Like Family for Chocolate

While I finish off the box of Valentine's Day candy, an odd guilt pierces me with pictures of what I could become if I do not give up the sweets. For me, the addiction is chocolate. I could name a number of influences and contributors to this habit which touched me and my addictive personality over the span of my life, but for sake of not wishing to cause others guilt, I will keep the pain within. Of course, keeping something inside is not very good for your mental health, they say.

Just allow your imagination to carry you to beautiful days filled with family reunions and holiday feasts. There were football games, rides on Uncle Joe's Harley, feeding Cousin Sue's llamas, swimming in Aunt Esthelle's pool, and snickering with Mom as you watched her take a group picture of all the men in the family snoozing and snoring like 20 buzz saws in a forest of cedar trees. You get the picture. There was one more thing that these gatherings always promised, as detrimental as it may be - dessert tables.

My aunts and cousins and grandparents and all of their church affiliations, as well as everyone's neighbor's accordingly, practiced the hobby of recipe swapping so routinely and systematically that I truly believe sometimes they were involved in something like a Betty Crocker Cult. There was a hush sometimes, for instance, when one of us younger family members entered the kitchen to ask for more ambrosia, or whatever we could create to ask to find out what the hushed whispers were about. Every now and then, one would hear chili powder and sometimes pinch of cinnamon. Whatever the adults were up to, the surveillance always ended quickly, and I was off to pilfer through the leftover desserts.

The dessert tables of which I speak did not contain an oatmeal snack cake in a clear cellophane wrapper. To an adolescent, those types of sweets are just practice for the real thing. What the dessert tables of my youth held were exquisite dishes of mouth-watering art, actually, with long preparation times beginning in stages days prior to completion of the dish. My Aunt Trudy once remarked rather loudly, "This Hummingbird Cake would make William jump up and run get a job!" Yes, it indeed made one that happy.

This is all well and fine, and believe me when I say that in reality, there was nothing which could inspire or even jump-start Trudy's son into jumping up to go do anything, but the problem I always faced was the chocolate desserts. Waiting for the elderly members of our family to fix their dessert plates, as the time for dessert agonizingly arrived about an hour or so after completion of dinner, my mother normally had to give me one of those looks.

On any given day that my family came together to feast, gossip, and sleep, I received the "I'll take you to the bathroom and wear your backside out" look. By and far, this look was the cause of me becoming subtly impatient. I would start to slightly bounce in place. Never would I say anything or do anything disrespectful, oh, believe me. I would simply try to peer over the shoulders of the elders as they made their way down the table - slowly. One would pass, revealing either less or about the same remaining in the wonderful dessert which I had earmarked "MINE" upon arrival to the event. Never did the dessert tray of my choosing become bare, as the family members would never take the last piece of any dish, out of courteousness to the next in line. However, my cousin Johnny would. He raced and then won on several occasions.

So, I come to this day of decision, pondering upon the fate of my most cherished food in the world. I now understand why there are chocoholic group meetings in some places. I am a firm believer, from experience, that if you are willing to put down a vice, you can. Therefore, tomorrow will mark my first "clean day" away from the wonderful master, Chocolate Escape. Actually, I will have to start counting off the days next week, because I probably need to buy a box of chocolate Truffles and use them to wean off. I am not sure what the withdrawals may include.