When I was young, my mother always kept a well-stocked pantry. It was a long tall cupboard and it always seemed full. I remember flours, sugars, cereals, tomatoes, nuts, anchovies (yes, anchovies), vinaigrettes, teas, pastas, rice, beans, loads of spices (to this day, my mother has a larger spice collection than anyone I know – alphabetized, no less!), and always…always chocolate chips.

Whenever we would bring home the groceries, Mum would immediately open the bag of chocolate chips and dump them into an old coffee tin, which we kept in the lazy Susan. As an adult, I now know that coffee tin was the kiss of death for both of us. It was this coffee tin ritual that resulted in us often not having enough chocolate chips to make a batch of cookies! It was too easy for both of us to just lift the lid of the coffee tin, slip our hands inside and grap a handful of chocolate chips at any time. Had we left the chocolate chips in their bag, it would have meant actually opening the bag in order to have a little snack - too much of an open indulgence of our whimsical cravings. No, it was more enjoyable (and guilt-free) for us to have the chips “stylishly” stored in an old coffee tin. If we didn’t have enough chips for a batch of cookies, why we’d just have to go get another bag, of course!

Many years later, when I was out of school, I’d go visit my parents in the summertime. It seems both my mother and I had graduated at that time - me from university, and she from chocolate chips. The coffee tin of chocolate chips was no longer. Instead, I found large bars of high end dark chocolate in the uppermost section of the fridge door. Of course, having been schooled in the fine art of chocolate love and obsession as a child, I eagerly sought out the graduate school of chocolate that my mother now stored in a more careful place. The old adage rang true - mother always knows best. My love for chocolate progressed to the next logical step, and I began to seek out only dark chocolate.

That was that. I officially left chocolate chips behind. Indeed, sometimes I’ve even been known to scoff at them as inferior chocolate-wannabe’s. Chocolate chip cookies are not even worth the caloric expenditure unless they are chocolate chunk cookies, and even then, those chunks had better be 65% cocoa solids at the very least!

Now I’m many years older and still hold chocolate dear to my heart. I can no longer indulge my chocolate fantasies as much as I’d like to, so I have to be selective and weigh my options carefully. Would I ever give chocolate up? No way! Instead, I indulge myself with the cream of the crop, the very best chocolate I can find - not too much, but just enough to satiate the craving. Stopping is not always easy, but I wouldn’t want to eat all the chocolate in the house. Afterall, there’s something comforting about having a bar of very fine dark chocolate in the uppermost section of the fridge door - my security bar.

Happy Valentine’s Day!