slathered in chocolate

They had predicted a messy and icy day for today, so I wasn’t too enthusiastic about waking up, yet somehow I did. The roads were indeed messy and slow. I listened to the various delays and cancellations on the radio as I drove.

At work today I was the second one there, which pretty much told me I had woken up and left for work much too early. My quadmate, who lived about five minutes away wasn’t even there. I found it amusing that I was the one who probably lived farthest away from the office, yet I was the second one there. Then again, maybe I need to get a life.

The day itself was kinda dull. One of my coworkers baked a cake in honor of the day, because she “loved all of us” (yeah right).

About near midday, I passed by the pantry and saw this curious looking thing sitting on the counter that J was fussing with. It looked like a combination of stainless steel mixer bowl and miniature Christmas tree. I looked at what J was doing. She broke off pieces of chocolate from a large slab of hershey’s and placed the chunks into the bottom of the thing. She noticed me staring dumbfounded.

“For the chocolate fondue,” she smiled at me.
“What?”
“Didn’t you see the email yesterday?”
“I thought it was a joke.”
“Nope.” There was a spread of various fruit on a tray behind me, which I didn’t see until I turned around. “H is supposed to bring the skewers later. Have you seen her?” J asked as she placed another bit of chocolate.
“Umm, no.”
I peeked into the fondue bowl. Some of the chocolate chunks were starting to melt at the edges. “I’ll be back,” I said.
“Sure”

Sometime later, I passed by the pantry again. A few of my coworkers were there dipping fruit into the fondue. Apparently H never made it back to the office with the skewers. Liquid chocolate slowly dripped from the top of the fondue onto successive stainless steel tiers, looking like some sort of mocca fountain. I had to take a dip of course. So I grabbed the nearest strawberry and drowned the thing until it was coated. It went down my throat satisfactorily. I noticed though the chocolate consistency was kinda lumpy.

“Looks kinda chunky,” I said.
“Yeah, I know,” J frowned. “It was real smooth and flowing before.” We watched as the chocolate started becoming gooey and lumpy rather than smooth and liquid. A corkscrew in the center tube pumped the chocolate from the bottom to the top again, however, the flow was starting to noticeably slow and clump.
“T and Jd said to add milk or hot water to make it thicker,” J said. “I’ve never done this before, so I just added some milk, then T added some hot water, and now this…” she pointed with dismay. “It was flowing fine until then.”
I took a few more strawberries, slathered in chocolate of course, before leaving J pondering the fondue.

Anyway, that was the real highlight of the day. Chocolate fondue. And thawing off an inch think layer of ice off my car so I can get home. Fun fun fun.