My Childhood Dream of Chocolate Soup Has Come True
Savoring île flottante au chocolat
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These last few weeks have been so serious.
Endless handwashing. Relentless cooking and cleaning. Unceasing worry. Repeat.
It’s no wonder I’ve been thinking so much about my childhood, when the hardest thing I ever had to do was choose between Easy Mac and Chef Boyardee.
Born in 1996, I was a kid during what was probably the golden age of microwave meals. Mom’s cooking (and she is a very good cook) didn’t stand a chance when commercials for Hot Pockets and Kid Cuisine filled my dreams with images of hamburger-stuffed pizzas and rainbow-sprinkled brownies that I cannot believe I actually ingested. Some of my favorite foods, both frozen and fresh, were as follows:
Go-to snack: Five saltine crackers with cream cheese.
Birthday request: Duncan Hines Signature Strawberry Supreme Cake Mix with accompanying strawberry frosting. A pink monstrosity loved by nobody but me. Bonus points if it was served a la mode with Braum’s strawberry ice cream, studded with big chunks of frozen fruit.
Special treat: For most of my life, a blue box contained what I thought was the greatest food in the whole world: Kraft Macaroni & Cheese. I ate this so often that my mom once told me that I would turn into a noodle if my habit continued. This image — of me, armless and tubular—was so frightening that I cried and threw up, but it wasn’t enough to scar me permanently; I still prefer Kraft to any baked, truffled, “gourmet” mac and cheese to this day.
When Mom and Dad were out: Microwave dinners. Score. Always in the freezer and ready to be transformed by Chef Mic were Swanson’s single-serving chicken pot pies and Michelina’s fettuccine alfredo with chicken and broccoli (I’d eat all of the broccoli first to get it “out of the way” of the creamy good stuff).
Sometimes I ate real food. Mostly I remember what my dad’s mom, Mama Gin, cooked for us on Sundays. My favorites were her mashed potatoes with brown gravy at lunch and banana pudding with Nilla Wafers for dessert. She also made a mean chicken spaghetti, which is a very Southern amalgamation of spaghetti baked with chicken, cream of mushroom soup, canned…
