Alumna Finds Sweet Success as a Scientist and Gourmet Chocolatier

Ms. Carter-Cook is a clinical microbiologist at Bon Secours Health System in Richmond with more than 30 years of experience in the health-care field. Born with a sweet tooth, she has transformed a pocket-money passion into a gourmet chocolate goods company, Lulu’s Lollies, focused on “edible works of art,” as its website says.

Ten percent of all sales each year in October, Breast Cancer Awareness Month, support cancer-related nonprofits in the Richmond area. Ms. Carter-Cook was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2012 and has lived cancer-free for a decade.

Her career as a chocolatier began with a bake sale in 2012 staffed by coworkers from Bon Secours that raised more than $2,000 for the American Cancer Society’s Making Strides Against Breast Cancer and Bon Secours’ Cancer Care funds.

“My journey with breast cancer allowed me to reflect on the ways I could give something back,” Ms. Carter-Cook said. “The bake sale was the start, and it grew into something amazing.”

Raised in New York City, she graduated from St. John’s with a Bachelor of Science degree in Biology. To raise money during college, she began experimenting with melting and molding chocolate lollipops on a stick. As demand grew, she began designing other handmade treats.

“My sweet tooth led me down this sweet path,” Ms. Carter-Cook recalled. “It was extra pocket money while I was at St. John’s. Soon I was making chocolate wedding and birthday party favors for friends and family.”

In 1993, she earned a master’s degree in Microbial Physiology from Columbia University and settled neatly into a career in health care. She worked at Queens General Hospital (now Queens Hospital Center) and St. Vincent’s Hospital in New York City before relocating to Tampa, FL, and eventually the Richmond area.   

Wherever she has lived, Ms. Carter-Cook has maintained her love for baking, and for chocolate-making in particular. While many of her customers are shocked to learn she is also a scientist, she said the two disciplines share more in common than one might think.

“People get this look of surprise when they hear I am a microbiologist,” she said. “But baking is a science, too. It is about measuring ingredients, boiling, and tempering chocolate. Both disciplines feed my soul. Making chocolate cake pops is so relaxing for me.”

Lulu’s Lollies has grown to now offer caramel apples, marshmallow pops, gourmet pretzels, popcorn, cake pops, and, of course, chocolate gourmet treats via Ms. Carter-Cook’s online store. The company does corporate and social events and even merchandises branded T-shirts, tote bags, coffee mugs, and baseball caps.

Ms. Carter-Cook credits the University for cultivating in her a love for learning and an enthusiasm for entrepreneurship that inspire her both as a scientist and chocolatier. “I love St. John’s,” she said. “The well-rounded curriculum speaks for itself. But the University also helped to cultivate in me the learning and development skills I needed to succeed, including compassion, love, and the willingness to offer help and hope to those in need.”