Step out of your comfort zone! Think out of the box! Take the road less traveled!
These slogans are popular memes. They are also echoed in social settings indicating that people should live innovative lives, eschewing the pathways laid out by prior generations. Newer is better. I respectfully disagree.
There’s something to be said for doing things the way they have been done for years. One of my favorite things to do the old way is make hot chocolate. When I was a child, instant cocoa mix became available in grocery stores. By the time I was a teenager, it was adopted as the go-to method for making a piping hot drink on a rare snowy day. I believe that the popularity of the microwave oven contributed to this. After all, heating water for the instant hot chocolate only takes thirty seconds using a microwave.
Yes, making a batch of hot chocolate from scratch takes longer than thirty seconds. But, it’s not really that much more complicated. A liquid, milk, in this case, is heated on the stove. Then, the solid ingredients of cocoa, sugar, and a pinch of salt are added. Then, more heat is applied. This process is pretty simple, but the taste of this hot chocolate is vastly superior to that of the instant mix.
If only I had remembered all of this when I was grocery shopping yesterday. If I had, I might not have bought the Swiss Miss Peppermint Hot Chocolate made for the Keurig, I still might, though. After all, it was on sale. Plus, crushing up peppermint candies probably takes hours to do, right?!
Journey with Monica 