Monkey Musings & Such: Chocolate mountains

They exist! Yes, they do. I have finally found proof. And here. Today. I am sharing it with you. Yeah you. Here. Right now. If you haven't seen my listing on Etsy (shameless plug here, I know) for my Suchard Chocolate Mountains painting do that here first. Now....a little background. I was born in Belgium so I've had my share of awesome chocolate. You can taste it now can't you? hmmm...yeah, those fancy white chocolate pralines with the hazelnut creme inside and a little hazelnut to top it all off...hmmm... yeah, well, when I was a kid my favorite were actually the chocolate bars you could find in any grocery store. It wasn't the chocolate (although chocolate in any form was and still is pretty good don't get me wrong). But it was that soft lavender purple packaging that got me every time. It had a picture of a little pasture just below these huge mountains capped with snow. Cute little white and purple cows were standing around in the pasture.

Photo courtesy of and for sale at shutterstitch

But those mountains...those mountains were impressive. They were just so majestic. And their presence was so serene. I could see myself in the pastures just looking up at them. So that was what the packaging looked like, or did it? You know how sometimes your reality forms from several different memories all jumbled together in that wierd unconscious way? And you swear that things happened exactly as you think they did but someone else who was there saw it completely different? Or that a favorite something you remember as a kid looks exactly this or exactly that and then you run into one in some vintage shop somewhere and it actually looked somewhat different than you remember? I mean, I really can't be sure that the package was a soft purple, nor that there were cows in the pasture, but that's exactly what I imagine when I think of chocolate. And what about those majestic mountains? Were they just a figment of my imagination? I have always associated chocolate with those mountains and the name Suchard. It never really bothered me enough to do some research or anyhing. After all, our memories are sometimes better left "unresearched" so that they hold their magical surreal quality. There's a certain happiness in that. I mean, your childhood home never quite looks or feels the same way it did when you were a kid. The idea that you can never really go back to the way things were really holds some truth. I digress (as usual). Enter my "proof". I was shopping in a small antique shop in town and found this postcard:

Proof! Proof it wasn't just a figment of my imagination. So they are not cows. They're horses. And there's no pasture. And it's not lavender purple but I can fix THAT!

So maybe there aren't any cows or pastures. But those mountains...so majestic. So serene. So chocolaty. Well...um...maybe not, but check out this etsy seller who has the same love for chocolate mountains as I do: The Chocolate Mountain Candle Co.