Chocky Milk

Reader advised: this post may make you hungry for a certain chocolate-flavored heavenly treat, or make you puke. It could go either way, but whichever way, I waive all liability.

Last week or so, I read in Runner's World that a good post-run snack for energy replenishment is Chocolate Milk. Yeah, that's right. I'm not a huge fan of milk so what I personally prefer is chocolate soy milk (chocolate Silk is the best). After reading that, I spent the rest of the week wishing I had some chocolate Silk. I even went so far as to try to find our Swiss Miss and put it in some soy milk but I couldn't find the Swiss Miss or figure out whether cold milk would suffice or if I had to heat it up first (which of course I didn't want to do because that would be hot chocolate, not chocolate milk). Saturday night my obsession went full-blown and I spent the entire night sweating on the couch completely distracted by the thought of a tall glass of chocolate Silk and how sweet it would taste. I couldn't just go buy some because we're heading out of town Tuesday and trying not to leave too much perishable food behind in our wake. So what I was really wishing was for a quart of chocolate Silk to just suddenly appear in the fridge. I even went to the fridge and stared into it with the door wide open longing for such.

And such a thing happened. Not Saturday night, when I merely stared into the open fridge longingly, but Sunday morning, when I was actually looking for something else and found it squished into the back corner of the top shelf. It had been completely forgotten, bought this winter with a February 5 expiration date. But that's the fantastic thing about soy milk, it lasts for years and years (especially when unopened) and expiration dates just don't really mean anything. Or at least that's what I told myself when I poured a nice tall glass of it (and it was so cold and perfect) and slammed that down, then slammed down another one several hours later. Oooooh, it tasted so fiiiiiiiiiiiine. It was so sweet and chocolatey and smooth and heavenly and perfect.

And as I blog now about it I am reminded a little of a talk I went to a few years back about the desperate quest to fight cavities and one attempt to put cavity-fighting bacteria in chocolate milk for kids to drink. The speaker was from the Netherlands and called it "Chocky Milk" and I kept thinking he meant "Chalky Milk" so was imagining bacteria-laden chalk-flavored milk, which of course made me want to hurl. When I realized later he meant chocolate milk, and the bacteria were totally the same as what's in yogurt (well not quite but pretty similar), the talk took on a whole new meaning. Now I think, Mmmmmmm, Chocky Milk....! and I imagine my six-month-old chocolate Silk that appeared suddenly in my fridge on a Sunday morning when I so desperately wanted it.

Now we'll all wait and see what happens to me tomorrow. Will I have a new breed of bacteria in my mouth that miraculously prevents cavities? Will I want to hurl? We'll have to wait and see! And meanwhile, I still have at least one last glass left in that miracle quart of chocolate Silk.