The Church

Sometimes I think I may as well just put “Eat some chocolate” at the top of my daily to-do list and then I’d be sure to get at least one thing done that day! A nice box of chocolates can provide your total intake of calories in one place-isn’t that handy? I don’t think I ate much chocolate as a child or even until I was married and expecting our first child, but then I started mixing up a little bowl of cocoa, powdered sugar and evaporated milk and shaping it into chocolate balls as soon as Doug left home each morning. Not the perfect diet for an expectant mother, but I tried to use equal amounts of dark chocolate and white chocolate-isn’t that a balanced diet? Fortunately, baby Steven was born without a chocolate addiction (although he did request a large Hershey bar for his 50th birthday).

Memorable Chocolate Stories

When we lived in Bloomington, Indiana, while Doug went to graduate school, our Relief Society President, Grete, showed all the sisters how to make hand-dipped chocolates and it blossomed into a huge fundraising project. Most of us were student families and had nowhere to store them so Grete took them home to store them in her big freezer. I bought just one box and

opened it late one evening to have “just one”. The next day I was at Grete’s house and she confessed that she had eaten so many from her first box that she had had to buy another box and had eaten it down to where her husband had last seen it. Only then did I confess that I was there to buy a second box for the same reason!

One day another friend, Janean, was kind enough to bring me a lovely little golden box filled with chocolates. After thanking her profusely, I took a big bite out of a chocolate-covered cotton ball, and spit it out in the trash as she made a quick exit, thoroughly enjoying her little April Fool’s Day prank. I wish I could say it ended there, but thirty years later a young woman came to my door in Provo, Utah, saying she had been asked to deliver some special chocolates from a sister in Rexburg, Idaho, where I had spoken recently. I thanked her and she left, then I opened the chocolates and offered the first one to my son John, who declined saying they were a gift for me. As I bit into yet another chocolate-covered cotton ball, John (who was in on prank) howled with laughter. I ran to open the front door and found Janean’s daughter, Michelle, crouched by the door hoping to enjoy my reaction. After that I was totally alert to pranks on April 1 each year.

Pets and Chocolate

When Steve was dating his future wife, Johanne, she baked him a big plate full of delicious chocolate cookies, and delivered them to him just as he was leaving for somewhere. He left them in his bedroom and returned in a couple of hours anticipating the waiting treat. He came out of his bedroom a bit ticked saying, “Who ate my cookies?” Just at that moment our very tiny miniature poodle Prissy staggered into the room looking twice her normal size around the middle, her stomach almost dragging, and it was obvious who had eaten the cookies–the whole plateful! This was before any of us knew that chocolate was toxic for dogs so she just had to tough it out until the chocolate had . . . well, you know. Fortunately she survived.

One day after visiting teaching interviews at the church, each of the sisters was given a giant cookie, heavy with big chocolate chips. I decided to leave mine on my husband Doug’s pillow as a surprise. But he never got the chance to enjoy it because John’s dog Ikea found it first and ate the whoooooole thing. John forced peroxide down her to induce vomiting, as the vet suggested, but nothing came up. Later, on the way to the vet, with no warning, she vomited frothy, chocolatey liquid all over John’s car! The vet worked with her, gave her meds and an IV for dehydration and decided to keep her overnight. She recovered and I paid the $485 bill, since I left the cookie where she could get it. One man whose dog ate $500 worth of chocolate, counting the vet bills, wrote:

            Dogs love chocolate, don’t know why,
Speeds their hearts up til they die.
Vet bill’s gonna make you cry,
Don’t let dogs eat chocolate (1)

John’s other dog, Cinco, unzipped his suitcase after a trip, ripped open a plastic bag containing a foot-long triangular Toblerone bar, ate 2/3 of it plus the box and the gold foil it was wrapped in. He suffered through the peroxide cleanse, which helped some, but still in the spring when the snow had melted in John’s yard he could spot tiny flecks of shiny gold foil everywhere.

Friends and Chocolate

I’ve done phone-dieting with my friend Delma for nigh onto fifty years. Once we talked about writing new words to the old song “Georgia on My Mind.” Ours would be called “Chocolate on My Mind.” We’ve sworn off chocolate together many times while trying to lose weight. One day I called to see how she was doing and she said, “Not so good, I’ve been on this chocolate-free diet for two weeks and all I’ve lost is fourteen days!” Maybe if chocolate were toxic for humans we

could have found the willpower to succeed. Instead we rationalized that chocolate-covered cherries, orange slices and strawberries all count as fruit, so eat as many as you want.

One Christmas season I sent my friend Bonnie, a gift box of Utah Truffles. (If you haven’t tried one, I suggest you never start!) Her thank you came in the form of a poem (her nickname for me is “Jancie”):

Ode to a Utah Truffle

Dear premium chocolate, all wrapped up in gold-
Your beauty just hints at sweet pleasures untold.
Dear Jancie has sent this temptation so rare,
She knows I will easily fall for the snare.
Oh dreamery, creamery, chocolate delight!
My taste buds adore you! You’re so “out-of-sight!!”
You’re sin-flee delicious, you make grown men cry-
I cannot resist! I will not even try!
Oh why are you dev’lish, yet oh-so-delish?
If I could be granted just one heartfelt wish,
I’d wish that your wondrous and EX-quisite taste
Would melt in my mouth and not go to my waist!

On Valentine’s Day I received this note from Bonnie (with whom I have been writing scripture-based hymns for years):

“Dear Jancie, I got you this box of chocolates, and bought a three-inch box for myself. I can testify that these chocolates are, Desirable to make one happy, and are most sweet, above all that I ever before tasted. As I partook of the [chocolate] thereof, it filled my soul with exceedingly great joy; wherefore, I began to be desirous that [Jancie] should partake of it also, for I knew it was desirable above all other [chocolate]’. Well, we are told to liken the scriptures to ourselves, aren’t we?” I wrote back and said, “I definitely got a smile out of your scriptural/chocolate reference and .

. . it did entice me to partake.”

Once Bonnie sent me a box of chocolates for May Day saying: “I went to Russell Stover’s and bought a sampler box to try them out. They were good and had pretty boxes. Then I went to Barnes & Noble and bought a sample box of Godiva chocolates. They were even better. Next I went to the Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory for a sampler box and these were the very best. I felt it was my duty to research the chocolates in order to find the very best for you. Suspicious of her motives for “researching” the chocolates I replied:

May Day! May Day!

A devious plotter named Bonnie
Did not want her friend to be scrawny-
Would not let her be
Any thinner than she,
So here’s how she spent all her money:

She bought chocolate samplers aplenty
And ate them til each box was empty!
“It’s research,” she said,
“I must find the best,
And then I will buy some for Jancie.”

But some think she may have been lying
About all the sweets she’s been trying.
Though noble her cause,
It does give one pause
To think how much SHE was imbibing!

She “researched” until she decided
Which chocolates were richest and finest,
Then packaged them up
And sent them with love
To sabotage Jancie’s poor diet!

The Chocolate Solution                     

Bonnie eventually discovered that the only true chocolates for me are Nuts and Chews from See’s, and since that time she has kept me (and Doug, who prefers See’s soft-centers) well supplied on every occasion. And our son John earns doggie-sitting points by bringing each of us our favorite See’s candy after each of his frequent trips. The chocolate was accumulating and I realized something had to be done. So now my husband, who is capable of managing his chocolate much better than I am, puts my boxes of chocolates on the highest shelf in the laundry room where he knows I will not scale a ladder to reach them. I get one chocolate a week. This works much better than having them in my drawer where they call out to me loud and clear every time I pass by. Just out of curiosity I asked Doug the other day how many boxes of chocolates were hidden on that shelf. To my amazement, he brought out six boxes! (See photo) I told him in no uncertain terms that he needs to give me a chocolate more often or we’ll never get through them in my lifetime. Besides, chocolate is full of preservatives and will make me look younger!

 Janice Kapp Perry: Composer, author and lecturer

(1) Zeke Hoskin, “I Love Chocolate,” 1988

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