The Beginning

It's New Year's Eve 2008, and I'm having a dinner party with close family friends*. As we gather in the kitchen my friend Nancy begins to muse on what her word for 2009 will be. You know, "Simplicity", "Open", "Declutter".... The banter ranges from serious to joking and continues throughout the evening. I find myself feeling contemplative and somewhat down. What I'd like my word to be is "Be Present" (okay, fine, it's a phrase not a word). Meaning I'd like to be more present for my two daughters because my little guy (10mo) pretty much takes all my available attention. the unlikeliness of that reality is what has me feeling down, and I'm totally drawing a blank on any vaguely realistic possibilities. So when asked what my word is I answer the first thing that comes to mind: "I think my word is Fudge". I had recently finished eating what I hoped to be the first of many successful batches of fudge and was thinking about making more. Since being present didn't seem likely to happen, I thought I'd just focus on making fudge.

The discussion that evening put a seed (a cocoa bean?) of an idea into my head and I thought "what if I did make this year about fudge"? Perfecting my technique, trying different flavors...From my friends' reactions I would certainly have enough guinea pigs to test it out on, without having to eat it all myself. Not that I'd have any difficulty eating it all myself, mind you, but as my husband said, "52 weeks of fudge may be hazardous to our health".

Join me as I embark on a journey of all the chocolatey goodness know as FUDGE.

*From here on out these 4 families will generally be referred to as "family dinner friends". For the last 5 years the four of us have been gathering weekly for a round-robin style dinner, each hosting once a week. This was both a NYE celebration and our 5 year anniversary party. Between the four families there are 8 adults and 10 children, ranging in ages from 10 months to 7years.