noticed the missing musketeers?

chocolates are one of man's greatest inventions. and it was an inseparable part of my childhood as tooth cavity is to excessive sweets. from nutty big bang to chewy cloud 9. rich serg's chocolate bars and sweet nips choco candies. affordable silver and gold wrapped goya bars as well as the "i still need scissors" jack and jill chocolate pretzels. soft choco mallows, tedious yet exciting yan-yan and powdery chocnuts. to the imported caramel lion bar, crispy round maltesers, triangular toblerone and ubiquitous nestlé (fondly pronounced "nessel") crunch. to unmeltable m&m's, snappy kit kat, sticky snickers and heavenly mars (pun intended). milky hershey bars, crunchy krackel and dull mr. goodbar. even to the more pricey cadbury chocolates, brittle ferrero rocher, uber-sweet almond roas and wide variety see's candies. and sometimes to the sophisticated european-branded sinful treats that come in fancy boxes and small quantities, leaving you delighted yet unsatisfied ("ubos na?!"). each chocolate recipe is truly a unique experience on its own.

but through the years, i've outgrown my insatiable craving for sugar-rush moments. and i have successfully numbed myself to ignore those tiny bundles of ecstasy waiting to be released. little by little, my old childhood friends moved further and further down a longer list of gastronomic favorites, dejected and recalled only on occasion.

it does not mean though that i have lost my love for chocolates. in fact, if one happened to be lying around the house unattended and with no one's name on it, it would most likely find itself popped into my mouth before you can say, "m&m's melt in your mouth, not in your hands!"

after staying clear of buying and consuming excessive amounts of chocolates, it was only recently that i discovered the missing musketeers!

i was attending an inauguration of a friend's art exhibit at megamall. pretty intimate; with family, supporters, friends, fellow artists and a couple of political figures gracing her event. goblets of cabernet and merlot were passed around (rather generously if i might add), and if for that alone i would have already enjoyed my evening. an unspectacular ribbon cutting ceremony. some annoying flashes of light. but truly an inspiring display of creativity, revealing inhibited thoughts and emotions through a mix of colors and various strokes. there in the middle of it all, i bumped into two friends i have not seen for quite some time. since we weren't feeling very sociable that evening, we decided to take our seats away from all the bustle of the party.

the queue to the cocktail table was pretty long, so we opted to wait before falling in line despite the complaints of our bellies. it so happened that J had some chocolates in her bag. she asked if we wanted some. and without a second thought i replied with a no, thank you. she dropped a few bars on the table anyway. there were two bite-size bars each of toblerone and 3 musketeers. of which i took one of the latter realizing that i haven't had one of those in a while.

with the right balance of sweet and bitter,
a sensual bite of tough layer and smooth filling, the soft fudge 3 musketeers melted away my present indifference to chocolate. hmmm... love with indifference... sounds like many modern-day marriages. and it's probably the most accurate way of describing my relationship with chocolate.

as the sugar raced through my veins like molten lava down a steep slope, J said, "don't you just miss those? they no longer sell 3 musketeers here in the philippines." then the lava flow just stopped... cooled... hardened. and i found myself frozen in mid-action like the poor victims of vesuvius who had been preserved like statues in the middle of doing their daily chores.

say what?!

"they haven't been around for more than a year. so i had to have my mom bring some home from the states," she added. "not that i really eat them. i actually just like carrying them around." her motherly instincts very apparent in that last statement.

so there. 3 musketeers are no longer in the philippines. not that i bothered verifying this in stores or anything. and the last remaining piece of the chocolate that night i had to savor bit by bit, even if it could have easily fit in my mouth whole.