Ms Chocolate Box Unwrapped

I'm Zoe Adler Bishop, granddaughter of The Chocolate Box. There's chocolate running through my veins. Maybe that's why I write about the sweet stuff - life, in all its flavours.

[thechocolatebox]

Tech-free holiday time

If you have kids old enough to push buttons you're probably hearing these words a lot these school holidays.

'One more minute.'

'I've just got to do something.'

'I CAN'T pause it.'

'I'm going to die!!!!'

iPads, iPhones, computers and tablets taken over just like old sci-fi movies predicted evil machines would. They may not be running the planet (yet) but they've got kids in their control.

And they're useful. Hux got his iPad for Xmas because we had a 14 hour flight ahead of us.

All the long stop overs and boring waiting bits of travelling with kids were peaceful - as long as we had a power point when needed. 

And Az recently got an iPhone from Uncle Tim. He became a tween overnight. Headphones on, messaging his friends, taking Instagram pictures and feeling any separation from his new device like an amputation.

They love it, parents enjoy the quiet, but there's that niggling worry that most parents I know grapple with. Are our kids losing the ability to have fun without staring at a screen?

These school holidays we went to Jervis Bay, with our friends Greta and Paul and their three kids Sophia (3), Kurtis (8) and Ruby (14). The house we rented was surrounded by paddocks, bushland and hopping kangaroos.

A horse came to greet us the first morning. Hux and Kurtis came out briefly to see it and then back inside to play on their iPads. Az and Ruby were soon out getting snaps with their devices. 

And so was I. The horse photo was taken on my phone and shared to Facebook before breakfast.

We had a fun first day; walking around the property, horse riding in the nearby bush.  But as soon as they weren't actively occupied, all the kids went back to their devices as a default option, even little Sophia who likes games on her mum's phone. I was starting to notice I had a problem too. I was checking who had liked my horse photo, and what other people were posting. Paul was checking his work emails on his phone. We were on holiday but with one foot still in the rest of the world.

We decided the next day would be a tech-free day.

I put the phones and iPads in a high up cupboard. I was not popular. 

But then something beautiful happened. The kids went out and made teepees. They slid down the stairs in sleeping bags. They played wild shoot em up games and board games. They messed around on the guitars. Us adults smiled at each other over chocolate and books. And I resisted the urge to reach for my phone and post the joy to Facebook.

On the way home we stopped in at Kiama Laser siege. For the first round of fighting I sat on my computer and tried to catch up on work, but it sounded like too much fun. For round 2 I picked up a laser gun and went to war in a maze of cardboard boxes.

After the game the woman tallied our scores. She seemed genuinely taken aback.

'Your kids shot you over 100 times,' she said.

It was four times the amount anyone else copped it. She discovered even Paul (who was on my team) had fired 10 of them!

I blame our tech-free holiday moment for their wrath. But at least I now know for sure their fun is not dependant on a screen. And now I admit I see the value in those computer games. If I practiced my virtual shooting I might have got in a few more hits myself.

[thechocolatebox]

Trouble at Tosca

We all love to be swept up in a great story.

Legendary film reviewer Robert Ebert, who recently died of cancer, put it well in his very last blog:

'On good days, I may wax ecstatic about a movie so good it transports me beyond illness.' 

These words stayed with me. Films, books and theatre have this power. They suspend our thoughts about how a book was written, who acts in the film or what lighting is used on stage as the story takes us away.   

My friend Noodle is part of this alchemy. She's a travelling theatre technician. She works behind the scenes on shows around the world, making sure audiences are enchanted, oblivious to the hard work going on backstage. She has toured with Bassyman, an Arabic theatre company reinterpreting Shakespearean plays, worked for the Graeae Theatre Company, who make theatre for actors with a disability. And she adores the Edinburgh Festival where she gets to see everything for free.

Whenever she comes to Sydney it's to play a part in making something magnificent. Last time she helped build La Traviata's nine-metre crystal chandelier over Circular Queue. She then spent night after night, sometimes in pouring rain, lighting the floating stage from a tower.

This time she's here for Puccini's 'most passionate opera' Tosca, directed by John Bell. Being Noodle's friend has its perks. Tealia and I got tickets to the final dress rehearsal yesterday.

We are mistresses of the quick change. At 11.30 I was still in my trackies at my desk and she was up to her eyeballs in small children. By 12 we were all frocked-up - I in houndstooth, she in velvet - and on our separate trains heading to Circular Queue. A man on the train smiled as he watched me bumpily apply liquid eyeliner in the moving carriage.

'Have a good day sweetheart,' he said as he got off at Central.

'I will,' I said rubbing smudges off my face .'I'm going to the opera!' I wanted to yell after him.

As the glittering harbour came into view my excitement grew. I've been to lots of musicals and plays, but never, I realised the opera. Noodle had warned us it went for three and a half hours so this would be a baptism by fiery singing.

Tealia was late. I love it when other people are late.

I have been running half an hour behind for most of my life, so waiting is a treat for me. I watched the crowd sip wine and talk. There were young girls in impossibly high heels and elegant men earnestly reading their programs. I particuarly liked the impeccably-dressed old ladies in their twin sets and scarves who reminded me of my grandmother. I knew that would be Tealia and I one day.

Tealia burst in just in time, having run all the way from the station. No impossibly high heels for Tealia and I, motorbike boots and docs, you never know when you may have to sprint!

As we sat down we peered around the lighting boxes for Noodle to no avail.

Then we were consumed by the love story of Tosca and Cavaradossi. There were Italian subtitles - known as surtitles in opera I now know ;) So as well as enjoying the soaring voices and full magnificent orchestra, we knew what was going on. I nudged Telia when after Tosca's jealous outburst Cavaradossi exclaims:

My adored Tosca

I love everything about you;

your fearless anger

and your aching love!

'That's the spirit,' I whispered. Being tumultuous women Tealia and I loved our feisty Italian opera heroine's dramatic moods too.

Interval came, and as Noodle did a mammoth set-change Tealia and I had dainty sandwiches, ginger chocolate and cups of tea.

We are doing  Dry July so can't drink alcohol this month, but who needs it when you have chocolate and the drama of Tosca?

The next act was incredible. Tealia, a costumier, was sighing over Tosca's stunning silver-bodiced gown and I was gasping over the twist in the storyline. (Don't worry if you haven't seen it - no spoiler alert.)

It was during a particularly passionate song I got in trouble.

I'd decided I needed another ginger chocolate.  Too late I discovered the rustling of the bag greatly upset my fellow audience members.  By that point my hand was halfway in. It was the loudest bag in history. I got us our choccys anyway. The crunching of the bag still audible over the tuts of discontent around me. But it was nowhere near as much trouble as Tosca was getting into, and it was worth it: chocolate and opera go hand in glove.

Noodle has since told me people bring whole picnics. The secret is to unwrap during the clapping;)

In the second interval us booze-free ladies went for tea #2 beside the water with a ginger truffle bar.

We met two Russian opera lovers who have seen Tosca 'a million times' but never tire of the story and seeing the different ways it's told. I hadn't realised that this adaption, with the evil Scarpia as a Nazi, is a completely new take. The Russians told us the original was set in the Napoleonic Wars, long before Puccini's time.  They loved it that we didn't know what was going to happen and chuckled at how shocked we'd be as we went in for the final act.

The end was still a surprise. We were riveted to the very last second. The power of Tosca's story has lost nothing over its many years.

It was impossible to believe more than three hours had passed. We didn't want to go back to our own lives yet.  But stepping out onto sparkling Sydney Harbour was hardly a jolt into the mundane.

We strolled arm in arm, our happiness only marred by the fact that we couldn't take Noodle with us. She had to work until 10pm, helping make magic for the rest of us to be swept up in. 

What story has swept you away recently?

(chandelier photos courtesy of Noodle)

[thechocolatebox]

Soccer Mum Surrender

I never wanted to be a soccer mum.  But a violent scene with a cricket bat changed all that.

I was one of those kids who forgot their PE gear on purpose to get out of sport. The words netball or hockey sent me running to sick bay.

My family didn't play anything except for occasional table tennis and never watched sport on TV, apart from my Dad dozing off to the sound of Wimbledon.

When I went to a football game once in my teens I spent the whole time thinking about how great it would be if you could get that many people hyped up at a forest protest rather than over a stupid ball.

So when my two small boys showed no interest in sport I decided it was hereditary. Plus other friends were soccer mums and it seemed to involve lots of driving around and standing on an oval with other parents making small talk.

I hate small talk with other parents almost as much as sport.

Until the cricket bat incident...

Hux was playing cricket with a friend. His friends' Dad was playing too, as was my new boyfriend Paul (whose enjoyment of sport I was slowly starting to accept). I was drinking a glass of wine on the blanket and thinking how wholesome it all was.

Then Hux got batted out (if that's what it's called) But he didn't want to give up the bat. An unsportsman-like tussle ensued.  The next thing I knew Hux was brandishing the bat over his head and chasing the other child across the oval screaming. 

What was wrong with my kid? Why didn't he know how to play team sport. Oh.

I called the local soccer team the next day. The season had started but  one team still needed a player.  I literally dragged Hux to the oval.  The first team I found that looked about his size I approached. The creatures I had long avoided, soccer mums, welcomed me warmly. Their kids high-fived Hux on his fist kick. We both came off the field beaming.

We are now into on our second season.  It's amazing to see not only how the boys have grown since last year but how they pass the ball, celebrate each others victories and deal with losses with grace.  

But during Wednesday night training I often forget to watch. My soccer mums and I don't only discuss kids, but books, writing, life and love.  It's a moment at the end of our days where we can all stand on the grass and talk, not small but big, under the darkening sky.  

At the Saturday games though we barely chat. We're too busy cheering wildly. Televised sport still repels me but seeing eight year olds battle it out over a ball is breathtaking. They are still learning how to think ahead and to control their limbs (especially Hux). Their falls are dramatic, their attention spans sporadic and is there anything more beautiful than seeing your child run, have fun and be part of something? 

Some of the other teams' parents are the kind I feared.  They yell viciously at their kids as if they're at risk of losing the World Cup. We stay firmly on our side of the pitch giggling at their angry faces. I'm grateful I never had parents that took sport that seriously. God knows how much hockey I'd have had to endure.

Win or lose the kids are happy at the end of the game. Their coach Rhys picks a 'man of the match' each week, not on number of goals but on trying, teamwork and improvement. 

And they have all more than deserved some chocolate. 

That kid brandishing a cricket bat has become the one sharing chocolate with his team. And I am proud to say I am a soccer mum.

[thechocolatebox]

Dessert discoveries

I'm now 80,000 words into my writing my first novel.  But one thing nearly stopped me getting past the first chapter. I was worried that my idea wasn't original. It was a lecturer at uni that finally put a stop to this paranoia.  She shrugged and agreed every idea has been done, but no one else can write it in your voice, your way.

This solved a lot of questions for me.  How so many beautiful melodies have been made from only the five humble strings on a guitar.  Why a cover version of a song can bring you to tears when the original left you cold. How, from the contents of a fridge someone can make something that tastes completely new thanks to their creativity ...or perhaps a lucky accident.

Picture Ruth Wakefield in her flour-covered apron, cursing and searching through her cupboards as she hears cars coming up the lonely dirt track between Boston and New Bedford, Massachusets.  

The Toll Inn which she and her husband took over in 1930 had a reputation. In the 1700s every traveller that stopped there paid a toll, changed their horses and ate a home-cooked meal. Ruth had upheld this tradition and her cooking was legendary.

Ruth keeps hunting.  She hears the front door open.  Tired travellers stomp their boots on the doormat. They’ll be hungry.  People journey far for her meals. And once the plates are cleared they’ll be expecting one of her famous desserts. 

Ruth had planned to make her Butter Drop Do cookies, but by this point she has pulled everything out of the cupboards and still can't find her baker’s chocolate.  What to do?

I'm sure we've all been in this situation.  And most of us live closer than Ruth did to a shop.  Many of us have done what she did.  She experimented and came up with something new..

One of my soccer mum friends Alicia told me that when she ran out of basil for pesto she made it with brocolli and it was loads better! My friend Zoe says she didn't have any bread for a toasted sandwich one time during her uni days, made it with banana bread instead and never went back.

At the Toll Inn Ruth grabbed a block of semi-sweet chocolate, broke it up and threw it into her cookie mixture, hoping the chocolate would melt through the mixture, making chocolate cookies.

It didn't.  Something better happened.  She had invented the chocolate chip cookie!

Her cookies became so famous JF Kennedy even ate them.  And she secured herself a lifetime supply of chocolate.

If Ruth can make a new taste sensation so can Azlan! After the success of cooking from the box with caramel eggs.  Azlan decided to invent his own cookies.  He put peanut butter inside chocolate biscuits, covered them with melted chocolate and topped with chocolate raspberries and chocolate rocks.

Ta da!

Azlan's invention has not become famous.. yet.  But I'm sure Ruth Wakefield would appreciate his creativity.

I had some trouble getting through a whole Azlan cookie.  There was perhaps a few too many ideas all stuck together to make it enjoyable. I hope my novel once it's finished doesn't inspire the same feeling in my readers.  He and I will just have to keep experimenting, trying new flavours, new words, new ideas.  I'm sure everyone has their own version of the chocolate chip cookie just waiting to be born.

[thechocolatebox]

An extra delicious day : to plan or not to plan the long weekend

Weekends are ALWAYS too quick aren’t they? I am so used to packing everything into them like a shopping bag;

fruit and veg = clean the house and put a dent in the laundry pile.

stuff for school lunches = kid's sports, playdates. 

treats = a night out or blissful chill out in front of a movie. 

practical stuff like Tupperware = fixing things, mowing the lawn.

By the time I get to the Sunday night I might still be folding laundry just to be ready for Monday.

But no more complaints.  This weekend we have an extra delicious day. It’s like being given another shopping bag and being told to put in anything you want…

Even for a girl working from home the excitement is palpable.  As the weekend zooms closer the fever rises. 

On Twitter the hashtag #longweekend is trending madly as people count down the hours in their offices.  They’re planning trips away, renovations, Mad Men binges and parties.

On Facebook my friends are posting about going to gigs, driving to the country, writing poetry and drinking wine.

(Are you wondering how I get any work done snooping on social media so much?..answer not enough!)

My plan is to check out the last of the Vivid lights tonight ..

  ...and have a drink with my red dust-covered friend Becci back from Central Australia, who I wrote about saying a salty & and sweet goodbye to earlier in the year.

My boys are at their dads this week.  So I planned to use the time to work on my novel, finish The Burial by Courtney Collins while munching dark choc almonds,

...see friends, check out a band, have dinner with Paul’s folks, do some gardening, move loads of furniture from one roon to another…the list is growing and it's not even Friday night yet!

There’s also a slight spanner in the works. This week the power went out in the middle of the night.  No fridge, no microwave, no washing machine.  It was a bumpy morning. It turned out my washing machine was tripping the whole house. I know how old that machine is.  My parents gave it to me when Hux, now 9, was born.  It has washed everything the kids have needed as they've grown; nappies, grow suits, Spiderman costumes, school shirts, soccer gear, martial arts uniforms and a gazillion more things.  No wonder it has carked it. 

Todd, the repair guy came today.  He turned out to be a closet poetry lover and history buff.  As he pulled parts from the washing machine he recited Keats.

Todd doesn’t have a plan for the long weekend.  He's leaving it open. He told me that last long weekend he got in his car to visit a friend and kept driving.  He ended up climbing a mountain in Murramarang National Park in only bare feet, a Neil Young T-shirt and boardies.  He grinned at the memory as he packed up his gear.

Sadly no poetry or anything in Todd’s tool bag could fix my overworked washing machine.  And being the long weekend he won’t be back until at least Tuesday.  I think it would be an imposition to try and deal with all my laundry in my neighbour Mel’s machine, like I did with the essentials last night. And I don't want to spend days and dollars at the laundromat.

But Todd has inspired me.  I'm going to stop filling my shopping bags with plans, close the laundry door and just see what the long weekend brings.  I much prefer the sound of a real mountain to a mountain of laundry for my extra delicious day.

[thechocolatebox]

THE CHOCOLATE CURE

My neck is frozen.  I can’t turn my head either way and even yawning hurts.  My ability to see behind me, and therefore my chances of survival in the wild = zero.  I've been wearing a black and grey skivvy for two days, an orange scarf swathed around my neck and a hot wheat pack on my shoulder like an ugly, comatose parrot.  If you can’t tell already, I’m grumpy.

Now I know injuries come a lot worse than that.  A friend’s husband is in spinal rehab right now.  But there’s no denying the frustration that comes with any kind of immobility.  Our bodies are supposed to carry us through right?  Even with the occasional missed lunch, one too many drinks or over-enthusiastic jogging.

Yes, I was jogging.  It was 6:30am and I had reignited my night vs. morning experiment.  I was running through the early morning fog we had in Sydney this week..

..feeling like I was in a movie montage: imagining myself crossing the finish line of the City to Surf with my best friend Tealia.

‘Ego’ stated my massage therapist when I told her why I was running. 

‘It would be for charity,’ I mumbled, trying not to hang my head in shame (too painful). But it was true, I was running towards an image in my head: Tealia and me, fit and triumphant, just a little sweaty, but not much, because as I mentioned, we were so fit.

My friend and I are in our latish thirties.  We met on the brink of our twenties as waitresses in Alice Springs.  Back then we were immortal, of course. I was about to travel the world and she to win the Camel Cup... 

Back then our bodies were the vehicles for our dreams and they didn’t need much in the tank.

But I’ve thrown a tonne of stuff in the tank this week; painkillers, anti-inflammatory gel, tiger balm, fish oil, to no avail.  Last night when my youngest got into my bed at nine pm because he couldn’t sleep, I took two Mersyndols curled up next to him and passed out. 

Today my head was as foggy as those Sydney mornings.

But I needed to get the kids to school and I needed to write.  I’m a freelancer.  I work for myself.  There’s nobody I can call and chuck a sickie to.  The medicine cabinet was out of ideas.

‘You need to look after yourself,’ my partner Paul said.  ‘Just because you’re self-employed, you don’t have to be the meanest boss ever.’  And he had a point. No one can be as hard on me as I am: no one else has all the material! Who but ourselves knows our egotistical hankerings, our insecurities, our laziness and how much we’d really all like to crumple onto the couch with a big block of chocolate?

I couldn’t crumple because I had deadlines to meet and money to make.  Once you’re a parent, looking after your kids trumps your own care in every contest. But I could get chocolate. When my kids are hurt or sad a hug and chocolate always helps.  Why not look after myself the same way?  Halfway through the block I feel better.  I still can’t move my head but I’m comforted.  Apparently dark chocolate can calm you down, but I think anything you enjoy is going to give you that moment of bliss that makes the next step easier.

And what’s that other emotion we beat ourselves up with?  Guilt? I have none.  I’ll be training again for the City to Surf next week- if only the one in my head.

(Foggy Sydney photo courtesy abc.net)

[thechocolatebox]

Ms Choc Box & The Chocolate Factory

Last time I was in Melbourne I got lucky like Charlie Bucket.  I GOT A GOLDEN TICKET.

Oh, the excitement when Charlie unwrapped that chocolate bar to see his shiny ticket to Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory. My ticket came in the form of an email. I was to be shown the answer to the bigger question than the one about babies being made ...Where does chocolate come from??

But I did have one fear.  As a kid I saw the Annie musical, still at an age when Annie to me was a real girl.  During a dance number, I saw her whisper something to Daddy Warbucks.  He laughed.  And in that moment I knew they were actors. The magic was gone. I hoped seeing behind the chocolate scenes wouldn’t have the same affect.

I didn’t drag Grandpa Joe out of bed to come with me, but brought Rochelle, the Chocolate Box marketing manager.  Turns out she was a worthy companion.  She drove the big Chocolate Box van with skill..

..and looked great in a hairnet (as you will see).  We didn’t think we would have any trouble finding the place, as we had both read the book…

“It had huge iron gates leading into it, and a high wall surrounding it, and smoke belching from its chimneys, and strange whizzing sounds coming from deep inside it. And outside the walls, for half a mile around in every direction, the air was scented with the heavy rich smell of melting chocolate!”

- Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl

Due to a lack of tall chimneys we didn’t find it straight away.  But thanks to Google maps we were soon pushing open the huge factory gates – well, glass doors.  One thing hasn’t changed about chocolate factories – the wonderful enveloping chocolatey smell.

Theo was our Willy Wonka for the afternoon.  He asked us to remove our jewellery and don lab coats and hairnets. 

Looking hygienically stylish, we descended into the warmth of the factory…

Roald Dahl’s book was inspired by the chocolate company rivalry going on when he was a child.  Cadbury and Rowntree were England’s biggest chocolate suppliers and would send spies to steal each other’s secrets. Theo, may not have worn a top hat, but the secrecy around fine chocolate making remains the same. European tourists visiting chocolate factories are sometimes accused of being chocolate spies. There were strict rules about what we could photograph.  So I’m sorry, you won’t be seeing the chocolate river today.

Our first stop was a room of giant containers of premium cocoa butter and milk solids. It opened onto a room of whirring machines.  The heat was dizzying.  It had to stay a continious 40-50 degrees.  We peered into three hundred kilo vats of chocolate, and I understood why it was unsafe for the kids to come along - only an adult could restrain themselves from jumping in! Plus Theo told us that inside were rotating blades refining the chocolate.

Narrow pipes transported the chocolate upstairs.  We followed its journey and met Song using the spinner moulder.  This is the place bilbies, bunnies and other cute chocolate creatures get spun into life.

Next were the depositing moulds, an un-romantic word for the place where chocolate shapes like hearts begin their journey. And on another machine truffle bars were rolled out onto a tray and flattened before reaching the enrober, where they are covered in a curtain of rich chocolate.

The next stop was the panning room, a place that would make any chocoholic dizzy.  What looked like small cement mixers were used to chocolate coat delicious things like nuts and raspberries.  Theo showed us how they then tempered the chocolate to make it shine and give it snap.  In the interests of science we tried tempered and untempered, and then tempered again. 

‘Mmmm,’ we said, trying to look professional with mouths full of chocolate. Theo laughed.  He admitted that after two years of working in the factory he still loves chocolate too much. Staff are encouraged to taste the chocolate on the line at intervals, to ensure flavour.  And when he told us they are invited to come up with new chocolate ideas, I’m sure I saw a Willy Wonka twinkle in his eye.

Nearing the end of our tour we spotted a row of White Pastilles,

and met Rebecca. She has been working at the factory for 18 years and says she is STILL not sick of chocolate!  The rest of us do not have a hope.

I was sad to take off my hairnet.  Theo confessed that he has actually driven home in his before.  

We stepped back onto the street, breathing air no longer scented by sweet chocolate. As I munched on the samples he had given us on the drive home I realised that seeing chocolate being made had not ruined the magic at all.  It now tastes even more delicious knowing that Theo, Rebecca, Song and their marvelous machines brought it all into existence.

(chocolate on its way to YOU!)

[thechocolatebox]

MOTHER'S DAY FROM FAR AWAY - TIPS FROM LONG DISTANCE DAUGHTERS

My shopping centre is covered in pink heart-shaped balloons right now, flagging things that are Mother’s Day presents. Pink balloons don’t help me. I have to chose a present based on easy postage.  Being a long distance daughter puts vases and pot plants out of the question.  Not only must my present somehow say thank you for the unbelievably hard job of parenting.  It must also be light, small and organised in time for an Express Post package to arrive.  No pressure!

Every year this search brings home the reality of living apart: not being able to drop in for a cup of tea, having to cry down a phone instead of on a shoulder. I fought with my mum as a teenager.  I wanted to be anywhere but where I grew up. It wasn’t until I’d put roots down somewhere else that we got closer.

I shouldn't complain.  My best friend lost her mum to cancer this year.  Mine is well, power walking around the park and filling the world with chocolate.  But she has never forgiven me for moving, and even a decade later, finishes most phone calls by asking when I'm coming back.

I got a taste of how she feels when my boys went to England last year. I couldn’t even bear to go into their rooms.  They were so breathtakingly far away. If something happened... just the thought was too much. We had stilted conversations on bad phone lines.  Eight year olds aren’t great on the phone. I started to understand how my mum must feel.

But I'm not the only long distance daughter out there.  I asked some far away friends about how they handle the distance. Nicole in Paris says talking on the phone to her folks in Malaysia is hard..

'I miss my mom all the time now that I m old enough to appreciate her. I seldom call because sometimes I miss her (and dad) so much even hearing her voice breaks me down and I don't want it to set off her worry mode.' 

My boys and I ditched the phone and got on Skype.  There they were, bobbing up and down, hanging their faces upside-down over the screen - much easier than talking. 

My anxiety abated immediately. I could see they were fine. We got good at ‘Skype hugs.’ Something my friend Sophie drew comfort from when she was in London.

'I missed her (and the cat) so much! Skype was a godsend, but it was hard when I was sick and just wanted a hug. My mum would hug her laptop while on Skype to me, which was really sweet.'

No, it’s not the same. But it's about finding creative ways to feel less far away. Although phone calls are hard Nicole uses Wassup to send her parents photos of food.  It's one way to share dinner.  And at least they know she’s eating well.

Sending photo text messages bonds my friend Cherry and her mum in rural NSW:

 'My mum's not that far but it's still too far for me. She just got an iPhone so she sends me photos of the chickens. I send her photos of me and Amanda trying on clothes we can't afford!!!' 

Cherry's mum have laughed so much when that came up on her phone as she fed the chooks.  Plus she knew her kids were together, looking stylish, having fun and thinking of her.  

Being able to send a grin to your mum is a magical thing.  My brother has set up an iCloud family photo stream so we can post photos for our family to like and comment on. It's proud mother heaven - I can post cute kid pics all day without boring the whole of Facebook. 

But on Mother's Day a text or a photo of food is not enough.  And as much as I think chocolate is the perfect gift for anytime.  My mum is surrounded by it every day. Finally, I did find her a fabulous, and postable present, but I can’t tell you what it is, because she’s the first to read this blog (and of course, print them out for a display folder). I can say this year I found something small, light, unbreakable and made from a recycled bomb-shell.  You can check them out here -if you're not my mum.  

It's a thank you, but also a symbol of what a beautiful and strong thing the fiery mother daughter relationship can become, even when you are far away.

[thechocolatebox]

ANZAC DAY – THE DISADVANTAGES OF HISTORY

In the Brisbane Times this morning John Birmingham so beautifully wrote that Anzac Day, ‘doesn’t celebrate men and women who were somehow different to us. It merely pays homage to those who were, and remain, just like us but who, through the disadvantages of history, were called upon to do things all but beyond our comprehension.’

The disadvantages of history threw my Poppy, Richard Adler into service in three allied armies during World War II: Czech, French and British after his escape from the Nazis.  Just as the Aussie diggers fought a war that sent them far from home, Poppy was a pawn amongst many on the sprawling, vicious chessboard of war.

He and his siblings lost their entire family, as people across the world; Afghanistan, Mali, Syria loose theirs everyday.  It seems Anzac Day aims to make sense of the losses of war and place them in a greater context.  So in this spirit I will try to do the same.

Poppy used to joke about the boat that brought him from Dunkirk to his final army posting in England.  The boat was full of chocolate.  In his later year he saw this as an omen of the role chocolate would play in his new life in Australia.

He was on leave in London in uniform at the dance when he met my Grandmother.  They were two European Jewish refugees who had lost so much but were accepted into England.  They began again together. My mother was part of the 'baby boom' that signalled a return to peace and a chance for new life.  How our country treats refugees fleeing war now is something future generations will have to try and make sense of.

Poppy was not one of the fallen.  He lived until ninety-four and saw his new family grow and prosper.  He had a chance to start again. But he was still known to sleep rolled up in a grey army blanket at night.  Only a soldier can really never forget the things they are called upon to do.  

[thechocolatebox]

Night vs Morning

Get up early and you might see me.  Dazed, wearing a strange assortment of clothes I grabbed in the dark, walking, arms swinging, trying to become a morning person.

I’ve always been a night owl who hated chirpy morning people almost as much as mornings. The time of day we like divides us as strongly as if we're dog or cat people, or milk, dark or white chocolate lovers. But is it possible to change? I’m walking up my street at six am.  I’ve been doing it for 11 days.

I’m awake because my bum is growing.  I’ve started working from home and without my daily walk to the station I sit at my computer all day.  Want the proof?  I’m doing it right now. 

So I searched for an extra hour in the day and found it in my least favourite place – outside the doona at dawn. I’m not lazy.  People have different circadian rhythms dictating their sleep cycle.  I'm deeply asleep when the alarm goes off, but I drag myself up, dislodging the cats that have snuggled against my legs, and pull on my sneakers.

Early morning is grainy like a badly focussed photo.  I’m stepping onto another planet.  And I soon discover whose planet.  Dog people.  There’s one on every street, being pulled along by an excited hound sniffing the new morning smells.

On the oval, they roam in packs, chatting as their dogs bound happily ahead. Dogs prove we can change.  Over time they’ve switched their nocturnal wolf behaviour to sync with human habits.  Not sure about cats. Mine seem to sleep on the windowsill most of the day.

I make the dogs jealous by running on the oval where they're banned.  One black poodle named Cookie breaks ranks to join me.  I catch myself thinking it would be fun to have a dog for morning company.

As I come back up my street house lights are turning on. Azlan is wide-awake.  He’s been a morning person since he was born twelve years ago at three am with his eyes wide open.  His brother Hux was born a few years later at three pm asleep and grumpy when woken.  Nothing has changed. This proves my midwife’s theory that birth time dictates your sleep cycle.  A more common theory is that it’s genetic. Azlan can attribute his chirpy mornings to my mum, who no doubt did her walk at five. 

And I may be ready to join her, especially if my bum shows the results.  But there’s one problem.  I love staying up.  I relish the inky peacefulness of a house of sleeping kids.   So after almost two weeks of not enough sleep I’m tired, so tired.  I’m eating every colour of chocolate just to keep going. 

Something has to give.  But will it be morning or night?  The cats don’t care, as long as I don’t come home with Cookie the poodle.

[thechocolatebox]

Cooking from The Box

I’m no Donna Hayes.  Perfectly iced cupcakes and soufflés never come out of my kitchen.  I didn’t know how to cook at all when I first had kids.  Breastfeeding held off this issue for a while.  And mashed banana didn’t challenge me too much.  But eventually I had to start learning, with my children as my victims. 

So my menu is all macaroni cheese, homemade fish fingers, meatballs and things that go well with tomato sauce.  Which means I’ll happily cook for ten kids but an adult dinner party sends me into an anxious frenzy researching dishes that don’t involve grated cheese.  And as for baking, I attempted it for the first time for Hux’s birthday this year…

Which is why cupcakes are not on my resume.

But I’ve been inspired.  In the aftermath of Easter my fellow bloggers and tweeters have come up with some inspired ways to bake with leftover chocolate. 

Leftover chocolate I hear you cry?!  Yes!  Our Easter Bilby went even crazier than usual this year (I blame three over-tired parents with torches at 1am after a bottle of wine) Even the kids agreed some of the booty from their hunt should be saved.

So now we can get creative. Janet Rudolph posted an amazing list of things to do with Easer chocolate on her Dying for Chocolate blog.

http://dyingforchocolate.blogspot.com.au/2013/04/ways-to-use-leftover-easter-chocolate.html

I love her idea of melted Easter bunnies poured over ice cream and topped with nuts.  And Chocolate Ecstasy posted white chocolate and raspberry muffins that would be a divine ending for any white chocolate eggs. 

https://www.facebook.com/ChocolateTours/posts/129393467247560

But my favourite was Sydney’s own Miss Sticky and Sweet’s recipe for caramel egg cupcakes.

http://www.thestickyandsweet.com/easter-egg-cupcakes/

I’ll never match up to Miss Sweet’s artistic cooking photography or her stylish patty cases.  And I have to admit instead of whipping up Devil's Food Cake batter we used packet brownie mix because it was in the cupboard.  We also only had one Choc Box caramel egg left (because they were the best) But here is our Easter Egg recipe.  So easy the kids can do all the work ;)

1.  Chop up Easter eggs.  Do not let your big brother boss you around.  If he wants to do quarters that's up to him.  Note: Parents, do not call big brother a control freak - it would be hypocritical.

2. Follow instructions on box.  The Box is a good cook.

3.  Add in Easter egg pieces.  No you can't eat one yet. You ate loads when you were chopping them up!

4. Now for the super secret surprise ingredient.  Get the last caramel egg from the freezer where it has been cooling down (good tip Miss Sweet!)  

5.  Pop it in the oven.  Floral apron obligatory.  

and lick that spoon..

6.  Cook to perfection eg) Worry that you forgot to set a timer. Open the oven repeatedly in case it's burnt. Stick numerous skewers in it.  Keep touching it to see if it's set.

Take it out. Let it cool.  

Ta - da CHOC BROWNIE EASTER EGG CHIP CARAMEL SURPRISE CAKE!!

Top with candles and sing Happy Birthday. Make the birthday lady smile :)

7.  Congratulate yourself on being an awesome cook. 

8. Serve it up.  Who will get the lucky slice??

So it turns out baking is fun, especially with chocolate that appeared magically in the garden.

[thechocolatebox]

Time Travel

‘But you can’t kill the werewolves,’ Hux said, his eyes wide in the glow of the lava lamp.

‘Why not?’ 

I’m trying to finish the amazing bedtime story he and I have made up before I fall asleep myself. 

‘Because the werewolves are really humans remember? You can’t kill innocent humans.’

'Ok,' I say. But I’m running out of options. 'The pirates are killed by the werewolves?'

‘No!’ He shrieks.  ‘I can’t die!’

Hux is leader of the pirates.  A fine leader who took them to treasure but then begged me to make up zombies and werewolves to attack them.  A cunning leader who I am starting to realise is trying to make bedtime take longer.

Time confounds Hux.  ‘School takes too long,’ he says.  Which is frustrating, when there never seems enough time left for playing Lego or epic bedtime stories.  Every night of the week is filled with soccer or swimming or tennis or martial arts or 'boring' homework, which after all the complaining takes longest of all. No wonder he feels like he needs to invent humans trapped in werewolf bodies to buy some more minutes.

Hux has noticed the tricky thing about time too.  When you’re waiting for something it takes forever.  He and Azlan spotted the Easter egg stash last week.  When there’s chocolate languishing in the house, a week can take a year.  Like when there’s a four day long weekend just around the corner..

I think we've found a practical use for a time travel.  We don’t need to go back to the future in a sports car. We just need the weekend to come faster, and then we need it to slow down, so the four day weekend can be, as Hux suggested, a month weekend.

Last Friday he arrived home tired and disappointed to be still one weekend short of the big one. That’s when I realised I had a mini time machine hidden in the drawer.  So he got his Gianduja egg early...

Why not?  It’s the season of chocolate and there’s way more coming.  Especially for the boy who made a white choc Easter Bilby bonnet out of paper for his hat parade.  It seems this whole family is inspired by chocolate.

[thechocolatebox]

Being the Easter Bunny

Have you seen the Easter bunny? Once as a kid I saw his cotton wool tail squeeze out through a gap in the fence. I didn’t get more than a glimpse before the thrill of hidden chocolate took over.

Now I am the Easter bunny.  You know you’re an adult when you become the mythical creature you once longed to see.  Happily I am one of many.  Between my friends and I there are so many kids that last year we had to head to a nearby chunk of bushland for our hunt.  All us Easer Bunnies went behind a tree, pooled our eggs and shrieked at how much chocolate we had.  Then some of us distracted the kids while others went commando bunny into the bush and hid them.

As we hide eggs we’re following in the ancient bunny prints of the pagan feast of Eostre – the spring hare, which was one of the festivals melded into Christianity.  We all grew up believing in the Easter Bunny, but that’s where our background similarities end.  We’ve been raised in different places with different religions and traditions.  Our Easter Sunday is a big egg salad of them all.

We borrow from the Greek Easter with a egg dying.  Some are dyed traditional red but then the hippy roots kick in and others get tie-died and painted multi coloured. 

Anywhere we have Easter must have a hill, because the dyed eggs are going to get rolled.  Sydney Park was is the best egg rolling Easter spot. This English and German tradition can get messy.  Some of us don’t boil our rolling eggs and kids tend to roll down after them.

Raw eggs are most fun for the egg and spoon race, which can end in tears of yolk.  The adult race is particularly competitive and I’m sure some dads practice (or use blu tak). 

Egg and spoon races aren’t an ancient Easter tradition, but I’ve always loved them, and as they involve eggs – they’re in! One of the best things about becoming a mythical creature is that you can recreate traditions your own way.  We don’t go to church, but we get out in the bush and celebrate something we believe in, community.   And this year I’m going to make another new tradition.

I am no longer an Easter Bunny.  I am going to be an Easter Bilby.  Perhaps my kids will glimpse the shy little snout of an Aussie bilby bounding away after the eggs are hidden.  I’m sure they won’t mind as long as he, or she, leaves plenty of eggs.

[thechocolatebox]

Object obsessions

I have the best Humpty Dumpty eggcup. We always fought over it as kids. Humpty is childhood; Sunday mornings, soldiers dipped in yolk, a texta face drawn on a warm eggshell.   I wouldn’t part with it for anything, and if it broke, well let’s not even go there..

But I heard about a guy who sold everything.  Clothes, books, computer, photo albums the lot. He worked in refugee camps and felt it was unfair to have so much. Even his childhood eggcup would have gone, along with the physical memory held in that china and paint.  Does it matter? Perhaps he prefers his eggs fried anyway.  

It’s not just the eggcup though.  My house is a museum of childhood things. When my brothers visit they are assailed with nostalgia; the rocking horse, letter opener, the tapestry cushions made by my mum when she was pregnant.  This is combined with all the sentimental objects I've collected since. And when I go into uncluttered homes I feel unhinged.  Where is everything? I peek under beds hoping to see stuff hastily shoved out of sight. 

My friend Tealia was faced with a house full of objects after her mum, Lane, passed away. Lane’s great love for her family meant she held on to every object associated with their lives.  Tealia kept the really precious things, but had garage sales for the rest - her own home could only absorb so much. Late on the third night I helped her untangle necklaces and arrange glassware ready for the morning.

Before six am we heard customers arriving.  As I opened the gate a large group began running, yes running, towards the objects.  Each had a particular desire; watches, teacups, elephants, 50s wallpaper, old tools, car parts. People’s hunger for things seemed unquenchable. I watched as Tealia said goodbye with such grace to things she knew didn't hold the real memories in her heart.

A few weeks later we ended up at the exhibition ‘Waste Not’ by Song Dong at Carriageworks.  Tealia and I held hands and walked through over ten thousand household objects collected by Song’s mother. Living through extreme poverty in China meant she'd kept anything deemed useful, and when her husband died the things became a way of filling the space.  Only when her son convinced her the collection taking over her home could become art would she part with it.

I scan an eye over my house.  The surfaces are busy, but not quite ready for an exhibition yet. If objects can be useful practically or as vessels for memory, the Humpty eggcup is both.  I think Song Dong’s mum would appreciate its usefulness at holding eggs, and Lane would have valued all the family memories it holds.  (I now have one of her glass side plates for the soldiers.) Right now Humpty has a Gianduja egg for a head which will be lucky to make it to Easter.  Thankfully, us humans aren’t quite so attached to keeping chocolate.  We are more obsessed with eating it.  

[thechocolatebox]

Cutting the cake cord

You don’t think about it when you’re a kid, but your mum GAVE BIRTH when you were born.  It explains a few things; the way they get teary on your birthday, the way they want a call to tell them you’re alive.  For kids birthdays just happen, the presents, lolly bags, cake plus candles- they sleep right through those late night balloon-blowing sessions.

Although kids may not realise (and it’s part of being a kid not to have to) other mums do.  One tradition upheld by my friend Leanne and I throughout the blur of backyard parties was that the mum got a bottle of champagne.

‘You did it!’ We’d toast, as the piñata was whacked.  ‘Another year!’ It’s no mean feat keeping kids alive and well and happy and remembering their manners.  There’s also a huge physical exhaustion involved in breastfeeding, night waking, nappies and other things too boring to list, not to mention celebrating it all - but I look back at it in a Wonder Years haze, because my friends were by my side shouting ‘Woo Hoo!’

Now our boys are nearly teenagers the days of stuffing piñatas are over. Hux turned 9 this week and opted for an X Box sleepover party at his Dad’s place.  He made his own invites and chose his present. My only challenge was wrapping a bike in not enough wrapping paper and making cupcakes for his class that would not embarrass him - too much!

It’s a weird liberation when your body is no longer drunk from and hung off.  You’ve learnt to do everything with one hand and then find your hands are back and they are over your ears, as bad R & B blasts from your baby’s bedroom.

Leanne has confronted bullies on the high school bus this year – and won. And my cupcakes actually tasted good (wasted on kids!) Leanne isn’t drinking these days, so in lieu of champagne I’m going to share some Cocoa Macadamias with her.  We can munch a toast to another year of doing it.  And try to figure out what to do about their music taste.

[thechocolatebox]

Making Red Velvet cupcakes for Hux's 9th birthday. I'm terrible at baking, but this time they've got to be perfect, or at least tasty.  27 of his school mates are going to eat them. Just another way I could potentially embarrass my child and give way the fact I'm more kid than mum!  Fingers crossed - the batter tastes delish.  But it makes me think about what birthdays mean for mums..new blog coming in the next few days.

[thechocolatebox]

Poppy

  On my mantelpiece is a photo of my grandparents beside a gigantic easter egg.  At the time it was the biggest in the world. Admittedly my family is not tall, but my grandparents, Rose and Richard Adler look tiny beside it.  To say it’s cool that your Nanny and Poppy pose next to a humungous piece of chocolate is an understatement.  That this was their business probably sounds as cool as it gets for a grandchild.

But as any kid descending from small business owners know, it’s not all smiling photos.  At family dinners we sometimes banned ‘talking shop’, so something other than chocolate could get airtime – nougat perhaps. The hard work they put into The Chocolate Box was bigger than anything in The Guinness Book of Records, and by dessert Poppy was often asleep on the couch.

The last time I saw Poppy he was ninety-four and days from the end of his life.  He put his scarf and hat on and asked us to take him to the office.  He hadn’t been able to walk for days, but with this mission in mind, he went around the park.  I’m sure if the office came into sight he would’ve kept going.  But this was a man who’d escaped the Nazi invasion of Czechoslovakia, served in three armies and brought his family all the way to Australia to build a new life from scratch.  He was always on a mission, with a newspaper under his arm and a funny face for any babies that crossed his path.

Poppy would have turned ninety-six last week. My memories of him circle back to my first job in the Chocolate Box Centre, where he was my boss.  I’d change from school uniform to red and black apron and stand behind the counter, feeling a real part of the family.  I was also earning my own CD money, something every 90s teenager needed more than air. School holidays are often the busiest time for chocolate sales and mine would be a blur of wrapping. I’m sure I could still wrap a box of chocolate in my sleep, maybe even an egg.

I did every job I could in Poppy’s Chocolate Box Centre; making coffee, washing dishes, mopping floors, laminating signs, packing cello bags and selling so many sweets and chocolates that - I do not lie, I didn’t eat chocolate for years afterwards (my chocoholic gene is now back with a vengeance)

And Poppy was always there, working in his office or holding court with the other business owners in the coffee lounge – shaking hands and smiling - the hub around which the centre ran. At the end of the day he would close up, just as he had since the first tiny shop in 1958. He showed me how to unhook the flower baskets from the awning outside, as dusk set above the tram-wires.

But I didn’t really see him dance until he was in his nineties and married to my Nanny for over sixty-five years.  As a couple they had won prizes for their moves on cruise ship dance floors. ‘Gives us all faith in romance,’ a nurse said to me as we watched he and Nanny slowly waltz across the nursing home dance floor.  And that’s the picture I keep in my mind of them.  For a grown up grandchild it's even sweeter than the one with the giant egg.

Richard Adler 1915 - 2011