Candy

A few months ago I discovered that my friend Jane keeps a tall glass jar in her kitchen filled with chocolate candies – bite-size Dove bars, Mr. Goodbar, Hershey's Golden Almond, Snickers, all my favorites.  Personally I've never understood how anyone could keep chocolate out in plain sight without consuming it. Unless you're Willie Wonka.

Although I don't keep any chocolate visible in my house, I love it when other people do.  I have selected physicians based on the selection of candy in their waiting rooms.  And once I discovered this treasure trove in Jane's house, I always stop by the jar on my way out like a trick-or-treater on Halloween, and toss a few chocolate candies into my purse.  Just in case of emergency.  Which could happen on the drive home.

As if Jane's house weren't already my favorite place to visit, she also owns a great piece of exercise equipment called a Power Plate.  At some other time I can possibly explain this machine but not right now when my attention is focused on the candy jar.

Candy has been a bond between me and my pal Joy since we first became best friends in sixth grade at Beverly Vista Elementary School in Beverly Hills, California.   Sure, there’s been humor, loyalty, shared heart-throbs, and tears…but from the get-go, there were shared Nestle Crunch candy bars filled with crinkly chocolate that we bought every day as we walked home from school together.  It became a ritual, peeling off the blue and white wrapper, then the foil, and eating the crunchy bar while hysterically laughing over some inside joke that was funny only to ourselves.  But it was better that way.

I am addicted to chocolate. I don't mean that I just like to eat chocolate, I have to eat  chocolate. There is no twelve step program, there are no support groups but I know it is genetic. My mother is also addicted to chocolate as are two of my six little nieces. Sometimes the four of us sit around the kitchen table in silence eating chocolate. I am the enabler. I buy chocolate every time I pass through a duty free store in an airport. I stop in every bakery I see to buy anything chocolate they have. I know exactly where all the nice chocolate shops are in New York City. You get my point?

 Tell us your favorite candy...and where we can get it.

Last night, at about 2:00 a.m I woke up and couldn’t go back to sleep.   Normally I give myself an hour of trying to go back to sleep before I give up and go downstairs to watch TV. Last night I knew it just wasn’t gonna happen.

It was warm in the living room and our two Portugese water dogs, Stachmo and Gabby followed me, hopped up on the couch, and snuggled close. After five minutes of channel surfing, I landed on a documentary with the intriguing title: The Chocolate Wars. It was about the rivalry between the altruistic Milton Hershey and the odious Forrest Mars, son of Frank Mars, the founder of Mars Candy Company.