Chocoholics Anonymous

Hey, everyone!  Welcome to another edition of FOODIE FRIDAY - which could end up sounding more like a diary entry than a food entry, but considering that I would say that 65% of this entry has to do with food, I'd classify that to be enough to make it a Foodie Friday post.

Even though I openly admit to this blog being about a particular vice of mine.  A vice that try as I might, I can't seem to break free from. 

I guess I should explain.

I have always been a fan of sweets.  A lot of people I know don't really have any sort of sweet tooth, but I certainly do.  I wouldn't be surprised if the first tooth that ever grew in my mouth was a sweet tooth. 

I just always seem to remember as a kid always having a fondness for sweets.  One of my earliest memories involves the chocolate candies called M&M's.  At the time I tried my first milk chocolate M&M candy (back in those days, they were known as plain M&M's), I remember wanting more.  I ended up eating half a bag of the colourful candies.  And this was during a time in which the colour selection for M&M's was rather bland.  Back in '85 or whatever year this event took place, the only colours you could find were orange, green, yellow, brown, and the defunct tan.

(Yes, Virginia...there was once a world without blue and red M&M's.)

Of course, that was the only the first memory that I HAVE of eating chocolate.  Reportedly my parents have said that my first taste of chocolate was when I was a year old.

I don't know how many of you remember the chocolate bar called Jersey Milk, but that was apparently my first candy bar that I ever ate.  It's kind of similar to a Cadbury Dairy Milk chocolate bar, but made by Neilson.  On occasion, I still like eating Jersey Milk candy bars - you know - strictly for the nostalgia purposes.

I also had other favourites when it came down to all things chocolate.  I remember loving the combination of peppermint and chocolate early on in my childhood, and I think I ate my fair share of Junior Mints, York Peppermint Patties, and Aero Peppermint bars.  As I grew older, I also discovered the joy of combining peanut butter and chocolate together when I tried my first Reese Peanut Butter cup.  And I also remember being a fan of nougat, and during my entire elementary school career, I was rarely seen without a Mars bar in my pocket.

I also remember coming up with all sorts of wild and crazy theories over how the Cadbury people got the caramel inside of those Caramilk bars that have been a part of my childhood since forever.  My theory as a child involved freezing the caramel in bar format and then pouring the hot, melted chocolate over the caramel which melted the caramel inside each square.  Somehow, I don't think that was correct, but it was nice to speculate.

CONFESSION:  At 33, I STILL don't know how they do it.

Anyway, my love for chocolate didn't just stop at chocolate bars.  For many years, my favourite ice cream flavour was chocolate.  I used to drink chocolate milk all the time as a little kid (until I had to sell it as part of my job years later and developed a dislike for it), and when it came to cereals, I always went for the ones that had a lot of chocolate in it.

You know, Count Chocula, Cocoa Pebbles, Nesquik...cereals like that.  It might not have been the greatest or most nutritious breakfast, but it kept me nice and hyper to sit through six hours of cartoons on Saturday mornings.

(The flipside was that chocolate cereal made me hyper and extremely talkative in class which often got me into trouble at school.)

But, the reason why I wanted to talk about this is to offer up a major confession.  My vice, if you will.

My name is Matthew, and I am a chocoholic.

It's true.  I can't go without chocolate.  Lord knows I've tried to give it up.  I tried going cold turkey, and I ended up lasting less than twelve hours before I was popping Riesen candy chews into my mouth.  I literally can't go one whole day without even sampling at least one tiny bit of chocolate, be it a chocolate chip cookie, or a chocolate covered granola bar, or even a whole container of mini Rolos.

I suppose that there are worse things that I could be addicted to.  I could be addicted to cigarettes (yucky), alcohol (I more or less am a practicing teetotaler), or drugs (never touched them, never will touch them).

But if any of you out there have a way for me to cut back on sweets, I'm all ears.  :)