Wednesday, September 10, 2014

Chocolate -- The Real Deal





Most of the time, I stay away from junk food, soda and candy. My Italian heritage makes it difficult for me to keep my weight down, so it takes extra effort to stay under 125 lbs. I have to stay under 125 lbs. as I’m only five foot tall, maybe smaller in my stocking feet and I’m still shopping in the size 14 rack, which ticks me off. This morning, however, I was craving chocolate milk. Not the 1, 2, or 4 percent variety, but the real deal with all the fat from the cow mixed in with lots and lots of chocolate syrup. You know, milk with the real tasty cream that used to rise to the top of the milk bottle before dairies started to use homogenization.

There was a time, when kids could sneak out on the front porch with a spoon in the morning and skim the cream off the top of the milk. Most of those kids grew up to be stock brokers and investment managers. The kids, who ended up working for the government liked the homogenized milk better.

Anyway, I decided to reward myself for staying away from the junk food for over a month. I was wandering around the company café’, not located anywhere near Wall Street by-the-way, looking for a small carton of chocolate milk. The only thing I could find was 1 percent. I was pissed. I really didn’t want to settle for anything less than 100 percent. I deserved 100 percent. Besides, I can still squeeze my hand into the waistband of the size 14 skirt. So what if its elastic?

I craved the rapturous flavor of the fattening cacao content of chocolate milk.

There was none to be found with over 1 percent fat. We live in a sick world filled with cardboard health food bars, low-fat everything, manikin teenagers, Botox entertainers and Howard Stern, I concluded.

Then, I spotted it and began to drool. A pot of half-n-half was sitting next to the coffee pot in the café’. I grabbed a styrofoam cup and filled it half-way with cream, went over to the register and purchased a milk chocolate Hershey bar. I had another empty cup in my office cubicle, so I put the Hershey bar in it and microwaved it for 45 seconds. Then, I added the half-n-half - Yes!

The one percent crap reminds me of a Dave Barry quote: “Eating rice cakes is like chewing on a foam coffee cup, only less filling.”