I hate chocolate... There, I said it.

I doubt anyone will be surprised when I say without hesitation that beans, tomatoes, guacamole, and yes, as hard as it is to believe, CHOCOLATE are four foods I despise and would not mind if I never had to see again. The only exceptions to these ever tight rules of anti nasty food is that I can tolerate a snickers bar oddly love white chocolate and I like tomato sauce with my Italian food, but too much is just a bummer. Ok, and yeah, spicy sauces too, but only because the spice outweighs the tomato, ya know?

And so last week as another HUGE piece of chocolate cake was placed before me, I didn’t know if I had the will to do it again. I am all about courtesy and the such, but I’d been crunching on tomatoes and smiling like they were good, mashing beans in my mouth and pretending the ¨full on texture¨ ¨dull on flavor¨ crap was tasty, and had eaten enough ¨it looks like green puke¨ guacamole until all I saw was green and feared how much green I might be seeing if I woke up with an upset stomach that night. I smile and hide the fear when people offer chocolate... ice cream, cake, chocolate bars and the like, but this time, the limits were being tested.

I guess part of that is a lie. It is not like someone is forcing me to eat this stuff (I guess I could be rude or as Roy suggested, say I am allergic) but many times, given our food budget, I find myself in such a desperate state of hunger (I use these words carefully friends) that I feel excited to eat anything, even if it is tomatoes, chocolate, guac, or beans. It is amazing what a tiny salary, limited food, and of that limited food, limited options can get a man to do. My housemates have sat in amazement and watched me do it, probably not really believing I hate these foods given the ferociousness with which I attack the plate.

To save you the suspense I ate the cake, the pure chocolate cake with not a drop of water by and found that God might not answer the first prayer (please don’t let that woman bring cake out here!) or the second prayer (at least make her give the bigger piece to Natalie) but the third time was the charm(Please God, let there be at least one breath mint in my pocket after I finish this). Chocolate still tastes bad and while God has a sense of humor, she at least answers a prayer somewhere along the way.

And you know, slowly but surely, I am kind of getting used to it. I have tried to casually munch on chocolate flavored snacks with some success (i.e. huge glass of milk in the other hand at all times). I can eat black beans if the ratio is like 1 black bean to 30 grains of rice. Guac, well, spray a little hot sauce on the puke like substance and suddenly eating food that appears to be regurgitated ain´t half bad. And tomatoes, again, nothing a bit, or a lot, of salt, pepper, and other ingredients can’t hide from my taste buds.

In other news, just to show I am not a total sell out, eureka struck while we were camping on Christmas day. Emily, my fellow Jesuit trained friend in my community was snacking on marshmallows with peanut butter which gave me the solution chocolate haters who love camping have been searching for probably for ages: a tasty s’more, without the chocolate. And so friends, may I reveal the grand recipe only here on my blog, with a bit of a disclaimer first… I did an extensive google search with several spellings of the word s’more and while a couple people cleverly included recipes that include the marshmallow, crackers, peanut butter and chocolate, I have yet to find anyone that says screw the chocolate and just make what I will simply label as the ¨My Peanut Butter is Better Than Your Chocolate S’more¨:

2 Graham Crackers
1 or both crackers slapped in peanut butter
AND…
1 Marshmallow (toasted to your preference)

So when the weather warms up or over the fireplace in your homes, try it out, and find the bliss you’ve been denied of, if you hate chocolate. And if you like Chocolate, well, keep your mouth shut the world is on your side! When was the last time you ever went to a birthday like party and the cake did not have some form of chocolate in it or accompanying it? Exactly! (=