Getting Our Just Desserts

I hate it when my sweet tooth decides to stage a riot. He's a real trouble maker, causing all of the other teeth to join in without hesitation. This leaves my head to battle the whole lot of them. Sometimes, I try to assist my head by flooding the troublemakers with either black coffee or a big bottle of water. If it doesn't help, I occasionally give in. After all, life is short and deprivation is a mortal sin. However, today this tooth led me to wonderful memories of past holidays and the corresponding treats. Normally, this would be Christmastime with my parents. Back then, Dad was quite active in helping or sometimes taking over the preparations of alot of the food. Don't be fooled, the dinners would not have even transpired if Mom had let him have full reign but he did enjoy putting his hands in and cooking a dish or treat, and was fantastic at it! Prepare to get hungry...

There was always too much food on Thanksgiving and Christmas, but we enjoyed. Mom and Dad would collaborate on a big pan of Turkey or Hen with Dressing, which was fantastic and never went 'begging'. But it was a rare and special talent to create the real old-fashioned recipe for "Hershey's Fudge". Made in a big cast iron saucepan, my Dad would ensure that the liquid chocolate magma would reach the 'soft ball stage', which meant it was time to stir until it got a slight 'hazy' look to it, then you must quickly get that stuff on the pan or it would harden up and you'd lose the batch. Mom either got it too hard and it crumbled up or she didn't get it to the right stage and it would be just chocolate putty (which I sometimes still tried to sneak a bite of). Sometimes they would leave it plain, or sometimes they would put walnuts in and on, but either way it tasted fantastic with a huge glass of milk. Mom also loved to make Peanut Brittle, which was good too-but the fudge was my favorite weakness. Great, my stomach is growling now!