Nutella
My wife has made a gastronomic error of calamitous proportions.
It all started innocently enough a couple of weeks ago. Feeling a little below par, Katharine indulged herself in a pot of Nutella Chocolate Spread to spread thickly over a few pieces of toast. It was comfort food of the highest order and considering we've been living off badger food for the past six-months, she felt that she could allow herself this minor frivolity.
Now, until such time as she bought this item, I had no great love for chocolate spread. In actual fact, the very notion confused me. Chocolate on toast? Why? Why not just ditch the toast and have chocolate? Chocolate and bread do not go. In the same way as pineapple on Pizza doesn't go (I've checked with the Pizza bosses, and it doesn't - that's the final word) or having Ice Cream in your Tortilla just looks silly and makes your chicken wish it had its feathers back.
I watched in confused bewilderment as she tucked heartily into the toast. She even asked if I wanted a bit. I refused. It just doesn't look right.
However, wondering what the fuss was about, I went into the kitchen, took out the pot and opened it. Inside looked rather welcoming, brown, part-melted and satisfyingly gloopy. Not wishing to be a total pig, I got myself a spoon, dipped a corner of the spoon into the mush and was surprised to see a rather generous dollop on the end. Tentatively, I had a taste of it.
Then my tastebuds exploded and I practically wept with joy.
Nutella, for the uninitiated, is basically the fondant inside of the relatively expensive Ferrero Roche chocolate sweeties that the ambassador famously spoiled his party with. There's no need to eat that annoying wafer coating, dappled with ground nuts which make you cough, there's no hazlenut in the centre. All you get is the fondant centre.
Which is the best bit of the entire chocolate treat.
Now, Ferrero Roche is about £4 for a pack of 16 usually. Nutella is about a quid and contains far more of the yummy chocolate stuff with none of the wafery/nutty nonsense.
You do the maths.
Only now it has reached epidemic proportions. When I enter the kitchen I can hear the sirens song, beckoning me to the cupboard. I kid myself and say that I am just going to get a coffee or the oxo cubes for tea, and before I know it, it is in my hand, the spoon is in my mouth and I'm wondering how it all happened.
It is the oddest foodstuff known to man. With anything, I don't like it. Bread? No thanks. Toast? Keep it to yourself. It's too thick to go with any dessert, but too liquid to eat as a chocolate bar. It exists in a permanent state of semi-melt that is unnatural in nature; a confectionary Bose-Einstein condensate just for the cocoa addicts.
In many ways, I empathise with Nutella. We both don't look altogether appealing, we don't really go well with very many things, we are generally viewed as being totally wrong and somewhat common (if not a little vulgar), we are relatively cheap and frequently polarise opinion However the one big difference being Nutella is much better with the top off and tastes better from a spoon. (I tend to eat better after being slowly roasted over an open fire and glazed in honey).
I can hear the gym calling. I am going to work off the Nutella thighs and arse I am developing. Then on my way back, I'll just pop into the supermarket and buy another jar.
All in the name of husbandly concern for his wife, you understand.
It's just wrong on so many levels.
It all started innocently enough a couple of weeks ago. Feeling a little below par, Katharine indulged herself in a pot of Nutella Chocolate Spread to spread thickly over a few pieces of toast. It was comfort food of the highest order and considering we've been living off badger food for the past six-months, she felt that she could allow herself this minor frivolity.
Now, until such time as she bought this item, I had no great love for chocolate spread. In actual fact, the very notion confused me. Chocolate on toast? Why? Why not just ditch the toast and have chocolate? Chocolate and bread do not go. In the same way as pineapple on Pizza doesn't go (I've checked with the Pizza bosses, and it doesn't - that's the final word) or having Ice Cream in your Tortilla just looks silly and makes your chicken wish it had its feathers back.
I watched in confused bewilderment as she tucked heartily into the toast. She even asked if I wanted a bit. I refused. It just doesn't look right.
However, wondering what the fuss was about, I went into the kitchen, took out the pot and opened it. Inside looked rather welcoming, brown, part-melted and satisfyingly gloopy. Not wishing to be a total pig, I got myself a spoon, dipped a corner of the spoon into the mush and was surprised to see a rather generous dollop on the end. Tentatively, I had a taste of it.
Then my tastebuds exploded and I practically wept with joy.
Nutella, for the uninitiated, is basically the fondant inside of the relatively expensive Ferrero Roche chocolate sweeties that the ambassador famously spoiled his party with. There's no need to eat that annoying wafer coating, dappled with ground nuts which make you cough, there's no hazlenut in the centre. All you get is the fondant centre.
Which is the best bit of the entire chocolate treat.
Now, Ferrero Roche is about £4 for a pack of 16 usually. Nutella is about a quid and contains far more of the yummy chocolate stuff with none of the wafery/nutty nonsense.
You do the maths.
Only now it has reached epidemic proportions. When I enter the kitchen I can hear the sirens song, beckoning me to the cupboard. I kid myself and say that I am just going to get a coffee or the oxo cubes for tea, and before I know it, it is in my hand, the spoon is in my mouth and I'm wondering how it all happened.
It is the oddest foodstuff known to man. With anything, I don't like it. Bread? No thanks. Toast? Keep it to yourself. It's too thick to go with any dessert, but too liquid to eat as a chocolate bar. It exists in a permanent state of semi-melt that is unnatural in nature; a confectionary Bose-Einstein condensate just for the cocoa addicts.
In many ways, I empathise with Nutella. We both don't look altogether appealing, we don't really go well with very many things, we are generally viewed as being totally wrong and somewhat common (if not a little vulgar), we are relatively cheap and frequently polarise opinion However the one big difference being Nutella is much better with the top off and tastes better from a spoon. (I tend to eat better after being slowly roasted over an open fire and glazed in honey).
I can hear the gym calling. I am going to work off the Nutella thighs and arse I am developing. Then on my way back, I'll just pop into the supermarket and buy another jar.
All in the name of husbandly concern for his wife, you understand.
It's just wrong on so many levels.
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