One Hot Chocolate Please

So it's Christmas time and at work we have a lot of our patients drop us off goodies. Candied nuts, Purdy's Chocolates, Roger's Chocolates, Poppycock( ya heard me) and chocolate truffles.
Mm mm, truffles.
So I sampled a morsel of truffle today, delicious and dusted with cocoa powder, which takes away from the yumminess but won't deter me from devouring many many many of these treats.
But the cocoa got me thinking about being a kid again in our house in the winter and having a nice delicious hot chocolate, piping hot with marshmallows and sprinkles and all the love in a cup that you'd ever need.

Except my childhood cocoa dreams are just that. Dreams. Because in our house we never had marshmallows cause we weren't allowed them, and sprinkles were unheard of.
And the hot chocolate was made with Fry's Cocoa powder and dehydrated milk.
That's right. Mmmm. (pause to let sarcasm linger)

We never had any of that Bisquick nonsense or the Carnation Deliciousness(that's what it's called right?) We had lumpy gross tasting hot chocolate that congealed in your stomach. I think some of it is still in there actually. Add water and stir were the directions but no matter how hard you stirred that milk never dissolved and no matter how much cocoa powder you added it was never sweet enough. But at least it was healthy? Or building character or something.

All this and much more was acquired at Famous Foods, a bulk food store in Vancouver.

Every year, once a year, special occasions only, we'd make the trip from Whistler to Vancouver. The drive would take anywhere from 2 hours to 4, depending on how many times I had to stop to pee. The trip was designed to stock up on stuff we needed for school, the pantry or outdoors clothes. Therefore we had 3 main stops. Mountain Equipment Co-op (been a member since I was 2!), Famous Foods, IKEA(3 cheers for the ball room!). Sometimes we'd hit up the aquarium on the way home if we felt like it.
Anyway, all I remember about Famous Foods is that the food wasn't packaged like it was in normal stores. all bright and cheerful. These were all in plain clear plastic, bulk, boring, blah. It did have 17 different kinds of chocolate chips though, this aisle you'd usually find me drooling in. But what did Dad get? Carob chips. Yaaaaaaay. So yummy those are.
We ate very healthy growing up. Dad made homemade granola. We'd have countless bowls of split pea soup with the countless bags of split peas we bought at FF. There was so many oatmeal raisin cookies. The buckwheat/wholewheat pancakes were endless, all of the ingredients bought at Famous Foods. Dad still shops there, in fact all trips are centered and timed around that place.
Ironically, now that I'm a grown up, or like to call myself one, I have cravings for nothing but, yup, you guessed it...dad's homemade granola, the oatmeal raisin cookies, the split pea soup, the pancakes. Cause it's a reminder of home and the memories of the special trips to the big city, the fighting for space in the backseat with your sisters.The dinners out to Trolls for fish and chips in Horseshoe Bay which deserve their own blog entry.
But I will never, ever, not once, desire a Fry's cocoa  hot chocolate with powdered milk.