A Year of Blogging: June 26, 2011

June 26 is 'National Chocolate Pudding Day'. Another yummy day. Chocolate pudding is a favorite of mine. I love the Jello single serving cups. I have one almost every day at lunch. It gives me a nice creamy bit of chocolate, and allows me a little escape in the middle of a hectic day. Sometimes I want more pudding, more of a dessert than a nibble. Then I make pudding. Not from scratch- who do you think I am? No, I make the pudding from the box. The kind that is ready in five minutes. Whisk the pudding mix in with cold milk- and in a few minutes you have a nice bowl of pudding. Top it with a dollop of Cool-Whip, and I'm transported to my childhood. We had chocolate pudding for dessert often. Our family loves chocolate pudding. My sister especially. My sister does not like green beans, which I love. We ate green beans at least once a week. Mom used to let us choose the vegetable for dinner. I always wanted green beans. My sister always wanted peas. Corn was the compromise that eliminated all arguments. But Mom knew we needed a balance, so some nights we had to eat green beans, much to my sister's dismay. And some nights we had to eat peas, much to my dismay. Mom always served mashed potatoes, so that we could hide the icky vegetables in our potatoes. I was better about eating peas than my sister was about eating beans. She would sit at the table, stoically refusing to eat the green beans. My parents tried the 'you aren't leaving the table until you finish them'. My sister exhibited a rare burst of patience, and managed to wait out my parents. They gave up long before she did. Mom and Dad said 'no dessert until you finish your beans'. My sister inquired what was for dessert. If the dessert wasn't something she was crazy about, then it wasn't incentive to eat her beans. If the dessert was chocolate pudding, she quickly ate her beans, then asked for extra cool whip on her pudding. So Mom and Dad found the trick to getting my sister to eat her beans. If we had green beans for dinner, we had chocolate pudding for dessert. We were all much happier!