The Importance Of Chocolate Milk.

Occupying Wall Street.
Occupying D.C.
Occupying Boston.
Occupying L.A.

This is important stuff.
Maybe these are revolutionary times.

You can go to all the major news outlets and hear everything there is to hear about those occupations.

But you can only come here to hear about chocolate milk.
And that's what has been occupying my mind lately.

I love a good chocolate milk.
Or chocolate shake.
Or chocolate malt.
Or chocolate smoothie.

If you were to wake me in the middle of the night and say "Mark, would you like something to drink?" I could be counted on to say "I would like some chocolate milk."

I also hate a bad chocolate milk.
And there's plenty of that to go around.

So let me amend that last statement: If you were to wake me in the middle of the night and say "Mark, would you like something to drink?", I could be counted on to say "I would like some good chocolate milk".

Just exactly when is it appropriate to have chocolate milk?
This is a subject of much debate.
Although, in my mind, it is an open and shut case.

It is appropriate to have chocolate milk with scrambled eggs, fried eggs, poached eggs, but not egg salad.

Any cheese is an OK accompaniment.

It is appropriate to have chocolate milk with a tuna fish sandwich, with mayonaisse, with or without lettuce, but definitely without tomatoes.

It is appropriate to have chocolate milk as a dessert item a cappella.
But it is much more preferable to have it as a dessert item in the form of a shake or a malt, or a smoothie.

It is definitely inappropriate to have chocolate milk with something else sweet, like cake or cookies.
This is sugar overload, or overkill.

I don't believe that these are just my rules.
I think just about any Jew will tell you the same thing.

Speaking of Jews, particularly Jews from New York, we think we know more about what constitutes good chocolate milk than anyone else does.
New York City was where the Egg Cream was invented.
The Egg Cream was first found in candy stores there known as Luncheonettes.
I don't know if Luncheonettes still exist, but they certainly did in the Bronx and Queens, when I was growing up there.

The interesting thing about Egg Creams is that they contained neither eggs nor cream.

You made an Egg Cream by pouring two fingers worth of chocolate syrup into a glass, adding two fingers of milk, and filling up the rest of the glass with seltzer.

Then you stirred the glass vigorously.
The result was heaven.
Next time, I'm going to go through the litany of distinguishing good chocolate milk from bad.
In a descending pecking order.

As I see it, this too is important stuff.

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My book, "Show Runner" and it's sequel,"Show Runner Two", can be found at the Amazon Kindle Store, You can search by typing in my name, Cindy Williams, Laverne & Shirley, The Odd Couple, or Happy Days.
You might want to check them out.
You don't need a Kindle machine to download them.
Just get the free app from Kindle, and they can be downloaded to an IPhone, IPad, or Blackberry.

The paperback, "Mark Rothman's Essays" is still available for people without Kindle. I have many readings and signings remaining, and the thing about Kindle is you can't sign one.

The website "On Screen & Beyond" has two hours of an interview I did on it's podcast in their archives.
Just Google On Screen & Beyond to find them if you're interested.

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