Chocolate: The Early Years

"If you are not feeling well, if you have not slept, chocolate will revive you. But you have no chocolate! I think of that again and again! My dear, how will you ever manage?" - Marquise de Sévigné

Chocolate ice cream, chocolate cereal, chocolate cake, chocolate cookies, chocolate licorice. Bring it on! I’ll even take vanilla ice cream with any kind of chocolate in it. Mint chocolate chip is always a favorite, but not because of the mint. In terms of cereal, I enjoyed Cocoa Krispies and Cocoa Puffs way more than any fruity counterpart like Fruity Pebbles, Trix or Fruit Loops. As far as cake, there had to be some form of chocolate in and/or on it. A birthday cake was at times a Carvel cake and since it had the heavenly chocolate crunchies in the middle, it passed the chocolate test. When we went homemade, it was almost always a Texas sheet cake: chocolate cake and chocolate frosting! Don’t forget a Black Forest cake every now and then. And Chocolate Sin... Cookies were always better with some kind of chocolate in them. Oreos were a staple in the pantry, but there was nothing like a homemade chocolate chip cookie (or just the dough). Even muffins are better with chocolate chips. Then there’s chocolate licorice. OK, so it’s not actually licorice, but it looks like licorice and tastes like chocolate. I was glad to find out that chocolate licorice wasn’t just a Buffalo thing. There are chocolate Twizzlers and a local farm market carried a homemade version as well. Chocolate Necco wafers even do the trick. Good to know I can still get a chocolate fix in many different forms.

It’s all good, but then there’s just chocolate. Whether it takes the form of a bar, a bunny or a wafer, I’ll take it. Thinking back to my trick-or-treating days, it was all about the chocolate. I was never into gum, Smarties, Skittles, suckers and other fruity fare; I savored the Nestle Crunch bars, Kit Kats, Hershey bars, M&Ms, Milky Ways, Reese’s, 3 Musketeers, and Snickers- when my mom wasn’t trying to steal them and stash them in the freezer. My hands-down favorite chocolate candy: M&Ms. I eat a lot of them. I eat them often. As for how I eat them, that’s another post altogether.

My only question: Who decided that Halloween candy bars are “Fun Size?” If they were truly “Fun Size” they’d be the size of my laptop!