National What Day???

Are you ready for the big day? No, I’m not talking about Christmas. I’m talking about a national holiday coming up in just two days. December 16^th is National Chocolate Covered Anything Day. What? You never heard of it? To tell the truth, neither did I until the other day when I was flipping through the pages of a women’s magazine.

So I decided to do a bit of detective work. After all, I write mysteries. I should be able to find out who came up with the idea of a Chocolate Covered Anything Day and who declared it a national holiday. I struck out, though. After extensive Googling, all I could find is that no one seems to know who started the holiday or who nationalized it.

Finding no answers, I did what any mystery writer worth her Milk Duds would do -- I made up a plausible scenario:

Hard times had fallen on the Willie Whatsit’s Chocolate Factory. Sales were down. Stocks were plummeting. All because some upstart had opened up a jelly bean pizza operation across the street. People were stuffing themselves full with jelly bean pizzas, to the point that no one had room for chocolate any more.

So Willie Whatsit locked his marketing people in the conference room with nothing but a white board, their brown bag lunches, and a chocolate fondue. He told them they’d have to stay there until they came up with a way to make people put down their jelly bean pizzas and gobble up chocolate once again.

There they were, seven morose men and women, nibbling away on their sandwiches while trying to save both their jobs and the company. No one had a clue how to make chocolate more appealing to the masses. After all, how can you compete with jelly bean pizzas?

“We might as well give up now and trudge over to the unemployment office,” said Neville Bottomworth, the most morose of the morose marketers.

“You have mayo on the side of your mouth,” said Helen Harrowsmith, tossing a napkin toward Neville.

But Helen was no all-star when it came to pitching napkins, and Neville had to reach across the table to retrieve the napkin. That’s when it happened. A slice of bacon fell from his BLT -- right into the fondue pot!

Not knowing whether Willie Whatsit would give them a dinner break, Neville wasn’t about to forego his bacon, chocolate-covered though it now was. He fished the slice out of the fondue pot and popped it in his mouth.

“Eww,” said Helen.

“No, it’s really not bad,” said Neville.

With that, Orville Tessmacher dipped a corner of his bologna sandwich in the melted chocolate and took a bite. One by one the others followed, dipping a bagel, a pickle, a potato chip, even a forkful of Ramen noodles into the melted chocolate.

“By George, we’ve got it!” shouted Neville.

Thus was born Chocolate Covered Anythings. And since Willie Whatsit was good friends with Congressman Calvin Crudrupp, a generous donation to the congressman’s upcoming campaign secured a congressional act, declaring December 16 ^th as National Chocolate Covered Anything Day.

Hey, it could’ve happened like that!

And since I know you’re all probably dying for some chocolate covered bacon, here’s a recipe:

Chocolate-Covered Bacon

Ingredients

8 slices thick cut bacon

1 bag semisweet chocolate chips
4 ounces white chocolate chips

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 375°F.

2. Place the bacon on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper. Bake 20 minutes.

3. Let bacon cool for 5 minutes, then transfer to a plate lined with paper towels to absorb the extra fat.

4. Melt the chocolate chips in the microwave, stirring until smooth and completely melted.

5. Using tongs, dip the bacon into the melted chocolate, coating all sides. Place on wax paper covered cookie sheet.

6. Melt white chocolate in microwave. Drizzle over bacon.

7. Refrigerate bacon until chocolate is hard.