I seriously believe that I remember the first time I smelled chocolate. My mother was baking a cake and I was about 2 or 3. The house smelled wonderful. She frosted the cake with chocolate frosting.
When we had desserts at the supper table, they were next to our plates throughout dinner. My dad would sometimes hide our desserts if we weren’t looking and there would be a big fuss until my mom would say, “Oh Art, put it back!”
To eat cake, you separate it in the middle and put the bottom on the top so the frosting is in the middle. That properly distributes the cake to frosting ratio. If you already knew this little trick, never mind, if not, you’re welcome.
I have always loved chocolate. I’d offer to bake brownies as a teenager just so I could eat the batter. Sometimes there was hardly enough to bake. If there was an open Hershey can in the fridge, I would often take a sip from the open top when no one was looking. I was like an alcoholic downing my last shot!
An open bag of chocolate chips was an invitation for robbery. It would start with two or three chips and work its way into a handful at a time. My mom would get upset to find only a few left in the bottom of the bag but at least I didn’t eat them all.
Hiding chocolate became her only recourse.
As an adult and mother, I never limited mine or my children’s consumption of chocolate. I assumed if you craved chocolate then your body needed chocolate. I even learned to make a hot fudge sauce that many will say is the best they have ever tasted. When I make a pan of sauce my house smells like the Willy Wonka Chocolate Factory has jumped from the TV screen and into my kitchen.
My son came home from school one day after I had made many pans of chocolate. He took a deep breath and said “Mom, this is the best smell in the world!” But then wisely said, “Of course, I haven’t smelled everything yet.” And that would be the truth.
“As with most fine things, chocolate has its season.
There is a simple memory aid that you can use to
determine whether it is the correct time to order
chocolate dishes: any month whose name contains
the letter A, E, or U is the proper time for chocolate.”
~Sandra Boynton, Chocolate: The Consuming Passion
Taste of Home columnist Sandy (Anderson) Holthaus lives on a farm in South Haven, MN with her husband, Michael, and their children Zoe, Jack and Ben. Her heart remains on the North Shore where she grew up with her parents, Art and LaVonne Anderson of Schroeder. She enjoys writing about her childhood and mixes memories with delicious helpings of home-style recipes.
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