This week we, the laboratory staff, took advantage of a production break-for-maintenance and attended a seminar on chocolate. This is the stuff of my dreams. Milk, dark or white, I love it all. I've known people who don't, and I just cannot wrap my mind around it. Who could take that lovely, heavenly confection into their mouths and say, yuk, that tastes terrible? Something must be very, very wrong.
We heard a bit about the history of chocolate, its origins in Central America and how it was mixed with chili and drunk bitter, and how the Spanish brought it to Europe where they started to improve the recipe. This brings me to one of the great geniuses in human history whose name is unfortunately unknown to us: the guy who first thought to add milk and sugar. It's a seminal moment in human history. Life would never be the same again.
Then we got to dig in and pour chocolate into molds, add toasted coconut and nuts and decorate our creations to the highest artistic standards. Lord, it was fun. Mostly. Here is where I ran into trouble. We were presented with a bowl of goo and told to roll gobs of it in our hands to make truffles. I did one. My hands were covered with melty chocolate – and I couldn't stand it. I had to run immediately and wash it off.
I don't know when this happened to me. I never used to be the type who was afraid get my hands dirty. When I worked in the kibbutz kitchen and had to mix several tons of ground beef with my hands, I never had a problem. I just dug in. But now I cannot bear to have anything on them, not even yummy chocolate. Maybe this comes from working in a lab where clean hands can save your life. Or maybe I've just taken to heart all those admonitions that the best way to prevent illnesses like colds and flu is to wash your hands frequently. Whatever. Who said people don't change?
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