Chocolate Madness

Last week, I attended a NARAL Pro-Choice fundraiser called Chocolate Madness – as a judge.  Weeks earlier I called to RSVP to the event and the organizers asked if I could participate. "You wouldn't' tease a girl, would you?" was my response.

The event was held at the Cyclorama at the Boston Center for the Arts, a beautiful building. More beautiful however was the chocolate.  My category was Flowing Water: Spoonfuls of Puddings, Ice Creams, and Sorbets. I was the voice of dissent among the judges at my table. They choose the Guanaja Chocolate Ice Cream with Cocoa Grue, Toasted Almonds, and Smoked Salt from the Beacon Hill Hotel & Bistro as the winner. In my opinion, sea salts are for spa treatments not dessert. I shared this observation with my fellow judges many of them foodies. "I guess it’s all the Hershey I grew up with," I said, "but I prefer my chocolate plain, plain, plain." The other judges looked at me with disdain and proceeded to discuss the finer points of the edible contestants. I thought to myself, "To hell with them. Let them think what they want." I knew the truth and didn't need to defend my qualifications.

You see, I come from a family of chocoholics. In fact, chocolate was a contact sport in my house. As a young child I caught my father raiding my Easter basket and my Halloween bag. Yes, he stole candy from a child. And when my sisters and I thought our mother was going to die from a brain tumor, chocolate helped us cope. Every night we would visit Mum in the ICU then go home and sit in complete silence at the kitchen table while we drank chocolate shakes from Burger King and split a bag of Kisses. We didn't have much – no cocoa grue, no smoked salt. But we had …chocolate.

Fast forward sixteen years. One of my sisters has been "clean" now for two years. She quit chocolate cold turkey. My father steals chocolate from his grandchildren and my mother… well we knew she was fully recovered when she started restocking her night table drawer with her not-so-secret stash of Peppermint Patties.

Chocolate Madness? I am more than qualified to judge it. I live it.