It's EVERYWHERE!!!

We spent the last days of Yom Tov at a Pesach program in a hotel with the (my) in-law family.  That is a post that will likely not ever be published. Suffice it to say we had a nice time. The program that they attend is one that is chock full of speeches and sessions designed to help elevate your spirituality. So that was great.

After one such session, on the second night of Yom Tov was a dessert buffet (11:30 PM) called "Chocolate Madness."  Well, the night before I was well able to avoid the dessert spread (it being Pesach, it's not that hard), but "Chocolate Madness?" I had to check it out. As I walked along the line of the tables, passing the fruit (without chocolate, harumph!), the small chocolate confections filled with Pesach cream, all sorts of brownies and other dark looking pastries, sorbets and ice creams, I came upon the true madness. Bowls and bowls of pieces of chocolate. Filled chocolate. Not gooey filled, but raspberry cream (horrid), mint, coconut, jelly rings,  marshmallow, marshmallow logs, Viennese crunch , and then the most Marzipan I have EVER seen in one place.

Editor's Note: All references to Marzipan should be read as Mah-Tze-Pahn. NOT, I repeat, NOT Mar-Zi-Pan

Normally, when looking through a dessert spread I glance hopefully at the round little chocolate wheels, hoping to see the identifying crimping that will send me to a place of Marzipanic happiness. Alas, I am usually taunted by the smooth roundness of the chocolate jelly rings.

But not here. No. Here, Marzipan is king. I struck up a conversation with a woman next to me, and I marveled at the plethora of the almondy goodness. She looked at me and said "well, Marzipan is a Pesach thing."

WHAT???

So I explained to her how I grew up with Marzipan as a treat from my grandmother. I still think of those foil wrapped bars! It was our favorite thing, and most people I knew of German descent felt the same way. "Marzipan, certainly not just for Pesach!"  She thought it was a pesach thing because of the almonds, and you can't have peanuts or peanut butter.  Marzipan, as a substituite? A fill in? A second best???

Pesach? what about Purim? We always waited excitedly for Purim day, because we knew a few of our "landsmen" would certainly send us Marzipan fruit. ( aside: My aunt lives across the street from me. When her girls were young and living at home they would bring me the Marzipan  fruit from their Mishloach Manos because "no one there liked it," and my feelings on it were well known. As they started getting married and moving out, the Mishloach Manos were dismantled a little more slowly. When there was but one single girl left in the house,  the process was attended to by her and her mother. Shocked, my Aunt exclaimed: "Hey,YUM! We got Marzipan fruit-we haven't gotten that in YEARS!")

Anyway, it was late at night, and I could not really indulge the way I would have liked  (I had a dress I needed to fit into the next day!), but not only did I enjoy the few pieces I had, but the fact that there was so much available.

The next afternoon, they put out the extra chocolate in the snack area. Bowls and bowls of Marzipan.

If I would have had pockets I would have filled them up.