I do not like chocolate. To be honest, I do not like most things that are 'sweet'. That has not, however, stopped my husband from trying to convert me to the dark side, for almost fifteen years now. Growing up, Easter was filled with mostly church-going business and the popular Cadburys Creme Egg. I actually hate those eggs. Nothing worse than tasting something so artificially created.
Thankfully, the kids have developed strange (but good) tastes for the sweeter side of life. As soon as Rory could walk, she used to sneak down to the (restaurant) kitchen and help herself to 'breffuzz'.
Her 'breffuzz' consisted of a nice big slab of Ron's bread pudding ladled with homemade caramel sauce or black magic dark chocolate cake smothered with chocolate fudge sauce. Control freak that I am, one would think that I would have 'padlocked the fridge' but I figured it was all homemade good-stuff, made by her Daddy, so it could not be too bad for her.
What I did not know is that I was enabling a chocolate monster. And although not genetically bound, she sooooooo takes after her Daddy.
You see, my handsome Chef is a confirmed chocaholic. We can call him a chocolate snob actually. He will not compromise and use shwag chocolate when he is creating a devine desert. When we lived in America he used a French chocolate called Valrhona. He used it for 25 years. When we moved closer to the source he started using another French chocolate called Callebaut. Apparently the French know what they are doing when it comes to Chocolate, wine and cheese!
So, what do you get a Chef for Easter when you know you are dealing with a chocolate snob??
Easy peasy lemon squeasy...
That's right folks, he loves Snickers! But this little egg, my dear readers is no ordinary egg. This, has a complete snickers filling. Filled with nuts and caramel, this little egg (not easy to source) makes for one very happy Chef!
The kids are normal (thank God) when it comes to eating everything in sight, but have no love for the Easter Egg. They get excited about dyeing hard boiled eggs, hiding them, having an Easter egg hunt and then eating the eggs. At least there is no waste :-) These eggs below were dyed using red onion peelings.
This year, after a little inspiration from one of my friends at University (Becca), I decided to source a few 'oldies but goodies' for their Easter baskets. When we were young (4 million years ago) and because we grew up in the country (ironically less than 5 miles from the metropolis of Galway) we had the luxury of 'The Traveling Shop'. There were actually two traveling shops that came to our little village. One came on Tuesday evenings and the other came on Fridays at 12 noon. We were never home on Fridays at 12 noon due to school, but during the summer months we would time our internal clocks to the hum of the engine in that little red van.
Glass jars of sweets was really what these traveling shops were pushing under the guise of 'fresh eggs', 'durty carrots' and 'warm milk from the neighbours cow'. (all true and real by the way). The shop van would borrow from Peter to pay Paul in a sense that if someone in the village had a few dozen eggs to sell, they could barter their way through the goodies in the traveling shop without a penny ever exchanging hands. (Back up a little, I may have exagerated when I said this was 4 million years ago - it was more like 20 yrs). What a great way to foster a sense of community and talk about knowing how many food miles your food has traveled!
We were never allowed buy too much crap. Strict mother blah blah blah. In a way, I am the same kind of mother. Everything in moderation etc. etc.
But occasionally and I suppose in a moment of weakness she would let us
'buy at will' and of course the choices we made were never healthy.
All fun and fizz using artificial colours, flavours and sweeteners................
Yucky yellow toffee-like sticky goo with lemon flavouring.
Excuse me while I vomit - right.
No, even I could go for one of these yellow chews this Easters eve!
The guilt would overtake us and we would cave to buying a few niceties for the mothership in the hopes that she would cave again soon and allow us those extra few pennies for junk sweeties.
So, after a very very long time of procrastinating over how much I do not like Chocolate, clever clogs Chef has found something that has finally tickled my fancy and lured to the dark side.
It's all good folks, fair-trade chocolate. All dark and yummy. In case you missed the newsflash more studies are being done on chocolate’s positive health benefits, especially for the old ticker! The latest study released shows that even small amounts are great for overall heart health and reduces the risk of heart attacks and strokes. Chocolate, especially very dark chocolate, reduces blood pressure, increases elasticity of blood vessels and may reduce inflammation. So, not only has he convinced me to start eating (this yummy) chocolate, it appears there are added health benefits!
Everything in moderation folks! Do you need any further excuses?
I hope your Easter was fruitful and you are relaxing in front of a warm fire toasting your toes!
Those are all the WiseWords I have for this evening!
WiseMóna
