“Is life good or what? Now chocolate is good for us. I’ve been waiting for this for years!” said Chris Martello as she reduced to slivers a dark-chocolate bar, a key ingredient in her hot chocolate fudge soufflé cakes.

Martello is a registered dietitian who holds cooking classes in her Route 46 South, Jefferson, home. Her Herb Garden School of Cooking focuses on helping people learn to cook healthful meals with a gourmet flair.

“When you are cooking it yourself, you are more in control of your health,” Martello said. “When you make it at home, you know what it is.”

Thursday evening, Martello’s topic was “A Valentine Dinner Good for Your Heart.” On the menu were herbed goat cheese crostini, pan-seared salmon, basmati rice pilaf, Asian salad and the soufflé cakes.

Martello sprinkled humor and healthy eating tips into her two-hour presentation as she introduced students to culinary secrets for reducing salt and fat without sacrificing taste.

With it being a Valentine’s Day program, Martello ventured into the subject of food as an aphrodisiac. She said some foods get that reputation from their shape and visual appeal, like asparagus spears and celery, while for others, it’s the way they feel in the mouth, like chocolate. Some foods are believed to have chemicals that actually enhance libido.

As a tray of these alleged stimulants was passed around, Martello described their claims to fame: grapes, said to enhance male performance; garlic, said to get the female’s motor running; celery, a visual stimulant; cloves, to promote digestion; ginger root, a powerful stimulant, as well as possessing relaxing qualities; and walnuts, said to increase desire.

Martello left it up to the participants to determine the merit of these claims at some future cloistered culinary adventure. Her focus was helping students craft a Valentine’s Day meal that would be satisfying but not heavy, taste rich but skimp on fat and calories, and ensure the cook would still have time for romance after preparing the spread.

She accomplished the task in two hours, although she had advance preparation and the assistance of her daughters, Heather and Maegan Asher, to her advantage. Martello said she chose recipes that use ingredients readily available in Ashtabula County but admitted that finding a chocolate bar approaching 71 percent cocoa content was a challenge, and no local source of miso (a soybean paste) could be found.

“I made (the Asian salad) without it,” she told the participants, who paid $30 each to attend the class and sample the outcomes. “We don’t need all that salt.”

Martello is a graduate of the Paganini School of Cooking, where she took the chef training track. She has worked in the field of nutrition and counseling for 18 years, and works one day a week at the St. Angelo Center, part of Ursuline College, in Pepper Pike.

She launched the cooking school in 2000, but after the 9-11 attacks in 2001, consumers’ interests turned away from the gourmet table, as did Martello’s. Her mother, who had assisted her with the school, became ill, and Martello devoted her time to caring for her.

Martello made the decision not only to revive her cooking school, but also add wellness coaching to her services, last year.

“I made a decision on Nov. 1 that this was what I was meant to do, and I started writing a business plan,” she said.

She has been working with a psychologist to sharpen her counseling skills so she can help people one on one with lifestyle issues that are roadblocks to better health.

“I just realized after being at different (health-care) jobs, I needed to do this. It would be so frustrated to see people in and out of the hospital, who don’t take care of themselves,” she said.

Her cooking classes are held on alternating Thursday evenings. Class time is 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. A reservation and advance payment are required.

The next program, Souper Suppers, is Feb. 23. Martello will demonstrate the creation of several healthful soups, including creamy tomato-basil and curried butternut. Future topics include One Dish Wonders and Make Vegetables Your Friend.

For more information, call 294-2555 or send an e-mail to

herbgardenschool@live.com.