Got bread, milk & eggs?

With the announcement that the grocery stores and gasoline quick marts have been anticipating, the panic stricken and ill-prepared are hitting the road in droves to pick up bread, milk and eggs.

The local purveyor of panic (better known as Dan the Weatherman) is feeding the masses the horrible news that the temperatures will be rolling down below freezing and setting the balmy South into a frenzy of shopping and unnecessary purchases.

Why is it that people clean out the milk, bread and eggs? Will they be dining on a steady diet of French Toast during a power outage to remind them of the good old days of the French Revolution when Marie Antoinette shouted 'let them eat toast!"?

Or do they plan on making poached eggs on toast covered with a delicate Hollandaise sauce (better known to my brother as 'yellow scum')?

Egg nog? With toast?

Toast points in milk with a soft served egg?

While I see that there are lots of choices for these basic items, I have to tell you point blank that there are so many other foods that can be set aside for a chilly day that don't require a gourmet kitchen.

All of the south knows that those little barbecued beans with sliced hot dogs comes in little pop top cans that you just dive in and eat them up.

And you don't have to worry about your milk if you put chocolate in it and warm it up. Actually, it is a well known fact that hot chocolate can make even the coldest temperatures feel far removed.

Really good hot chocolate is a science. Any idiot (okay MOST idiots) can open the little packet of hot chocolate mix with the nice little yodeling girl on the box. But crafting a creamy, delicious little sip of heaven requires real effort.

From choosing the proper fat content of the milk, decision of whether to add a touch of cream or to use dry creamer, the amount of cocoa powder versus chocolate drink mix and the variables of added nuttiness, vanillin, or other aromatic and flavorful options proves that hot chocolate, REAL hot chocolate, is best left to the professionals.

Finding the balance between flavor and temperature is a course in and of itself, as is the debate about whether adding marshmallows to your mug is a little slice of heaven or bordering on blasphemy. Either way, I believe that the weathermen of the world have sorely missed an opportunity to boost the sales of cocoa products worldwide.

Sure, we may need the milk and bread and eggs that the reckless purchase from store shelves like wildebeests on the savannah, but what we WANT is the chocolate.

Next time your local newscaster is spreading the tale of woe as temperatures fall into the wintertime of life, remind yourself that while you have needs that must be fulfilled, you also have a chocolate want that makes being shut inside on those unnecessarily cold days and nights a pleasure instead of a drugery.

I think I'll slip into the kitchen and make some rich and creamy hot chocolate right now. Mmmmm!