Making chocolate roses is a simple yet impressive Valentine’s Day 
project that I promise you can do. Because I did it, and believe me, that’s saying something. Chef and caterer Emily Kelley, of Florence, Alabama, demonstrated this recently for local American Association of University Women members. To make the dough, add 1/3 cup clear corn syrup to 10 ounces melted semi-sweet chocolate. Stir until doughy. On wax paper, flatten into circle and let harden between wax-paper sheets. To make roses, peel away wax paper and cut circle into triangles. Use one triangle for one rose. Pull pieces of dough from triangle and roll into balls. Using your hands, flatten balls into thin circles. For center stem of rose, roll one circle jelly-roll style. For rose petals, fold and shape chocolate circles around stem. Make these whenever you want, store at room temperature and use them to decorate your fabulous Valentine’s dessert. Or they can be your fabulous Valentine’s dessert — they’re completely edible and taste sort of like Tootsie Rolls. White chocolate and peanut-butter flavored baking morsels would also work, although Emily was unsure about corn-syrup ratios with those ingredients.
Valentine’s Day
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— Tuesday — but now that our tree is (finally) down and all the wreaths and garlands and Santas are packed up and I’ve broken almost every one of my resolutions already, I’m sort of over the holidays and ready to move on … to another holiday, that is. Does your space feel empty without all those Christmas festive touches? I’m always glad to get my house back after turning it over to Christmas for a month, but I miss the whimsy of holiday decor — plus, it covers up the cat hair 
and distracts from the dust. So I keep the wintery things (snow people, mainly) out and gradually add red heart-y Valentine’s Day things, such as those cute heart “trees” and heart candles I put on the mantle after taking off the Christmas stars and angels. On the table by our front door — my absolute favorite piece of furniture in our whole house 
because so far in almost five years of marriage it’s the only one my husband and I have bought together — I’ve got a couple red and wintery serving pieces plus red and green candles I keep out until spring just because I like to. I added a touch of 
Valentine’s Day: A wonderful mini folding photo album out of handmade paper that my younger daughter found at Sojourns, a Fair Trade shop in Birmingham, Ala., and put in my Christmas stocking. Adorable! In our kitchen, I dismantled the bowl of shiny Christmas ornaments that sat on the table and replaced it with three red heart candles. I love the clean look of red on white. Every year around this time I’m so grateful for my grandmother’s advice to always buy red. “You can use it for three out of four seasons,” she said, “and you can always find red things on sale.” So true. Thanks, Grandma. See? I was listening.
Coffee with Cathy 