describe your management style? Are you “hands-on” or do you delegate well?

My management style is a combination of hands-on and delegation. I believe it is important for our team members to take ownership in the restaurants, but I am usually around the restaurants to support them when and if they need it.

How do you recruit and retain strong employees in a tight Upper Valley labor market?

Our goal is to be the best restaurant employer in the Upper Valley. We feel our wage and benefit packages are the best around. More than that we encourage a family style of management and are committed to treating our team members as well as we treat our guests. If our team is happy they will perform at the highest level and that results in happy guests.

What are some exciting new enhancements that clients can anticipate at your restaurants?

Our menu development in all of our stores continues to reach higher and higher levels. We are using more locally grown products, and at Jesse’s, we’re now growing our own herbs and produce in our gardens. Molly’s will be opening up a fire pit on our patio for the late summer and fall. All three Upper Valley restaurants now offer entertainment.

How did you develop the live entertainment series?

I’ve loved music since the days I traveled to Woodstock. There is such a great community of talented musicians in the Upper Valley. When we first opened Jesse’s in 1976, we had live music every weekend. Somehow we got too serious and drifted away to concentrate on the dining only. I’ve loosened up the last few years and have enjoyed getting back into providing music for our guests as well as income and opportunity for the performers—plus I love getting up there with them and doing a few songs.

How does your business support local non-profits?

We try to donate to as many local charities as our budget will allow. Two of the ones that we have very close relationships with are the Friends of the Norris Cotton Cancer Center and the Haven.

What was it like living with four daughters and a wife in the Milowsky household?

Coming from a family of 30 boys in a row, having all those girls was a life-changing experience. In the early days, there was only one bathroom for the six of us in our house. Try sharing a bathroom with five women! I also learned how to be a really patient shopper. I love all of my women. They have brought me more joy than anyone could ever ask for.

Is your mustache a permanent feature, or does it come and go?

Funny you should ask about the mustache. It is gone for the foreseeable future. It was getting too gray. My wife said, “Why not dye it?” I passed and shaved it instead.

by Lesley O’Malley Keyes

Although I have not attended Mardi Gras, I have a good friend who would not think of ever missing it, so I recommend you try it for yourself! The celebration of Mardi Gras came to North America from Paris, where it had been celebrated since the Middle Ages. In 1699, French explorer Iberville and his men explored the Mississippi River from the Gulf of Mexico. On a spot 60 miles south of the present location of New Orleans, they set up camp on the river’s west bank. Knowing that on this day, March 3, a major holiday was being celebrated in France, they christened the site Point du Mardi Gras.

In the early 19th century, the public celebration of Mardi Gras consisted mainly of maskers on foot, in carriages, and on horseback. In 1837, a costumed group of revelers walked in the first documented “parade,” but the violent behavior of maskers during the next two decades caused a call for an end to Mardi Gras. Fortunately, six New Orleanians who were former members of the Cowbellians, a group that had presented New Year’s Eve parades in Mobile since 1831, saved the New Orleans Mardi Gras. The men beautified the celebration and proved that it could be enjoyed in a safe and festive manner. Not long after, the first organized, peaceful daytime parade was held.

The early 1960s saw the Tourist Commission try to convince the hippies that the title “Greatest Free Show on Earth” was not to be taken literally. The “easy rider” generation had City Hall worried, and rumors that the infamous Hell’s Angels were going to roll into town and crash Carnival had the entire town uptight. Nothing untoward happened, and Carnival endured. Its growth continued throughout the ’70s with the birth of 18 new parades, many featuring celebrities.

Perhaps the greatest change in Mardi Gras in the 1980s was the tremendous increase in tourism during Carnival season. Conventions by organizations that once had avoided New Orleans at Mardi Gras used the celebration as a reason to visit. International media attention was focused on Mardi Gras in the late 1980s, with camera crews from Japan, Europe, and Latin America showcasing the festivities. Mardi Gras also became a year-round industry as more off-season conventions experienced the joys of Carnival when they were treated to mini parades held in the city’s convention facilities year-round.

Five years after the most devastating hurricane ever to hit the United States and the massive destruction that followed, a permanent exhibition opened at the Louisiana State Museum. “Living with Hurricanes: Katrina and Beyond,” a $7.5 million, 6,700 square-foot exhibit on the ground floor of the historic Presbytere in the French Quarter’s Jackson Square, tells the stories of people caught in the hurricane’s wrath. It documents their rescue, recovery, and rebuilding, and the renewal of New Orleans in a way certain to move both survivors and those who watched the events unfold on television.

When it hit southeastern Louisiana and the Mississippi Gulf Coast on the morning of August 29, 2005, the storm caused fearsome destruction. But the disaster wasn’t entirely the result of natural causes. Levees and floodwalls, the man-made barriers built to protect New Orleans from the water surrounding it, failed. Their collapse in a dozen or more locations, plus tidal surges from the low-lying eastern edge of New Orleans, flooded 80 percent of the city. By the time the waters receded and the survivors regrouped, Katrina, and then Hurricane Rita, had claimed more than 1,400 lives and caused billions of dollars worth of destruction.

Gallery One illustrates Louisiana’s history with water, from the Mississippi River’s benefits to the threats of coastal storm surges and floods. Visitors move through the Evacuation Corridor, overhearing residents’ voices weighing their options as Katrina approaches. A state-of-the-art Storm Theater shows Katrina’s full fury with moving and dramatic footage of the hurricane’s onslaught.

Gallery Two takes visitors past a leaking floodwall, into an attic, and onto the roof of a house surrounded by rising floodwaters where they can view the city surrounding them. They’ll hear a firsthand account of one St. Bernard Parish family’s rescue and view artifacts, histories, and photographs.

Throughout the galleries are compelling artifacts, including music legend Fats Domino’s baby grand piano, found in his flooded Ninth Ward house; a Coast Guard rescue basket; and seats from the heavily damaged Louisiana Superdome, where thousands of people sought refuge and rescue.

The forensics of Katrina unfold in Gallery Three where science and innovative displays come together. A large interactive table map shows the paths of Katrina and Rita plus the sequence of floods that overwhelmed the region. Through digital animation, visitors discover how the levees failed. Additional displays illustrate the realities of eroding wetlands, disaster management, engineering, and the science of predicting and tracking hurricanes and tropical weather patterns and phenomena.

Gallery Four celebrates recovery, promotes preparedness, and showcases the ingenuity of Louisianans in rebuilding their lives and communities. The gallery will be updated regularly to reflect advancements in flood protection and coastal restoration as well as new strategies for living with hurricanes.

by Emily Erickson

Camping trips. Dirt deeply embedded in your fingernails from gardening. Dried-out skin from excessive sun exposure. You’ve relished the short but sweet season of summer, but it’s beginning to show its effects on your skin.

This fall, rejuvenate by spending a day at the spa and treat yourself to what you deserve: relaxation and pampering. At The Garden Spa in New London, owners Jill and Peter Tremblay create a peaceful escape, offering a variety of services from massages to pedicures to body scrubs.

What does Jill Tremblay recommend for this fall? “A wonderful hydrating facial to help rejuvenate that summer skin. After so much skin exposure, it’s good to exfoliate and replenish the moisture!” If a facial doesn’t whet your appetite, consider a body scrub. The scrub includes a tropical salt/sugar blend that exfoliates dead skin and finishes with moisturizing body butter. The scrub service is guaranteed to leave your skin feeling fresh, drenched with moisture, and revitalized.

Finally, finish your trip to the spa with the ultimate form of repose: a hot stone massage. About this service, Jill says “The hot stones relieve stress and tension through the entire body. It is a definite favorite!”

So head to the spa this fall and unwind with these tantalizing services that will leave your body feeling blissful.