Voila

The other day Daughter No. 2 bought a bag of strawberry marshmallows. Marshmallows are bad enough unless they are burned to a crunchy black crisp over an open fire at night--roasted marshmallows don't have the same appeal during the day--but now someone has gone and injected them with artificial strawberry flavor and dyed them pink. Daughter then bought a container of dipping chocolate. She dipped the tops of the pink marshmallows in the chocolate and decorated them with sprinkles. Voila--a lovely treat. Not really. They looked pretty, but they were still disgusting.

If you can turn something bad into something that at least looks good just by dipping it in chocolate, then are the possibilities endless? Once or twice a year I pull out the fondue crock, and we cut up fruit and pound cake for dipping. Those things are good as is and don't need help to make them palatable, so now I am wondering if the next time we melt a pot of chocolate, maybe we should surround it with things that are otherwise unpleasant. If marshmallows can be improved with melted chocolate, then there must be other things that can be salvaged. I'm thinking about Brussels sprouts (roasted, I love them, but in any other form--shivers). How about squash? And maybe Wonder Bread.

Yesterday, when I arrived home from work, Daughter was dipping fresh black raspberries, lovely bite-sized pieces of fruit perfect without confection. She tried to freshen up a stale chocolate chip cookie with no success and went for the fruit. She has a problem with low iron, so now I am wondering if I can help her out by dipping her vitamins in a pot of dark, warm, smooth, chocolate.

I may have come up with solution to the world's woes--dip every unpleasant thing into a big pot of fondue, and watch the world be at peace.