Is there a detox program for Ghiradelli 60% cacao chocolate chips? I'm not saying I need one - I can quit anytime I like! But just in case I get to eating...oh, let's say a hundred or so a day, I'd like to know there's someone out there willing to lift up my chin, wipe the chocolate from my face and tell me everything's going to be alright.
This is the bad news; I now eat somewhere between thirty and forty chocolate chips on any given day. And not just plain. I like to add them to little things. Oooh, banana bread, I can melt chocolate on it, I'll think, or Yum, pumpkin muffins! Now let me stick a few chocolate chips in that. I've had that thought about a bowl of oatmeal, too, but trust me, friend - you don't want to try it. It is nothing at all like chocolate chip oatmeal cookies.
I used to make stuff with my chocolate chips: muffins, brownies, cakes and such. But, hey, if you're going to sin with chocolate, why not make it pure, as in pure chocolate, dark preferred?
I've got to stop, though. You know you have a bad habit when five minutes after you get up, you're looking for your fix. I do have a reason why I started down this dark (chocolate) path. I'm exhausted - utterly, completely wigged-out tired from getting up with a baby night after night, month after month. Hey, it's my job, but it's also a hard row to hoe, so I go stumbling into my kitchen every morning, find my special case of chocolate and shove some in my mouth while my vision's still fuzzy.
Recently, though, I had had too many bad nights in a row; my handful of chocolate was not going to suffice. I needed something...what about a fully caffeinated Pumpkin Spice Latte, maybe? Yes, indeedy!
"I'm thinking about going to Starbucks," I said to my son Berto, my only talking companion in the grey light of that early, early morning.
"Cool, I'll go with you," he said. "I feel like going someplace at this time of day."
By that I suppose he meant before the crack of dawn. He was already fully dressed, however. Me? I like to wallow in my sleep-deprived misery awhile before I cave in and try to dress the mummy. Besides, I knew of a drive-thru. No need to wait to look decent. I could get my coffee right away.
Normally I wouldn't attempt such a thing - going out in public with not even lipstick or one small scrap of jewelry, but I was just desperate enough to do it that morning. I didn't even brush my teeth; I just dragged a comb through my hair, woke up Matthew to tell him I was gone and that his girls were still asleep, and headed out in my pajamas with my two boys.
So we drove, listening to the classic rock station. Daniel was placid; Bertie was calm and happy to be out with Mom; and I was looking forward to that fall-flavored Latte. I pulled into the middle lane to enter the shopping center with the drive-thru Starbucks. Hmmm...looked like something was roped off. I really hoped it wasn't what I thought it was.
It was. Some construction workers were working on the drive-thru lane. I would have turned around and gone home if my normal self-respect was present, but I'd lost it somewhere in the thick fog of lost sleep. I didn't even hesitate.
"Guess we're going to have to go in," I said. I jumped out in my baggy flannel men's pajama pants and my faded blue cami shirt. Flip-flops adorned my feet, but they weren't the cute kind. Matthew had brought them home as a gag gift for me from some work convention, and they were white, had some company's business logo on them and were pretty well hideous.
"Look," he'd said after he had presented them to me with a laugh. "I didn't even get the large side, and they still fit you."
They fit alright, and they were about to make their first public appearance in a Starbucks. Out of the car next to ours, a metrosexual male exited and glanced over with pure disdain at the pajama lady removing her infant from the dusty and cluttered white minivan. I slung my plain canvas diaper bag over my shoulder, and my entourage made an entrance.
We awkwardly approached the counter, passing high-heeled business women and slacks-wearing gents. The young man behind the counter eyed me warily, but just then I caught the eye of the lady preparing the coffees. After surveying me and my early morning company, she gave me a broad smile. I smiled back, and in that communicated my appreciation for the fact that I knew that she knew how it was for me that morning.
The young man took our order and warmed up once Berto shyly paid him for my latte, his papa's plain coffee, and his own carbonated clementine juice. He didn't even roll his eyes when I had to dig through the abyss of my diaper bag for the money while another woman was dragging cash from a sleek purse. For not acting like a snob and actually being gracious, I gave cash to Berto and nudged him toward the tip jar.
Because he could have been a total jerk about it. I remember one time when a relative saw me for the first time in my normal pajama attire. He opened his eyes wide at the spectacle before exclaiming, "Hillary, for a person who cares so much about her appearance, you sure do dress like a slob for bed!"
Okay, yes, I know. Whatever.
Anyway, that coffee did me a lot of good. I normally would have gotten a conservative tall, skim, decaffeinated beverage. (But always with the whip - never leave off the whip; it's bad form!) This time I was happily guzzling a fully caffeinated, grande, whipped cream slathered coffee. It did me a lot of good, too. I talked really fast for the rest of the day, did tons of yard work and speed-walked through stores looking for Halloween costumes for the kids.
With as much caffeine as it had, and with me being a nursing mama and all, I'm lucky my baby Daniel didn't start walking, talking and training for his first marathon that day. But he didn't. He forgave me for the extra jolt and didn't even wig out later when I had pumpkin bread with melted chocolate for breakfast.
This post was originally published October 20th, 2010.
Showing posts with label chocolate addiction. Show all posts
Showing posts with label chocolate addiction. Show all posts
Thursday, September 8, 2016
Monday, May 5, 2014
Gripping
I walked down the candy aisle of a neighborhood store last week and saw, to my dismay, that all the chocolate crème eggs were gone.
"No...no..." I uttered woefully as my four children watched me shove boxes around in the 75% off Easter candy, frantic for my fix.
They must be buried. Yes, surely, so I looked behind every chocolate bunny and cross, every box of egg-shaped confections. But they were gone.
Gone.
How was I supposed to battle my dejection, for what now could feed my chocolate addiction with so little inconvenience and such yumminess? Darn it! I should have bought more boxes when they were a mere 50% off.
Never mind that for the last month, while stuffing myself with boxes of chocolate eggs and English tea every Sunday, I had been feeling sluggish. My fatigue had gotten so bad that at first I wondered if there was an underlying health issue that was going to call my card any day. Then it occurred to me that I might possibly - just possibly - be suffering from a dangerous cocktail of chocolate-crème/high-fructose-corn-syrup poisoning. And, not for the first time in my life, I daydreamed about what life could be like without chocolate and sugar.
I might be truly healthy inside, as energetic as a two-year-old, own fewer wrinkles, and have substantially smaller grocery bills if I could just learn to give up the sweets.
This led me to consider other things I hold dear. Being the broadminded, expert daydreamer I am, I pondered an array of plagues on my freedom. I wondered what life could be like if I could renounce every other silly little addiction that keeps me grasping at trifles as if my life depended on them.
For instance, what might happen if could I give up the TV series Lost? A recent addiction, it already grips me in such a way that I try to hurry my kids to bed as soon as I can many nights. And it is really a double whammy, because I cannot resist the chance to finally sit and veg in the evenings, and I cannot bear to ignore the siren call of a good mystery, every episode of Lost being a good mystery!
But if, just if, I could vanquish the urge to find out what happens next, I might be more successful in many things. I might write here more often. I might improve my mind by studying constellations, learning all their names. I might play more games with my kids on Saturday afternoons.
And what if I could give up all mysteries - detective novels, crime shows? Maybe then I could stop assuming that every car that remains behind me too long on my route home is following me and stop thinking of new, crafty ways to lose the hounds.
Yet...what if, instead of giving up completely that which brings me pleasure, I really practiced moderation in all things? - ate only one chocolate crème egg at Eastertime, only watched an episode of Lost a week, only ate sweets - and just one slice or one square - on special occasions? What if I only desired those things that could improve my well-being and bring more happiness to my family? What would life look like then?
Well, then I might be free, free to be the hardworking, healthy, successful, unselfish, wife/mother/writer I was always meant to be.
A moderate...democratic...in all things.
"No...no..." I uttered woefully as my four children watched me shove boxes around in the 75% off Easter candy, frantic for my fix.
They must be buried. Yes, surely, so I looked behind every chocolate bunny and cross, every box of egg-shaped confections. But they were gone.
Gone.
How was I supposed to battle my dejection, for what now could feed my chocolate addiction with so little inconvenience and such yumminess? Darn it! I should have bought more boxes when they were a mere 50% off.
Never mind that for the last month, while stuffing myself with boxes of chocolate eggs and English tea every Sunday, I had been feeling sluggish. My fatigue had gotten so bad that at first I wondered if there was an underlying health issue that was going to call my card any day. Then it occurred to me that I might possibly - just possibly - be suffering from a dangerous cocktail of chocolate-crème/high-fructose-corn-syrup poisoning. And, not for the first time in my life, I daydreamed about what life could be like without chocolate and sugar.
I might be truly healthy inside, as energetic as a two-year-old, own fewer wrinkles, and have substantially smaller grocery bills if I could just learn to give up the sweets.
This led me to consider other things I hold dear. Being the broadminded, expert daydreamer I am, I pondered an array of plagues on my freedom. I wondered what life could be like if I could renounce every other silly little addiction that keeps me grasping at trifles as if my life depended on them.
For instance, what might happen if could I give up the TV series Lost? A recent addiction, it already grips me in such a way that I try to hurry my kids to bed as soon as I can many nights. And it is really a double whammy, because I cannot resist the chance to finally sit and veg in the evenings, and I cannot bear to ignore the siren call of a good mystery, every episode of Lost being a good mystery!
But if, just if, I could vanquish the urge to find out what happens next, I might be more successful in many things. I might write here more often. I might improve my mind by studying constellations, learning all their names. I might play more games with my kids on Saturday afternoons.
And what if I could give up all mysteries - detective novels, crime shows? Maybe then I could stop assuming that every car that remains behind me too long on my route home is following me and stop thinking of new, crafty ways to lose the hounds.
Yet...what if, instead of giving up completely that which brings me pleasure, I really practiced moderation in all things? - ate only one chocolate crème egg at Eastertime, only watched an episode of Lost a week, only ate sweets - and just one slice or one square - on special occasions? What if I only desired those things that could improve my well-being and bring more happiness to my family? What would life look like then?
Well, then I might be free, free to be the hardworking, healthy, successful, unselfish, wife/mother/writer I was always meant to be.
A moderate...democratic...in all things.
Friday, February 22, 2013
Foodstuffs and Divine Treats: Chocolate
I once singlehandedly saved a chocolate cheesecake from near certain annihilation and senseless waste.
One summer morning I awoke to find the blasted fridge had given out at last, and in so doing it pushed some of my biggest OCD buttons - wasted food, wasted money, bacteria. The milk was warm, the cheese greasy, the eggs near hatching. I wrenched open the freezer to find all our frozen meat bleeding next to a very rich, very expensive Godiva Cheesecake.
I began to pull out tufts of hair. What to do? How could I salvage any of it? Beg the neighbors to babysit our perishables for a few days? Start cooking the meat on sticks over a bonfire in the backyard and invite the community for a caveman-like meet and greet? Hand out eggs and chicken breasts to passing motorists with a friendly admonishment, "You cook that real soon, you hear?"
No, none of that was practical. I was going to have to make some hard decisions. Very little could be salvaged, but it would have to happen quickly. A braver, better woman would have started cooking up meat for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, throwing in the wilting veggies from the crisper, but it's been established already that I have no love of cooking. I especially detest doing it under abnormal pressure. And I FEAR germs. No, some of the meat would have to go - preferably to the curb where I couldn't smell it. The eggs were also a tragic loss; they had had enough time to incubate some righteous salmonella, I was sure. The milk we'd try to choke back, perhaps. And the veggies would be alright.
But there was something else, the most expensive thing residing in that fridge and the one that least deserved such a tragedy. I had to save it from the garbage, a fate worse than consumption, by consuming it - with relish.
The Godiva Cheesecake.
I had my doubts about whether one woman could do it alone. The most I had ever eaten at one sitting was two-thirds of a slice, but this was a moment to separate the sweet-lover from the die-hard chocolate addict. It wasn't a whole cheesecake, a few slices had been shared with my sister Vinca and my brother-in-law, but there was enough of it to make me simultaneously salivate and sweat at the prospect. I dug in, stressed out and frustrated....which is exactly as it should be when you reach for that chocolate fix.
Forkful after forkful - delicious! Yet I was grimly spooning it down the hatch as if someone had bet a thousand bucks I couldn't put 10 pounds on my hips in one day. I had never in my life encountered such an excellent excuse for indulging my chocolate demon.
Though I tried valiantly, alas! I couldn't finish the cheesecake. I threw out the remainder with the rest of the bad food. That night my husband brought home fresh milk and ice for the cooler.
But when I opened the fridge the next morning, something was fishy. The temperature dials were both turned to off. Could it be? Was it all for naught? I called my (then) preschooler.
"Berto! Come here now. Did you play with these dials a couple days ago? Before the fridge gave out?"
I pointed them out to my little guy, the little guy who loved to get in the fridge and leave the door ajar. Sheepishly he answered, "Yeesss..."
My now broader thighs seemed to be jiggling with laughter, mocking me. I could have salvaged the food simply by investigating the most obvious. The cheesecake would have survived to see another day...or four or five, savored properly with coffee and my Man for company. With a mix of relief and perturbation, I turned the dials back and soon the refrigerator was humming as I made an extensive grocery list. We didn't need a new fridge, after all. But we would need more chocolate. We were fresh out.
One summer morning I awoke to find the blasted fridge had given out at last, and in so doing it pushed some of my biggest OCD buttons - wasted food, wasted money, bacteria. The milk was warm, the cheese greasy, the eggs near hatching. I wrenched open the freezer to find all our frozen meat bleeding next to a very rich, very expensive Godiva Cheesecake.
I began to pull out tufts of hair. What to do? How could I salvage any of it? Beg the neighbors to babysit our perishables for a few days? Start cooking the meat on sticks over a bonfire in the backyard and invite the community for a caveman-like meet and greet? Hand out eggs and chicken breasts to passing motorists with a friendly admonishment, "You cook that real soon, you hear?"
No, none of that was practical. I was going to have to make some hard decisions. Very little could be salvaged, but it would have to happen quickly. A braver, better woman would have started cooking up meat for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, throwing in the wilting veggies from the crisper, but it's been established already that I have no love of cooking. I especially detest doing it under abnormal pressure. And I FEAR germs. No, some of the meat would have to go - preferably to the curb where I couldn't smell it. The eggs were also a tragic loss; they had had enough time to incubate some righteous salmonella, I was sure. The milk we'd try to choke back, perhaps. And the veggies would be alright.
But there was something else, the most expensive thing residing in that fridge and the one that least deserved such a tragedy. I had to save it from the garbage, a fate worse than consumption, by consuming it - with relish.
The Godiva Cheesecake.
I had my doubts about whether one woman could do it alone. The most I had ever eaten at one sitting was two-thirds of a slice, but this was a moment to separate the sweet-lover from the die-hard chocolate addict. It wasn't a whole cheesecake, a few slices had been shared with my sister Vinca and my brother-in-law, but there was enough of it to make me simultaneously salivate and sweat at the prospect. I dug in, stressed out and frustrated....which is exactly as it should be when you reach for that chocolate fix.
Forkful after forkful - delicious! Yet I was grimly spooning it down the hatch as if someone had bet a thousand bucks I couldn't put 10 pounds on my hips in one day. I had never in my life encountered such an excellent excuse for indulging my chocolate demon.
Though I tried valiantly, alas! I couldn't finish the cheesecake. I threw out the remainder with the rest of the bad food. That night my husband brought home fresh milk and ice for the cooler.
But when I opened the fridge the next morning, something was fishy. The temperature dials were both turned to off. Could it be? Was it all for naught? I called my (then) preschooler.
"Berto! Come here now. Did you play with these dials a couple days ago? Before the fridge gave out?"
I pointed them out to my little guy, the little guy who loved to get in the fridge and leave the door ajar. Sheepishly he answered, "Yeesss..."
My now broader thighs seemed to be jiggling with laughter, mocking me. I could have salvaged the food simply by investigating the most obvious. The cheesecake would have survived to see another day...or four or five, savored properly with coffee and my Man for company. With a mix of relief and perturbation, I turned the dials back and soon the refrigerator was humming as I made an extensive grocery list. We didn't need a new fridge, after all. But we would need more chocolate. We were fresh out.
Saturday, November 20, 2010
Holiday Tales of Horror: Stuffed Couches and Stolen Chocolate
It wasn't premeditated, the chocolate theft. And also...you know you love someone when you're willing to stuff your couch for their Christmas visit.
Let's go back in time.
Matthew and I were not married. After talking to each other on the phone for a few months we had met and dated in San Antonio, thanks to my sister Annie. Now I was back at my parent's home, preparing for Matthew to come up for our first Christmas together.
Dad and I were laughing hysterically together because I was up to my shoulder in the back of our overturned couch, trying to restuff it to an acceptable point of cushioning. It was well-used, or well-loved, if you'd rather. But I didn't think it had the right amount of oomph, so I was shoving old (clean, mind you) clothes into the back of it, so it wouldn't feel embarrassed when my beau showed up. If I had been smart I would have scented those clothes with lavender spritz from Bath and Body Works. Then while Matthew and I canoodled while sitting on its lumpy but cushy surface, he might suddenly say while staring deep into my eyes, "What is that heavenly scent my nostrils doeth detect in your presence?" I, of course, would answer, "It is me, and you are in love!"
It's funny that that is one of my best memories of those last few months in my parent's home-Dad and I laughing our heads off over the little details that matter so much when you're infatuated with someone, like a well-proportioned couch. That and the drive-by "neener-neener" while driving to church one morning, but that is a story for another day, I think.
Moving on, as Dick Van Dyke said in a certain movie (just guess).
The chocolate. Ah, the chocolate.
It arrived in a Christmas package from Virginia. A package full of thoughtful gifts from my big sister Vinca who always remembered everyone. This year she had remembered Matthew. She knew my guy was coming to Idaho for his first visit with our folks, so she had gotten him the best gift she could think of lacking a background check on him, a list of his childhood hobbies or a network of relatives to report on his daily habits. She had gotten him chocolate, and BRAVO! There is no better gift that says, "I don't know you, but you'd be a fool not to love this."
And I agree. But curiosity killed the chocolate-Dad's and my curiosity, you know. We just couldn't figure out why Vinca would send a gift to someone she didn't know and who wasn't an official part of the family. I mean, really, I hadn't actually married the guy yet...and even then Christmas gifts are kind of probationary for the first year or two.
So, anyway, Dad and I studied the rectangular package beneath the tree for a couple of days until we just couldn't stand it anymore.
"We should see what's in there," said Dad.
"I agree."
I don't remember who did the honors of peeling off the wrapping paper. We figured we'd just rewrap the dang thing anyway. We just wanted to see, that's all....
Oh, no-chocolate! It was a box of chocolates. From that moment I think we both knew what was going to happen, but we tried to be good and ignore our choco-foraging survival instincts.
We laid it carefully by on the kitchen bar. Just so we wouldn't forget it, you know.
"We'll just wrap it back up later," said Dad.
Sure, but until then we'd walk past it several times that day wondering what kind of fillings were in it. A cordial cherry or two, perhaps? Oooh, maybe a few truffles. And who doesn't like those little crunchy nut-flaked centers? Yum-yum. Was there any dark chocolate in the picture on the box?
"Matthew will never know," Dad said to me that evening.
"He wasn't expecting anything!" I responded loudly. "He doesn't even know Vinca. Maybe by name...." But a Vinca by any other name is still the sister of just a girlfriend.
Mom was there.
"Shame on you guys. Don't do it," she admonished. "Vinca sent that for Matthew. He needs presents under the tree, too."
"I got him something," I pointed out.
"I'll get him something," said Dad.
We looked at each other. Then we slid the choclate off the bar, ripped off the cellophane packaging, and while sitting on the newly over-stuffed couch together, pigged-out happily on our purloined chocolates. We had warm feelings for Vinca's thoughtfulness that day.
Did I tell Matthew about his absent gift? Not that Christmas, no. But a few years later when I suddenly remembered and had a good chuckle by our own Christmas tree. Okay, yes it was wrong. But wrong never tasted so sweet.
Let's go back in time.
Matthew and I were not married. After talking to each other on the phone for a few months we had met and dated in San Antonio, thanks to my sister Annie. Now I was back at my parent's home, preparing for Matthew to come up for our first Christmas together.
Dad and I were laughing hysterically together because I was up to my shoulder in the back of our overturned couch, trying to restuff it to an acceptable point of cushioning. It was well-used, or well-loved, if you'd rather. But I didn't think it had the right amount of oomph, so I was shoving old (clean, mind you) clothes into the back of it, so it wouldn't feel embarrassed when my beau showed up. If I had been smart I would have scented those clothes with lavender spritz from Bath and Body Works. Then while Matthew and I canoodled while sitting on its lumpy but cushy surface, he might suddenly say while staring deep into my eyes, "What is that heavenly scent my nostrils doeth detect in your presence?" I, of course, would answer, "It is me, and you are in love!"
It's funny that that is one of my best memories of those last few months in my parent's home-Dad and I laughing our heads off over the little details that matter so much when you're infatuated with someone, like a well-proportioned couch. That and the drive-by "neener-neener" while driving to church one morning, but that is a story for another day, I think.
Moving on, as Dick Van Dyke said in a certain movie (just guess).
The chocolate. Ah, the chocolate.
It arrived in a Christmas package from Virginia. A package full of thoughtful gifts from my big sister Vinca who always remembered everyone. This year she had remembered Matthew. She knew my guy was coming to Idaho for his first visit with our folks, so she had gotten him the best gift she could think of lacking a background check on him, a list of his childhood hobbies or a network of relatives to report on his daily habits. She had gotten him chocolate, and BRAVO! There is no better gift that says, "I don't know you, but you'd be a fool not to love this."
And I agree. But curiosity killed the chocolate-Dad's and my curiosity, you know. We just couldn't figure out why Vinca would send a gift to someone she didn't know and who wasn't an official part of the family. I mean, really, I hadn't actually married the guy yet...and even then Christmas gifts are kind of probationary for the first year or two.
So, anyway, Dad and I studied the rectangular package beneath the tree for a couple of days until we just couldn't stand it anymore.
"We should see what's in there," said Dad.
"I agree."
I don't remember who did the honors of peeling off the wrapping paper. We figured we'd just rewrap the dang thing anyway. We just wanted to see, that's all....
Oh, no-chocolate! It was a box of chocolates. From that moment I think we both knew what was going to happen, but we tried to be good and ignore our choco-foraging survival instincts.
We laid it carefully by on the kitchen bar. Just so we wouldn't forget it, you know.
"We'll just wrap it back up later," said Dad.
Sure, but until then we'd walk past it several times that day wondering what kind of fillings were in it. A cordial cherry or two, perhaps? Oooh, maybe a few truffles. And who doesn't like those little crunchy nut-flaked centers? Yum-yum. Was there any dark chocolate in the picture on the box?
"Matthew will never know," Dad said to me that evening.
"He wasn't expecting anything!" I responded loudly. "He doesn't even know Vinca. Maybe by name...." But a Vinca by any other name is still the sister of just a girlfriend.
Mom was there.
"Shame on you guys. Don't do it," she admonished. "Vinca sent that for Matthew. He needs presents under the tree, too."
"I got him something," I pointed out.
"I'll get him something," said Dad.
We looked at each other. Then we slid the choclate off the bar, ripped off the cellophane packaging, and while sitting on the newly over-stuffed couch together, pigged-out happily on our purloined chocolates. We had warm feelings for Vinca's thoughtfulness that day.
Did I tell Matthew about his absent gift? Not that Christmas, no. But a few years later when I suddenly remembered and had a good chuckle by our own Christmas tree. Okay, yes it was wrong. But wrong never tasted so sweet.
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