I have the world’s greatest sweet tooth.
If there’s no candy in the house, I’ll suck on brown sugar cubes. I mix peanut butter with golden syrup, I will add sugar to Frosted Flakes (!!!); and speaking of cereal, the last time I had Honey Smacks in a bowl with milk was during Richard Nixon’s first term, because I normally eat it out of the box with a glass of milk on the side. I can’t drink coffee or tea without sugar; and because I hate the taste of plain water, I add a few drops of lemon juice — which makes it too bitter, so I add (you guessed it) a spoon of brown sugar.
My only concession to health is that I’ve managed to eliminate white sugar from my diet altogether in favor of brown sugar, which tastes better, and I’ve only managed to reduce my total sugar intake by eliminating all sodas unless as occasional mixers in gin, rum etc. I ration myself in the aforementioned tea and coffee by using only 1 teaspoon of sugar per 4ozs of liquid — ergo in a 12oz cup, I’ll add three spoons of brown sugar, and I never drink any quantity larger than 14ozs of anything.
And then we come to chocolate.
Or rather, let’s not come to chocolate, because in matters chocolate I can be so gluttonous that I can make myself sick just in the thinking of it. If there’s a giant bar of white chocolate (e.g. Nestlé’s Milky Bar, my greatest weakness) I can eat the whole thing in a single sitting, and Cadbury’s Milk Chocolate and Rowntree’s Aero are almost as deadly. I loathe Hershey Bar chocolate, by the way, because there’s too much cocoa (cacao?) in the formulation; but when it comes to milk chocolate of the Cadbury’s ilk, I’m a goner. You know how a leopard will encounter a flock of sheep, and kill and kill and kill until it’s exhausted, and only then carry off a single sheep to eat? When it comes to chocolate, I’m the leopard and chocolate is the sheep — only I eat everything I kill.
My gastric band is powerless against chocolate because chocolate turns to liquid in the mouth and goes straight down. It’s a wonder I don’t weigh 500lbs, and it is a testament to my willpower — which has taken me, oh, about thirty years to build up — that I can limit myself to the occasional (small) chocolate bar a month.
One of the few things which saves me is that I cannot abide certain things added to chocolate. I speak here of nuts of any kind — which is strange because I quite like certain nuts like peanuts and cashews: just not in my chocolate. And because I don’t want to throw up all over my keyboard, we will not talk about coconut. Other than those things, I don’t mind (okay, I love) soft centers, which is why Daughter (a sadist who makes De Sade look like an amateur) gives me for Christmas each year a box of custom-filled soft centers from See’s Candies. Once again, it is a testament to my willpower that it can take me as long as three days to finish a box thereof because my natural inclination is to consume the entire contents on Christmas Day. Before lunchtime.
Because I grew up in a British colony (South Africa), the chocolates we had were British, and this was especially true of the boxed chocolate assortments like Cadbury’s Roses and Mackintosh’s Quality Street. The only thing that has ever stopped me from eating entire boxes and tins of either brand is that they contain landmines — the aforementioned nuts and coconut IEDs.
It’s a good thing that I no longer live there, and especially not in Britishland either, because retailer John Lewis has come up with the outstanding (!) idea that customers should be allowed to create their own assortments to fill a tin of Quality Street chocolates.
Quality Street chocolates are synonymous with Christmas but every year, the flavours that no-one likes always get left at the bottom of the tin.
Now John Lewis has found a way to ensure every treat will be eaten as shoppers will be able to create their own bespoke tins at pix and mix stations in selected UK stores from late September until December 23.
Customers will be able to choose only their favourite chocolates to fill up a 1.2kg tin, which means if you want a tub full of The Purple Ones and no Strawberry Delights, you can have it for £12.
That swooshing sound you may be hearing in your ears right now is the sound of me salivating. OMG the thought of a Quality Street tin full of Strawberry Delight, Fudge, Orange Cream, Caramel Swirls and Milk Choc Blocks is so alluring, I can’t stand it.
Thank goodness this Satanic Selection of Temptation is on the other side of The Pond, and will be of limited duration (pre-Christmas only when, this year, I will not be there). And before any of my Brit Readers (and you know who you are) start hatching evil plans to send me any, I should point out that chocolate doesn’t travel well, especially through the mail. Please don’t. Let me just deal with the lack thereof in as manful a way as I can — i.e., with a few small sobs and lots of sighing — and a feeling of relief that I won’t die of Massive Chocolate Overload.
Not this year, anyway, unless Daughter buys me a large box of See’s.
I am so weak…
The Old Gold Old Jamaica bars with rum raisins are a personal favorite.
If you’re ever in Pennsylvania (Lancaster County):
http://www.wilburbuds.com/
My personal favorite is the buds, and I LOVE putting a milk and dark chocolate in my mouth at the same time and eating them together.
Oh, they ship…..
I’m an evil, evil man….
Mark! I haven’t had Wilbur Chocolate in ages, thanks for the memory now I’m headed out the hour or so to to Lancaster so I can get fat.
Fantastic chocolates.
the thought of a Quality Street tin full of Strawberry Delight, Fudge, Orange Cream, Caramel Swirls and Milk Choc Blocks is so alluring
We must never be in a room together with an assortment like that or my manners will fail me. If they’re yours, I don’t know I’d be polite enough to refrain. If they’re mine, I might not be able to share. There could be fisticuffs.
Totally agree on the coconut. I take comfort in the fact that whoever first thought to put hay in perfectly good chocolate must surely be dead by now.
I prefer the soft centers first, then solids. I can eat the nut filled ones for the chocolate. I actually kind of like turtles.
And my “flock of sheep”? Cherry cordials. I know the ones I receive for Christmas are cheap, but Oh! the combination! Especially if the syrup is clear and syrupy instead of thickened. I have a horror of being sticky. But if you gave me enough of those, I’d shortly look like a 2-year-old who’d been left unattended.
Down here, Central Market sells chocolate-covered dried cherries, which are even more addictive than other chocolate types. I’ve actually had to limit my trips there because while I can steer clear of other chocolate types, I cannot resist picking up a tub or two of the choc cherries…
Most fruit and chocolate combos irk me. Especially citrus or other sour fruits with chocolate. Why on earth does anyone think chocolate and orange gng tegither? Even the color combo is hideous.
But I do like nuts and coconut in chocolate. I follow a low carb diet, mostly, and make my own sugar-free dark chocolate bark with macadamia nuts and shredded coconut mixed in. I use erythritol and vanilla stevia to sweeten it. Yum.
Haven’t commented in a long while but you’ve been a roll. Loved the send-up to Murdering Mandela. One day, the mass of us will know the real story. Still, one man terrorist is another man’s hero. Whose side you on? That is the question.
🙋🏼♀️
I’ve had some fun arguments with acquaintances about the chocolate and orange combination; Sweet Candy makes chocolate orange sticks (orange jelly inside) that used to be commonly in the stores when we were kids, and it became an extended family favorite. We buy a case of it, and some of their other flavors (cherry, raspberry, blueberry) every year for Christmas and send two or three boxes to every household. The dark chocolate orange sticks are particularly scrumptious.
But a quality chocolate also stands on its own.
A few years ago I found a vendor of not too highly priced Vermont maple sugar candies, and for several years we bought those for ourselves and for Christmas distribution. Sadly they stopped selling online, and we haven’t found a replacement we like and can afford. But maple sugar candy is probably my weakest point, even over the chocolate orange sticks we grew up with…
Make that bacon or sausage and I’m all in. Too much sweet doesn’t often sit very well with me. Maybe because I tend to overindulge in things from Danish bakeries and boutique creameries.
There is too such a thing as chocolate dipped bacon…..
Concur 100% on not adulterating perfectly good chocolate with nuts…to say nothing of coconut. Detestable substance.
Having said that, my real weakness is chocolate in chips…in cookies.
In my youth I loved going to the Candy Counter at Sears, Roebuck to purchase a one pound bag of chunks of chocolate, either dark or white, or both.
Heaven!
Shame!
You didn’t even mention jelly beans (mixed: by the pound – or two – or more).
What sort of sweet freak can you be without the most addictive candy of all time?
(and not the banana or the coconut: YUK – those are for the S&Ms)
“Well, there’s yer problem, right there!!”
Yep. Posted that as a single post on purpose. See, you, fucker, oh friend of mine, and anyone else in our gun-toting group who lived in the DFW area during a certain timeframe in which many, many blog-wide ‘shoots’ occurred, might remember me (if you remember me at all!) as a fairly thin fellow.
At 220# (that’s 100kg, for those of a non US, non-metric mentation, excepting Kim his ownself, who stubbornly clings to metric like a booger to a toddler’s finger) and oh fuck have I lost count of how many parentheses I have used here while drinking things Kim is not allowed?) )
)
)
God damn shit looks like a computer nerd’s orgasm……
Uh… Ok, might remember me as thin, but living a ‘good life’ has caused some severe aberrations in the chassis…
Anyhoo…..
Now I’m considerably weightier than you might remember my skinny ass. I don’t have as much of a *sweet* tooth, as a *carb* tooth.
I love things like rice, pasta, etc. Show me some ethnic food, I’m on it like white on rice (heh!!!), like spooks on Uber drivers (to their detriment, I predict), like herpes on the …er… sexually adventuresome. Being married to a Polka (female version of Polack… yeah, same shit, but with a cunt-trap), I have learned to love even *more* carbs in the form of perojkie.
Just started one of those annoying as fuck “Hey, look at me, I don’t eat fucking carbs!!” diets, hoping it works well, might need Kim or Doc to just fucking shoot me in the small intestine to force the issue, but thereyago.
Uh… there was apparently no point to this entire post, now that I re-read it. Fuck it. Gonna hit ‘post’ anyway, because sometimes, late night retardation should be preserved, if only for mocking purposes.
I guess I should be thankful I don’t have a sweet tooth. In fact, it’s quite the opposite as I don’t even care for anything sweet. Haven’t any any kind of sugar for ages, I can’t imagine ingesting sugar like you do Kim. Haven’t had a pop since I was a teenager over 50 years ago. I might have a bite of chocolate if my gal is having some but that’s rare for me. I don’t even eat much fruit, just don’t care for that sweetness.
I eat small portions of complex carbs, no simple carbs like pastas and protein like Alaskan salmon or any wild caught fish & poultry. And that’s pretty much it. Don’t get me wrong, I thoroughly enjoy cooking & eating but it’s not a fetish.
Now, if you want to talk about glass…
My mom is Italian, my dad is Irish. I lurve me some carbs. Pasta, potatoes, wine and whiskey. Sometimes all at the same meal.
It’s a curse.
You can get those maple sugar candies from the Vermont Country Store catalog, along with other “vintage” candies you may not have seen in forty years.