Salty and Sweet

I come from a long line of chip mongers. My grandpa, mom and I can sit around and visit over a bag of chips....or three. We don't discriminate when it comes to the deliciously salty snacks. We love them all. Plain, BBQ, Cheese Doritos and thanks to Lays (and my sister-in-law for introducing them) mom and my new addiction, Dill Pickle! If I'm being perfectly honest it was probably even the first food I ate and my first word (OK not really but you get what I'm saying). For years I didn't keep chips in my house because my will power seems to weaken when I know they are around. But when you throw kids into the equation things change.

When it comes to sweets I can take them or leave them. I enjoy a good piece of dark chocolate every once in a while or a few peanut butter m&ms but really they just sit and collect dust. Well they used to, that is, until I met my husband. I'm fairly confident that if you were to check his DNA you would see a piece of chocolate in there. As long as my family history of chip eaters is, his family history of chocolate eaters may be even longer. I remember the first time I met his late grandmother. I loved her as soon as I met her. She reminded me so much of my grandma-great. Even in her late 80's my husband's grandma could recall every one of her 80+ grandchildren (they have an impressively large family) and their birth dates. Like my grandma-great, I could sit and listen to her recount her many years as she lead a very fascinating life. And her first story she ever told me was when she would sew clothes for the people in her village she would always keep three pieces of chocolate near her, every day, to eat while she sewed. And so it was then that I knew it was definitely genetic.

I'll never forget one day in the ICU one of our Cardiac surgeons brought in a huge box of one of the local, favorite doughnut shop doughnuts. We chided the doctor about a Cardiac surgeon feeding the nurses doughnuts, to which he replied "job security" and then laughed and walked off. It was often a running joke to those that visited us about my husband's "chocolate cupboard." From the time we were married we have had an entire shelf designated for his chocolate stash. Everyone would joke about the future cardiac surgeon with the chocolate cupboard. There were all kinds of chocolate from milk to the darkest of dark chocolates. We had Cadbury (his personal favorite), Lindt, Belgian, Swiss. It was like a world tour of chocolate in our cupboard.

Well they do say chocolate is good for the heart right?

Since we will be moving in three short months our chocolate cupboard, that has come to be loved by all of our visitors, has started to dwindled down a lot. Not to be replaced. Wherever we go next though I am confident that when our visitors come they will be pleasantly surprised to see a well stocked chocolate cupboard again......