Friday, December 09, 2005

Dark, brown and gooey











Dear Marc, since we're selling our apartment, I'm staying with my parents this weekend. I love staying at their place. Mom fills me in on the family gossip and dad sings while he cooks dinner for us in the kitchen. To show my gratitude, I usually buy them chocolate. Or rather, I buy mom chocolate. Dad isn't all that big on material gifts, as long as you laugh at his jokes, he's happy.

So I'm buying mom a bag of chocolate. Or rather two, one bag that we can eat together and one that she can hide from dad and nibble on alone. Mom is the middle child in a group of five siblings. Whenever dessert is served, she hurries to get the biggest piece. Having only one brother, who's more into main courses than desserts, mom's rush always surprises me.

We let her have the biggest slice. No big deal.

Buying chocolate for mom, I remember what happened last time I asked her if she
had any chocolate in the house. I know she would. She said yes and brought out a big bowl of chocolate. This is suspicious. Normally, I only get to sample 2 or 3 pieces. Now I have 35 pieces in front of me .

"Wow mom, how generous!" I say, and even I can hear the surprise in my voice.

Then I notice they're novelty chocolates. With just a tad of jalapeno. Mom looks guilty.

I call her on this. "You don't like these do you?"

Of course she doesn't. The chocolate splendor is not so fishy anymore. She brings out the real, 70% chocolate, and I can see that every step on the way to her secret chocolate cupboard is weighed down by the burden of her reluctancy.

It's not that she won't share. She just has a really hard time believing anyone else could possibly appreciate the fine chocolate as much as she does. She thinks I'd might just as well pop some M&Ms, while she, with her refined palate is the only one around to notice the nuances of the chocolate I just brought her.

I might bring her three bags tonight. One she can hide away, one we can eat together and one I won't tell her about.

What's your favorite chocolate? Please don't tell me it's white.

Truffled greetings
-e

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

two things i avoid, bad sweetner (corn syrup, beet sugar, ...) and bad fat (godiva's greasballs etc). i shy away from lindt when given a better choice. i go for the chocolate mass.

i prefer dark, but can go milk. i like it pretty straight, but will sucker for orange peel dipped in dark, as my grandmother used to make that for us.