Making It Up As I Go Along #312

MONDAY...
— Tired at work. Didn’t sleep tonnes last night so I’m not surprised. Work is okay though. Learning some of the team leader stuff for when I become a 2nd in charge in a month or so.

TUESDAY...
— Work takes for ever. It’s a long day and I’d be better off not being around people... one of those hibernation days. But I get through and the last hour or two went okay.

WEDNESDAY...
— Work is a bit annoying. It’s largely to do with the fact that Quality Control is my least favourite place to work... and guess where I’m working this week. Too social... it’s distracting.
— Get an exercise ball and door bar for working out some at home. Do this after work and take a few hours between blowing up the ball and setting up the bar. But I’ll be ready to work it tomorrow.

THURSDAY...
— Work’s okay. I do a few different things and we do a good lasagna lunch at the caf (Melissa, Megan, Carole, Jonathan and myself).
— I leave an hour early... just to start the long weekend off well.
— Supper and a DVD with Melissa and Nick. Pulp Fiction is a classic.
— Watch Survivor on the internet since it came on yesterday due to basketball.

FRIDAY...
— Quiet day around the house for the holiday Friday.
— Get Janice for supper at Grace O’Malley’s (a restaurant, not someone I know). We meet Laura, Atlas, Sheila and Karen there for some drinks and some catch up with Laura. It’s the first time I actually see her since November, and it’s great to catch up.

SATURDAY...
— Lazy house day. Some hockey, some movies, some exercising... and a nap.


Where Have All the Eggs Gone?

Easter is a special time of year. There’s that whole religious type thing with the crucifixion being followed by the resurrection. And, of course, that means that news reporters feel like they’re on the cutting edge by interviewing an actor who happens to play Jesus around this time of year. The actor I saw today gets whipped. I mean he really gets it. He wants to be beat and whipped so he can show the people what it was Christ went through. I forgot to mention that this whole play is acted out while walking down the street in Toronto. It’s a crucifixion parade if you will. And the audience are mostly elderly people who’ve come out to huddle in parkas along the sidewalks while fake Jesus hobbles by, occasionally dropping to his knees... right on top of the street car tracks. I hope God is protecting him, otherwise post Easter will likely bring a bit of workman’s comp. Fake Jesus, is also bald. But he throws on a hippy wig over top of a bandana just before hitting the streets. Good ol’ fake Jesus.

Seriously, even though this is an important holiday for billions across the world, I’m not writing today in order to have any real thought on the religious aspect of Easter. Today I write wondering where another important aspect of the holiday has gone. I saw it once, a month ago... and partook in it’s righteous goodness at that time. But there has been no sign since.

Indeed, I speak today of... the Cadbury Easter Cream Eggs.

Growing up I had much Easter chocolate to ravage. Giant hollow bunnies with crunchy candy eyes that you’d save til last to eat. And other giant bunnies, these not being hollow... that would last a child for months. It would often be the first bite that told you which bunny you had. Would teeth mash through causing a cascade of chocolate bits to drop into the rug (for as a child, I always took my first bite of chocolate on the bedroom floor). Or would the bite take extra effort to snap off a solid piece of chocolate gold?

Over the years, the bunnies, both solid and hollow, were joined by other chocolate creations. Chicks, chickens, and... today... you can chow down on a chocolate Homer Simpson. Mmmm, Homer... arrrrgghhhhh (it’s rather hard to write Homer’s gargling sound).

But in our household, the predominant treasure was the chocolate eggs. Some would be caramel filled, others with peanut butter. And still another group may be just hollow. But the best of the lot and the one that outnumbered the others... was the Cadbury Easter Cream Egg. Probably half of my entire stash would be the cream eggs. So my desert for a week or so after Easter would be one of the other eggs (one day a caramel one, the next a hollow) followed by the cream yolk goodness.

Each year at work, the cream eggs would appear. One day you’d walk into the kitchen to check for a snack of some sort, and you’d look up to see a pile of the red and blue foiled eggs. Greedily would you snatch them... and you’d scurry back to AFIS like a dog running off with a treasured bone... wanting to get to safety before a bigger co-worker steals your chocolately goodness.

There are several ways to eat an Easter Cream Egg. Some put them in the freezer, to harden the sweet nectar inside. Some chop off half the egg so that they can lick and suck out the goo before finishing the other half of chocolate egg.

My style has not changed for many years. The freezer is left out of the equation. I want liquidy ‘yolk’. And I’ll start at the pointy end of the egg, taking a bite of the upper third of the egg. I’ll then examine the candy yolk inside as I chew that first morsel. Some eggs harden on the shelf, and the yolk is beyond the liquid state. These eggs are a disappointment.

But it’s when you look down into that lower two thirds of egg and see a fine blending of white syrup, with that yellow yolk inside, that you know it’ll be an extra enjoyable cream egg experience.

I’ll then take a single lick of the syrupy section. Just to get a taste without the chocolate shell. And then, due to a fear of an overly messy second bite, I deposit the remaining two thirds (minus a lick) into my mouth... all at once.

Yellow candy yolk, creamy white candy yolk, and chocolate shell... all mashed together with each bite. It’s a most gratifying thirty seconds of one’s life.

So this year, about a month ago, I saw the eggs. I had one then and there in the office... and even bought one for a friend. And I looked forward to the remaining weeks of egg eating.

But a funny thing happened. After that first day... the Easter Cream Eggs... were gone.

Even while getting groceries, I’d glance through the Easter section (where chocolate Homer sits)... but no eggs. At the checkout, among the tabloids and chocolate bars... no eggs there either. I once saw a bag of the minis. They’re just like the Easter Cream Egg only... well... as given away by the name... they’re mini.

The minis are not as good as the original however. You get more of these that have the dreaded hardened syrup inside. And the smallness of the eggs makes the one third bite... like... two third chop technic almost an impossibility.

So on this Easter of 2008. I’m left like some of those chocolate bunnies of years gone by... hollow. What happened to my Easter Cream Eggs? Will Easter ever be the same again?