Candy

It happens every year. About a month before Christmas, I buy at least a couple of boxes of little candy canes. I have plans to hang them over the edge of cups of hot cocoa. I place a large bowl of them on the kitchen island, ready to be snatched up and chewed. There are all kinds of ways I use them during the holidays. But, it never fails. I always buy way too many. And, every year at this time, I pull out the leftover candy canes and begin to stir them into cookie dough. This year is no different. But this year, the cookies are Italian-style twice-baked cookies – biscotti.

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. 

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.

My husband Mike points out that the room goes silent as I watch a quivering gooey strand of icing bridge a hunk of pastry being pried apart by delicate hands in an Entenman's commercial. And when a pool of thick, rich Dove chocolate swirls around and folds itself magically over a brick of vanilla ice cream, my eyes glaze over. Then, when the caramel and chocolate of a Milky Way is fully exposed in delectable close up, my jaw goes slack. He tells me to face it: these commercials are, for me, like watching porn. Yes, I embarrassedly admit that I have fallen prey to the sexualized enticements of sugary things.