Chocolate cravings

Chocolate comes from a tree which is called, food of the Gods. We all love chocolate, in some form or the other, the different flavors and shapes and forms. But can chocolate be dangerous and how does chocolate relate to life?  Join me on this podcast as I share some personal experiences, both fun and chaotic and my take on chocolate cravings.

Transcript

Chocolate cravings

Hello Fellow Mavericks, welcome to another exciting episode of the ‘Ordinary Maverick’ podcast.

Recently, Sanjana and I were having a quiet evening at home. If you know us, you will agree how precious that is given our interwoven lives with several commitments, traveling for work and pleasure and given the fact that both of us love connecting with people. All of that doesn’t lend itself well with having quiet evenings! 

However, as Mavericks will understand, we need our ‘me time’, and evenings spent in our home, with zero agendas, and just chatting, reminiscing with periods of comfort silence are ones we both value and selfishly preserve. We need these to continue doing what we need to do! Ha ha.

‘Comfort silence’, heard of this phrase before? For us it’s been a measure of love, of joy, of calm and stability. Think about it. Who can you share moments of comfort silence with….we all need these moments. Well, more on this in another episode.

For now, I want to share what we spoke about. And it was ‘Chocolate’! and the reason was the recent harrowing experience we had with it!.

We know about cravings and the desire to eat something. It crops on you from out of the blue and suddenly that’s all you can think of. Well, we as humans have that but do animals too? what about dogs? Don’t quite know if it was a craving but we had our pup, cleopatra…Cleo for short, recently eat up a full chocolate bar! Cleo is a darling. The smartest, kindest, most loving, playful and sensitive dog and we’re so lucky to have her as part of our family. She’s our daughter’s pup and was staying with us for some time as Niharika, our daughter, settled into her new home in a new country. More on Cleo’s name and her exciting travel log some other time. 

The morning that Cleo had the chocolate started off like any other. The routine was the same, Cleo would have her breakfast meal and then either go up and snooze or stay down depending where we were. Well, that day, Sanjana was busy downstairs and looked for Cleo after a few minutes who had gone upstairs. Calling out for Cleo got no response so Sanjana went looking for her. Imagine the scene…Cleo was upstairs in one of our bedrooms and had dug into a chocolate bar kept ready for packing along with several others in prep for an overseas trip. The whole thing was bizarre, Cleo has never eaten anything that was kept on top, like on a table, or chair, or the bed and not like this…so quietly. If it had been something else, perhaps the chaos and panic wouldn’t have been quite so much but chocolate is poison for dogs. 

What ensued is etched in our minds forever, calls to the Poison board to determine the amount of chocolate ingested relative to Cleo’s weight, multiple calls to the vet followed by an emergency visit, charcoal treatment to help Cleo take out some of the chocolate and foil, all day observations with continued monitoring…Poor Cleo was exhausted! And ha ha…so were we!! 

Must say we learnt so much about chocolate and dogs and doses and emergency treatments! But it was all worth it. Our darling Cleo was fine. Luckily, the dose of chocolate that she had ingested was well below the lethal dose and the foil didn’t seem to have had any aftereffects. No doubt she was exhausted by the day at the vet and all the monitoring, charcoal treatment and was not her usual self that day, she jumped back to her fun-loving playful self in a day and to all our delight. Of course, she wasn’t getting into any chocolate ever again!!! 

Speaking of chocolate, over the years, we’ve had some real fun experiences. One of which always brings a big smile to our faces is the ‘chocolate game’! it was one of the most popular games in our kiddie parties. We always tried to do something fun for our girls’ birthday parties over the years. When they were little, games were a key part to keep kids entertained and have fun at the same time. But the chocolate game was one where we adults were also entertained. This one game was all about a giant hard cold chocolate bar just out of the refrigerator kept in the center which kids got to sample depending on the numbers that came up at the throw of dice, so for example, a perfect 6 on the dice gave you a chance to eat chocolate and continue eating it till someone else got the perfect 6! And then but..yes a very big but…you had cut the chocolate using a butter knife before popping in your winning the roll of dice. Was hilarious watching everyone trying to cut it, and its not easy given that it was cold hard, then tons of pressure …you want to eat the maximum or the biggest chunk gobble it down, try to eat as much as possible before your turn was up! Always brought some happy tears and the game never disappointed. Of course, there was also the odds where one kid never got the perfect 6 and a chance to eat chocolate during the game. We had to plan and give them some extra chocolate bars when they left to compensate and not have crying kids leaving the party!

Another chocolaty experience is when our girls signed up for chocolate making classes. No doubt it was great fun but quite messy too and with all the enthusiasm for making chocolates we suffered with an overdose of chocolate…. honestly didn’t want to see or have anything to do with chocolate for quite some time!

Fellow Mavericks, here are some fun facts about chocolate. You know chocolate comes from a fruit tree, and it’s made from a seed. It takes about 400 cocoa beans to make one pound of chocolate. Each cacao tree produces approximately 2500 beans. You can do the math. One really must work hard to produce chocolate. ‘Theobroma cacao’ is the name of the tree that produces cocoa beans, and you know what it means, ‘Food of the gods’. And that feels so apt, right? It takes two to four days to make a single serving chocolate bar and we should savor it. Enjoy each bite. 

You know what, Fellow Mavericks, here is the thing, life is like chocolate. We need to pause and savor it. Find those moments to slow down, you know, like how we can play a reel in slow motion. I’ve spoken about the memory bank earlier where we store those special moments BUT savoring life and it’s beautiful moments is a unique gift and talent. In this busy life, we need to take special efforts to do so.

Savoring is one thing but let me ask you to pause for a moment and remember the moment you got a box of chocolates and opened it with excitement and anticipation not quite knowing what’s inside…what flavor and what shape. The famous quote from one of my favorite movie, Forrest Gump, holds true, ‘Life is like a box of chocolates. You never know what you’re gonna get’. 

Life is full of surprises, one never knows what one will get but whatever it is, enjoy it, savor it. Like chocolate comes in different flavors and types, some of which you like, some of which you don’t but it’s all an experience, isn’t it? Chocolate looks the same from the outside, but one bite and the taste is unique. Life is just like that, and like one enjoys the different flavors of chocolate, let’s enjoy the different flavors and experiences of life. 

Just as one cannot know the taste of chocolate until you eat it, one cannot understand life’s true essence until experienced. 

And another thing, just like sharing a box of chocolates with someone gives us pleasure, sharing life with someone makes life beautiful. Could be family, friends, colleagues, community. We thrive in sharing experiences and can get through life together.

So, fellow Mavericks, the next time you’re biting into a piece of chocolate, take a moment and savor the experience. Hold the anticipation as you open a box of chocolates, and just like the happiness and excitement of trying out the different flavors, step into each day with that same feeling and with the confidence that I can handle whatever comes my way.

What do you think?  Write your comments, share your feedback at ‘theordinarymaverick@gmail.com’ and follow me on Instagram #theordinarymaverick.  I love hearing from you. 

This is Ajey, signing off and wishing you have an amazing day! Keep well. 

This podcast series was put together as a team effort from the Bhardwaj family.  Concept, design, title, researchers and reviewers: Ajey, Sanjana, Avantika and Niharika Bhardwaj; Script– Sanjana; Cover design – Niharika. All rights reserved.