Chocolate Is My Life

I was nursed on chocolate. No, really! Chocolate runs in my blood and is just as important.
I think it is in my DNA.

You see, my mother was one of the last of a dying breed......a chocolate hand-dipper. I was raised in a chocolate factory, surrounded by rollicking, laughing, passionate, sometimes explosive, but always forgiving family.

When I was very tiny, my mom would take me to work with her. I would sleep in one of the chocolate boxes. As I grew, she took my pillow and blanket, and I slept between the deep shelves.

When I got a little older, all the dippers would give me fifty cents to run next door to the Royal Café to bring them fresh lime cokes “with lots of ice”.

I wandered to the potato chip factory in back where I could eat fresh, hot chips coming down the conveyor belt, then buy a bag to take home, or eat while I passed the time, waiting.

For good behavior, I was given a puddle of warm melted chocolate and some peanuts, where I could practice dipping nut clusters, much like other children make mud pies.

I washed my hands carefully to rub the husks off the roasted peanuts and hazelnuts. I learned to carefully wrap bright red or gold foil squares around the specialty chocolates. I was about 5 years old.

After I started school, I could no longer go to the candy factory with Mom. During the hectic holiday chocolate season, she would work until after my bedtime. I would beg whoever was babysitting to let me stay up and wait for Mom.

I would fall asleep in the couch, and I always knew when she came home; she would carefully drape her fur coat over me and I would be surrounded by the comforting smell of warm chocolate mingled with fur. I could smell chocolate on her hands and hair as she carried me off to bed. She later told me she had to put her hands under the pillow at night so she wouldn’t smell the chocolate on them, and could sleep.

So you see, chocolate is more than comfort food to me.Chocolate means nourishment, togetherness, security, nurturing, life force, laughter, fun, family tradition, well-being, health, energy, vitality, abundance,and memory.

The smell of chocolate puts me right back in that nostalgic place of childhood, where my world was safe, and I went home with my Mom wearing her fur coat, both of us smelling like chocolate.