Chocolate

A lot of people claim they like chocolate, but what they really like is candy. "Ooooo, MUST have some chocolate," they say, reaching for a slab of brown Laffy Taffy. That is not chocolate. Chocolate is chocolate, great crisp-breaking hunks of pure chocolate madness, unsullied by whipped fillings made of hog's feet and marshmallow, enhanced perhaps by a goodly handful of nuts. There is one day every month where I must have chocolate or I will kill someone. The rest of the time, chocolate is consumed simply to feed my soul, and not as a form of gun control.

I was told as a small child by my mother that chocolate is the only flavor, and that vanilla is merely the absence of chocolate. As a consequence, I never tried any of the other flavors and missed out on ice cream such as butter pecan or raspberry. She has since told me that she was joking when she made that statement but I wonder sometimes, as I have yet to see her dig into any dessert that wasn't laced without at least a generous dollop of home made chocolate sauce (her grandmother's lemon bars the only exception to that rule.)

My mother loathed many things, including M and Ms, and I never had that classic cookie, the M and M cookie, until I was 47.  She was passionately fond of the chocolate and nut combination found on the outside of Rollo candy bars, and much of my childhood consisted of coming downstairs to a smoke-filled living room, and seeing the gutted remains of a Rollo resting uneasily in an ashtray covered with cigarette butts, the imprint of my mother's teeth where she had nibbled off the chocolate covering still clear in the light brown fondant filling. The Rollo candy bar is no longer available, so my mother, when she indulges, has to go straight for the chocolate covered peanuts.

I get my mother on many levels, and I understand her more as I get older: she has a wicked sense of humor which I did not relate to as a child and I was often confused by whatever was making her laugh, a statement echoed by my own daughter when discussing my shortcomings as a parent. I still don't understand why M and Ms are, in her opinion, vulgar, as she is the one who taught me to suck on the casing long enough to for the dye to come off, thus staining my lips red, or green, or whatever color I fancied. (She preferred red.) I indulged in many many M and Ms when in the US, where I found coconut, raspberry dark chocolate, and pretzel M and Ms. All were divine, and none are available here, where we're lucky to find peanut M and Ms that aren't actually stale.  It's just as well: the raspberry dark chocolate would be terrific in brownies, and as for the pretzel ones...well, let's just say, they are too close to the perfect snack to be something I'd want to have readily available. I ate my first pretzel M and M on a flight and alarmed fellow passengers with my first grunt of pleased astonishment: subsequent noises included a groan or two. You can blame the noises on turbulence but you know, and I know, it was due to the demonically good combination of crispy, smooth, salty, chocolatey kibble. Ah, pretzel M and Ms: bachelorette chow at its finest! The perfect PMS snack.