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stealthpup
Jul. 6th, 2005 10:41 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
fjSomehow I remember chocolate as really restricted when we lived in South America. Just not something we had often. When we had it, as opposed to something chocolate-flavored, it would probably be in the Netherlands, and be real chocolate. Verkade. Thick bars of real chocolate. There were of course the chocolate sprinkles for our open-faced sandwiches -- it's a Dutch thing, you wouldn't understand -- but those don't really hit the chocolate jones.
(En mijn moeder was dus het soort moeder die altijd zei van "Ze proven het toch niet", en dus nog goedkoper dan Albert Heijn huismerk kocht. Nog minder cacao. We woondden goddome in Rozendaal maar aten alsof we in Velp Zuid op de flat zaten. En ik hoor haar nog zeggend dat "Ik dat geld liever besteed aan een mooiere vakantie," maar nu denk ik van hoeveel geld hebben we het eigenlijk over? Ik ben dus nu een van die mensen die gruwt van het woord "cacao-fantasie".)
The chocolate sprinkles -- I am now overwhelmed by memories of the packaging of the Albert Heijn brand, the tall boxes in red or blue with those very strange clowns on them. The family we spent a lot of time with when we visited the Netherlands -- the father was an old college buddy of my father's -- bought that brand, the real stuff. I am now walking that trail of memories of being seven or eight and eating them, and feeling so lucky. That galle kitchen, that smell of the carpet, that round wooden table, the steps to the back door. I need to tell the mother this. She'd hear me out, and laugh, but understand about a little ball of place and moment opening now in my mind, flowering briefly.
In both bars and sprinkles, I always preferred milk chocolate: it seemed smoother, softer, friendlier, and thus actually richer. Dark just seemed sharp. When we moved to the Netherlands, I ate candybars mostly. Verkade just seemed so plain. The candybars had the same brand names as in the US, Like Mars and Milky Way and Snickers, but I found out when I moved here that, at the time, the brand names were used differently in Europe than in the US ("Hey, where's the caramel in my Mars?") Around the age of 12, I used to use my allowance to buy some, a highly forbidden act because it was a) candy, which was bad, and b) a terrible waste of money. Most sweets were frowned on at home, except for the cookie or two with the post-school tea. Needless to say, when I started living alone, I spent the first week exploring having dinner on just ice-cream, or a bag of Snickers minis and tea to dunk them in.
At 35 I have now fully grown out of that, I need real food for dinner, or actually all during the day every 3 hours. Even having cereal for dinner just will not do anymore, not with my physical goals and the demands I put on my body. But I do know where having terrible dinners come from. When I hear those "confessional" Lean Cusisine commercials in which people admit their dinner was a bag of Doritos and some cooking chocolate, my first thought is "Sure. And damn did it feel good."
I have lost much of my appetite for chocolate-flavored things, except really inetnse ones. Mostly when I want chocolate, I want the real thing, a bar. Not even bon bons, much. I want to sink my teeth into a bar and break of a thick full piece, and have it melt in my mouth. I may even take a swig of sweet hot tea to make it melt better and faster. I will chew and I will think of all the good chemicals inside chocolate, and not sweat the sugar and cream since I have made space for them in my regular eating plan. Basically, Friday night, when we have friends over, is the night I have large quantities of dessert. Since this is planned and incorporated in the overall weekly cycle, there is no guilt or sense of transgression, just pure joy in the food I enjoy most, dessert sweets. I still prefer milk chocolate, but if it has been very long since I have had any, I will go for dark chocolate. Recently, when Dean is away and we do not have anime night on Friday I have been having thick real chocolate with toffee centers, and that's been really making me happy. Or a block of Valrhona, from the Whole Foods chocolate counter, where they have broken blocks off the huge industrial bars and wrapped them in plastic wrap. Totally decadent mouthfeel to have one big bite after another, and I chew down on them after dinner, by myself, with utter satisfaction.
(En mijn moeder was dus het soort moeder die altijd zei van "Ze proven het toch niet", en dus nog goedkoper dan Albert Heijn huismerk kocht. Nog minder cacao. We woondden goddome in Rozendaal maar aten alsof we in Velp Zuid op de flat zaten. En ik hoor haar nog zeggend dat "Ik dat geld liever besteed aan een mooiere vakantie," maar nu denk ik van hoeveel geld hebben we het eigenlijk over? Ik ben dus nu een van die mensen die gruwt van het woord "cacao-fantasie".)
The chocolate sprinkles -- I am now overwhelmed by memories of the packaging of the Albert Heijn brand, the tall boxes in red or blue with those very strange clowns on them. The family we spent a lot of time with when we visited the Netherlands -- the father was an old college buddy of my father's -- bought that brand, the real stuff. I am now walking that trail of memories of being seven or eight and eating them, and feeling so lucky. That galle kitchen, that smell of the carpet, that round wooden table, the steps to the back door. I need to tell the mother this. She'd hear me out, and laugh, but understand about a little ball of place and moment opening now in my mind, flowering briefly.
In both bars and sprinkles, I always preferred milk chocolate: it seemed smoother, softer, friendlier, and thus actually richer. Dark just seemed sharp. When we moved to the Netherlands, I ate candybars mostly. Verkade just seemed so plain. The candybars had the same brand names as in the US, Like Mars and Milky Way and Snickers, but I found out when I moved here that, at the time, the brand names were used differently in Europe than in the US ("Hey, where's the caramel in my Mars?") Around the age of 12, I used to use my allowance to buy some, a highly forbidden act because it was a) candy, which was bad, and b) a terrible waste of money. Most sweets were frowned on at home, except for the cookie or two with the post-school tea. Needless to say, when I started living alone, I spent the first week exploring having dinner on just ice-cream, or a bag of Snickers minis and tea to dunk them in.
At 35 I have now fully grown out of that, I need real food for dinner, or actually all during the day every 3 hours. Even having cereal for dinner just will not do anymore, not with my physical goals and the demands I put on my body. But I do know where having terrible dinners come from. When I hear those "confessional" Lean Cusisine commercials in which people admit their dinner was a bag of Doritos and some cooking chocolate, my first thought is "Sure. And damn did it feel good."
I have lost much of my appetite for chocolate-flavored things, except really inetnse ones. Mostly when I want chocolate, I want the real thing, a bar. Not even bon bons, much. I want to sink my teeth into a bar and break of a thick full piece, and have it melt in my mouth. I may even take a swig of sweet hot tea to make it melt better and faster. I will chew and I will think of all the good chemicals inside chocolate, and not sweat the sugar and cream since I have made space for them in my regular eating plan. Basically, Friday night, when we have friends over, is the night I have large quantities of dessert. Since this is planned and incorporated in the overall weekly cycle, there is no guilt or sense of transgression, just pure joy in the food I enjoy most, dessert sweets. I still prefer milk chocolate, but if it has been very long since I have had any, I will go for dark chocolate. Recently, when Dean is away and we do not have anime night on Friday I have been having thick real chocolate with toffee centers, and that's been really making me happy. Or a block of Valrhona, from the Whole Foods chocolate counter, where they have broken blocks off the huge industrial bars and wrapped them in plastic wrap. Totally decadent mouthfeel to have one big bite after another, and I chew down on them after dinner, by myself, with utter satisfaction.
