Chocolate Covered Cherries

I am on day two of a three day process of making chocolate covered cherries from scratch.  This day is the one that I really dread.  It is the day when I have to take the cold sugar-butter-condensed milk mixture and wrap it around the cherry.  The mixture has to be the perfect temperature to do this successfully.  Too cold and it chunks up and won't mold to the cherry.  Too warm and it won't come off of your fingers.  It takes a long time to cover three jars of cherries under these conditions.  I had a lot of time to think tonight.
Mainly I spent the time thinking about the woman who had introduced me to these amazing concoctions.  Martha was first the mother of my friend, then my mom's friend, and, finally, my friend.  She would drop off a few homemade chocolate covered cherries around Christmas every year.  I remember that the first year I didn't even try one because I thought that chocolate covered cherries were gross thanks to the nasty ones that come in boxes in the store.  My dad raved about them and I made sure to grab one the next time.  They were Sugar/Fat/Chocolate heaven in my mouth.  It was such a treat that I looked forward to, but I had no idea how much time and effort it took to make them until I made them last year myself.
Martha's Chocolate Covered Cherries Recipe
That time and effort was all so that others could be happy and enjoy sometime really special.   She and my mother both exemplify what it means to be a servant to others and I am thankful for Martha's influence before she passed two years ago and for my mother's continued example.  Martha was always doing something for someone else.  When she would take me garage sale-ing, she would always be looking for others.  She would buy all of the low weight shoes and suitcases she could find so that she could ship shoes to people who had none in developing countries.  I would mention that I was looking for something and the next thing I knew, she had found
it for me. 
As I was molding that delicious mixture to the cherries tonight, I started humming "This Little Light of Mine," a tune that my son sings with me in the car.  You know how a song will get in your head and not leave... that was the case with this one tonight.  I was thinking about Martha and how much she had impacted my life and my heart was telling me that her light was still shining bright. 
I am making these candies for residents of a local nursing home, and will pass them out when I  go caroling there on Saturday.  I hope that the special-ness of the homemade chocolate covered cherry will brighten the day of the people who get one and keep Martha's light going strong. 

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