It Tastes Like Easter

We weren't going to do it this year, Cuppa and I. No, we had decided not to indulge in chocolate, more specifically the annual gorging upon the Laura Secord Easter Egg that looks something like a real egg inside: white under the chocolate and yellow in the middle. Cadbury has an egg something like that and maybe others do too, but the Cadbury version is runny and not nearly as good.

I was quite content to do without, but our kids left us an Easter treat for minding their kid for the weekend, and ... after a very hectic morning with the bonnie wee one, we were both in such emotional shambles that we couldn't resist. In fact, our good intentions went straight to unowhere as we dove right into the box with the reckless abandon of starving jackals on a carcass.

This is our traditional Easter treat, I don't know when the tradition began. For me, I think it began many decades ago when I was a boy. Beyond that I can't say. Did my mother start it when I was really little? Did she begin it even before I came along? Or did it just become a tradition sometime in my late childhood years or teenage years? Whenever it began, Cuppa and I have kept it going for our almost forty years together although I'm sure we've missed a year or two here and there — as we would have this year if the kids had not strewn temptation in our path: temptation we were able to resist for that we were unable to resist for even a nanosecond ... whatever in tarnation that is.

Here's my picture of the box and a sample egg. Traditionally, these eggs come in various sizes, but this box contained about a dozen small eggs. I had to take my own picture because I cannot find any mention of this delicacy on the Laura Secord website. Which I find totally bizarre. But this is Canada, eh?



For the non-Canadians out there, here is the précis version of the Laura Secord story. She's a genuine Canadian hero although she saw it as being loyal to the British crown, and as we seem to find heroes hard to come by in this country we built a monument to her that stands at Queenston Heights (near Niagara Falls) where a decisive battle took place. A much more important tribute, however, was the naming of a chocolate company after her. (Yes, we Canadians are a strange lot. It's because of the long winters doncha know?)

In the war of 1812 between the Brits (and therefore proto-Canadians) against the vile Yanks, down near Niagara Falls there was a war front. Some sinsiter American soldiers invaded the Secord home and demanded feeding. Laura eavesdropped of their conversations and heard them plan a surprise attack against the good guys. She then went on a marathon, eighteen hour walk to warn our side of what she had overheard. Her information led to a significant victory, and in the end we won the war although I understand that those nasty Americans tell a different version. Apparently though, in an if you can't beat em join em scenario, the Laura Secord chocolate company is now partly owned by those evil dwellers to the south of The True North Strong and Free. (The narrative is told in more detail on the Laura Secord website.)

Anyway, the point is that, as we sat outside facing south with our backs as close to the wall as possible on this not totally weather-wonderful Easter, I said to Cuppa, "It tastes like Easter." It must have been so because she didn't disagree. I know it's a doggone minute point for such a long telling, but I am what I am, and it is what it is.

Note: I trust that all my good American friends who drop by recognize my references to them as my usual feeble attempt at humour and not my real viewpoint of "Ye Salts of the Earth."