the chocolate adventure

Chocolate, mmmm...

The Hater and I are getting excited about all the forthcoming holiday festivities. We're chomping at the bit to be home for Christmas. We've been invited to some friends for Thanksgiving, and I'm told I'm to make some cornbread dressing. Nana's cornbread dressing. We'll probably take some green beans that were canned this summer, too.

I found this recipe for white chocolate fudge. I thought the picture was fabulous and just *knew* that it had to taste even better. I had been toying with the idea to make it, so last night I decided to give it a whirl. It looked simple enough.

My first problem was that I didn't have a microwavable bowl big enough to accomodate the whole lot of white chocolate and condensed milk. My second problem was that I realized this as I was scraping white-chocolately goo out of the microwave.

So I had to divide the sludge and microwave it in shifts. But all of the white chocolate morsels didn't want to completely melt. I was quickly reminded of the peanutbutter fudge disaster of 2002, in which Sister and I made lumpy fudge after high expectations of yielding beautiful creamy fudge like Mom and Marian. But lo! I mashed the hot fudge against the bowl until it was mostly melted. Some lumps would have to do.

Now vision the goo still in the microwave. Goo on the counter. Goo in the sink. Goo on my hands. Goo on the outside and inside of the microwave bowl and my mixing bowl. It was a gooful sight. The Hater came to the kitchen to inspect the chocolate and I shoo'd him away with the cat because I knew once he saw the grand takeover of the goo, he would argue that his messes in the kitchen weren't quite as -- gooey. And whereas that might have been true, this was not a time to debate semantics.

I stirred in the remaining ingredients. It reminded me of mixing concrete. And I was surprised that it had as much stuff in it. The picture definitely looks like there's more chocolate than stuff inside it-- and although I didn't have *that* much goo everywhere, the fudge itself looked funny having more mush inside than fudge on the outside.

I told The Hater that if it wasn't at least a 8.572 out of 10, I would not make it again. It wasn't worth the mess. I probably used 8 paper towels to clean up the microwave and kitchen.

Early this morning I took The Hater to the airport for his big trip to Chicago. He had to be at the airport at 5:30, which meant it was a blast from the past for me to get up in the four o'clock hour again. I've come back and had my grits, and thought I'd tackle cutting the fudge.

I about needed a hack saw, but it's cut and in a fancy little tupperware in the fridge. I tasted a little piece and can't decide if I like it or not, if it's made the 8.572 cut. But it's about as pretty as the picture above. Wary reader, be forwarned that the '20 minute' prep time for this recipe does not include the time it takes to realize that you needed a bigger bowl or the resulting quick-clean of the microwave afterwards.

You can call me Julia Child. She was the epitome of the messy chef.