Love Affair

This is not a sordid tale of temptation and betrayal. It is not a casual jaunt through a steamy paperback loaded with flowing hair, glistening skin and burning gazes. There is no tall dark stranger sweeping in from a foreign land; no pale-skinned beauty craning her neck in the light of the dawn. No exotic lover at the window…no throaty whispers in the night. But this is a tale of lust and passion; intensity and fire. It is a languid stroll through the senses. A seduction of taste, a sweet caress of a craving sated. I will share a tale of my love affair…of my need, my desire and my obsession…with chocolate.

There are many vices in this world. Some turn to alcohol, others to narcotics. Some gamble or seek illicit pleasures of the flesh. I share my vice with pride. I am a chocolate aficionado. One could say I am a chocoholic or cacao junkie, but I think the title I have chosen carries an air of dignity. I have flirted shamelessly with the chocolate ambassadors of Godiva, all in hopes of receiving a free sample. I have fought for the honor and privilege to devour any remaining chocolate from a pan of frosting. I have found heaven in the embrace of a single piece of the finest cocoa…wrought more of artistry and grace, then of taste, and I have slummed it with a block of stale Hershey’s.

I imagine someone reading this thinking, ‘This is absurd. A chocolate addiction is not a vice. A love of all things cocoa is not overly decadent and chocolate poses no danger to anyone.’ I guffaw! What of a Grand Marnier truffle? What about a cup of hot cocoa so thick you could eat it with a spoon? Did you ever have the Starbucks Chocofino? How about a flourless chocolate torte so packed with cocoa it looks like a blissful sliver of midnight? Chocolate is dangerous my friends, but to give in to its call is such a sweet surrender I dare not turn away.

Society worries about the saturation of the media with sexual imagery and themes. There are advocate groups devoted to monitoring and condemning violence in television broadcasts and beyond. Whenever tragedy strikes at the heart of young America we ponder the influence of violent video games. We worry about children seeing too much too soon, but does anyone worry about chocolate? Maybe they should….

Despite the vast volume of violence and sex and all things profane in our day-to-day lives I would argue that chocolate has its own place as a corrupting influence. How many people remember the first time they were moved, for better or worse, by carnal imagery or violence? I imagine quite a few. Now I ask those same people, did that experience come before or after their first confrontation with the fruit of the cacao bean?

Some of my earliest memories are of a chocolate and Oreo cake purchased for my first birthday. I don’t think I could even walk, but I remember that giant blue frosting cake crafted in the likeness of Cookie Monster. I remember the lessons of the immortal Cookie Monster proclaiming his love of chocolate chip cookies. I had bowl after bowl of Cocoa Crispies, Cocoa Puffs and Count Chokula paired with chocolate poptarts. I had hot fudge sundays. I had Twix and Snickers, Milky Way and Reese’s Peanut Butter cups….all of which are wreathed in luscious chocolate. I had hot cocoa in the winter and chocolate ice cream in the summer. I had chocolate milk at school, a chocolate Santa at Christmas, a chocolate bunny at Easter. My youth, my schools, even my most sacred holidays; each felt the presence of chocolate, and all of this I had before I was even aware of the concept of violence or sex! The media might have been hitting me with these themes left, right and center, but they were years behind chocolate in digging their claws into me.

You may doubt the power of chocolate. You might feel that my argument is not at all compelling. But I maintain that the power of cocoa is indeed lethal in the most exquisite of ways. Few things have more corrupting potential. We have witnessed the transformation of the healthiest of indulgences become an orgy of decadence as fruit is doused in molten chocolate. Chocolate oranges, raspberries, lemons, or my personal favorite, strawberries dipped in dark chocolate. We make deep fried batter even more potent by smothering our donuts in chocolate, or working the cocoa into the batter itself! Chocolate cake…chocolate pie…chocolate in our coffee to give birth to the mocha….chocolate in our liquor to make us drunk with bliss as true inebriation sets in.

Chocolate will not destroy our civilization, nor is it to blame for all the world’s ills. It is not the root source of our expanding waist lines, or contributing to the moral decay of society. Chocolate is not evil, but it is dangerous and it is a vice. People stand on pedestals and laud themselves for the things they give up…for the pleasures they deny themselves. I am of a different school of thought. I stand proudly before my peers and share my joy and desire for chocolate. I don’t have a shrine to this wonderful slice of decadence, but I should. Sometimes it feels good to stray. Sometimes it feels so very good, to be so very bad. Chocolate opens the doors to be devious, decadent and naughty, without truly hurting anyone or anything. The only victims are a diet or a little enamel on our teeth. I call that a small price to pay for this little pleasure. We may walk outside the Garden of Eden. Paradise might have been lost. But in the desolation and ruin chocolate was found, and thus we walk in the presence of that small taste of ambrosia, and know that heaven can indeed be found on Earth. Try El Muerte por Chocolate and you will know what I mean…