The Chocolate Incident

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I refer to this story as the “ Chocolate Candy Incident”. 

When I was growing up our house was on Washington Street in Morristown. The street was really a highway and went straight through the town. If you walk less than a mile you were in the center of town with all its little shops and department stores such as Bambergers and Epstiens. I especially liked the French Bakery Shop.  I would buy what I called the Butterfly which was pastry shaped like a butterfly. It was crispy with a light coating of honey and sugar. 

There was a Candy store on our street only about 5 buildings away from our house. That made me very happy.  It was called Paganos. Pop Pagano ran the store and he and his family lived over the shop.  I was a Chocoholic even back then. Whenever I got my chubby little hands on a nickel I was spending it at Paganos.  I loved Hershey Bars, Clark Bars and Almond Joy.  You got a much bigger piece of Candy for a nickel back then. 

Pop also had a Soda Fountain in the shop.  During the summer my mom and dad would send me there after dinner at least once a week to get ice cream.  We would all be sitting on the front porch and I would wait for the night when my father would say.  “Carol, go to Paganos and get us all ice cream”.   My heart would skip a beat.  They would give me their flavor orders and the money and off I would go.  This was not for an ice cream cone or a cup of ice cream.  This was for the loose packed ice cream that Pop would scoop out of  big containers that where kept under black lids behind the counter.  I would tell him which flavors I wanted and he would put them all into a cardboard ice cream dish. This ice cream was made with real cream and the flavors where natural and rich. Nothing artifical in this stuff and it was full on fat of that I am sure.  I remember my mother always wanted Butter Pecan. I always got Chocolate of course.  I would race home with my treasure and give it to Mama who would go into the kitchen and put it in dishes.  Then we would sit on the porch and watch the people and cars going by and enjoy our ice cream.

But summer fades away and winter comes to New Jersey bringing along with it the Christmas season. The Christmas when I was 11 one of my relatives came by and gave my mother a 5 lb. box of chocolates.  She left it on our dining room table and I guess forgot about it. But I didn’t.  Every morning when I got up I would go downstairs and I had to go through that damn dining room to get to the Kitchen.  Every morning I would have to look right at that box of candy. It seemed to get bigger every time I looked at it and the pictures on the box of the chocolates got more inviting every time I walked by. One day when Mama was not at home I just couldn’t stand it anymore. I took the box of chocolates and went down to the basement

Over the next few days that box of Chocolates and I had a very nice time.  I would sneak down to the basement when Mama was not around and eat my fill.  The basement was cold and nothing was down there but the oil burner, a clothesline and spiders but I didn’t care, I was over the moon and high on Chocolate.  And then it happened.  Mama started looking for the box of candy, asking me if I knew what happened to it. I knew nothing about it, of course.  I had the audacity to say “What box of Candy” and shameless enough to try to implicate my 6 year old sister. “Why don’t you ask Linda” I said.  I must have been pretty convincing because Mama stopped asking about it.  Until the day that I called  Black Tuesday for a longest time. We had some bad weather  that day and Mama had to go down to the basement to hang clothes.  Back in the day we didn’t have clothes dryers.  And guess what she found, “THE EMPTY BOX OF CANDY” that I had forgotten to throw away.   Boy did I catch hell for that from both Mama and Papa.  I was in the dog house for sure.  My sister was just delighted.  Can’t say I blame her.  I had to wash floors for the next month along with being grounded. I also had to hear about the Chocolate Candy Incident for many years to come. If Mama were still alive I would still be hearing about it today.

 

 My Mama had a friend who made fantastic chocolate fudge, her name was Fanny and she would bring it to us from time to time. Mama would try to ration it but my sister and I were unstoppable when it came to sweets. Mama got the recipe from Fannie and started making it during the holidays.  My sister Linda and I still do. We both give it to our friends and family as gifts. I put it in pretty boxes with paper dollies and wrap it with pretty bows.  I give it to my Dr. every year and he talks about it all year to insure he gets it again, LOL.  I love this recipe because it makes a lightly sweet but very creamy fudge.  I don’t usually like fudge because it is too sweet for my taste but this fudge is perfect.  It is a very easy recipe but you would never know it because it tastes so good.

Recipe for Fannies Fudge

16 ounces of semisweet chocolate chips

1 14 oz. can sweetened condensed milk

1 tsp. Vanilla extract

1 cup of chopped walnuts, optional

 

In heavy duty saucepan mix together chocolate chips and condensed milk. Stir constantly over medium heat until chocolate and milk are all combined and melted.  Remove from heat and stir in vanilla and nuts. Pour into an 8 X 8 pan that has been coated with cooking spray. This fudge will set up right away but I refrigerate it for a few hours before I cut it into one inch squares. Once cut it does not need to be refrigerated and will keep for about 2 weeks.  It also freezes very well.