Chocolate Milk

When Hawksley Workman released his Milk album, in 2010, I thought the music was great but knew that chocolate milk is even better. When Rufus Wainwright sang about "Cigarettes and Chocolate Milk," I grimaced at the thought (though I loved the song).

Ham and cheese and chocolate milk. There are no substitutes.

Over the Christmas holidays, in addition to turkey leftovers, we had several leftovers from our traditional Brownfoot Christmas-morning brunch: spiral ham, stollen, and potato pie. I cherish all three of these dishes, eat them on the following mornings for as long as we have them.

In addition to eating the ham for breakfast, I also make myself ham and cheese sandwiches, piled high with the thick-cut, maple and brown-sugar glazed goodness, fresh, leafy lettuce, and meaty slices of beefeater tomatoes.

Awesome.

To wash down this kind of sandwich, I can think of nothing better than a tall, ice-cold glass of chocolate milk. In fact, if we don't have Nestle syrup or milk in the house, I won't make this sandwich. One cannot be had without the other.

I think this combination can be traced back to my final years of high school. In my final two years of secondary education, I was working 16 hours each week at a paint and wallpaper store at the Merivale Mall. This part-time job gave me enough pocket money to pay for gas when I borrowed my parents car, allowed me to go out to movies or for pizza with my friends, and to have cash in my pocket for school lunches.

Every day, without fail, I ate the same meal for lunch: a ham-and-cheese sandwich, a small carton of chocolate milk, and two chocolate-chip cookies. The sandwich was prepared that morning: soft, whole-wheat bread, cheddar cheese, honey-glazed ham, bright-green, leafy lettuce, and a juicy, red tomato. Only a small slathering of mayonnaise was applied to the vegetable side; a sample of honey mustard to the ham.

To my teenage youth, it was perfection. I couldn't make a sandwich better. And the slightly sweet, rich chocolate milk washed it all down.

The cookies were just a bonus. If the school kitchen ran out of them, I'd still take the sandwich and drink. But run out of either one, and I'd go hungry.

And now, as I wrap up this post about ham sandwiches and chocolate milk, I can't get Rufus' song out of my head. Only, I'll substitute "cigarettes" for "sandwiches."