Chocolate pudding with heavy cream

I'm not even sure my brothers and sister will remember this dish, but I offered it to Alan tonight, and he wasn't so sure he wanted to try it.

When I was growing up we always had heavy, whipping cream around. The cream rose to the top of the milk and our milk was delivered with this wonderful heavy cream on the top. Sometimes mom would just shake it into the milk. I guest I got used to drinking half-and-half milk instead of whole milk and that's why whole milk tastes watered down to me.

But, tonight I made chocolate pudding, and I remembered that my mother would pour just a little bit of cream on the top of the pudding, it would settle along the sides and you would get a scoop of chocolate pudding and a little bit of the cream. Basically, it was unwhipped whipped cream.

Alan didn't comment on it until I told him what I did. Then he said, "I prefer my chocolate pudding plain." Oh well, so much for trying new dishes.

Heavy cream is wonderful in coffee. It basically floats on the top of the coffee so while you get some of the "milk" taste, you get more of the coffee taste. Now, if you prefer your milk with a little coffee, rather than your coffee with a little cream, don't try it the way I just mentioned. It's another trick I learned from my mom -- long before Starbuck's had lattes with or without or whatever.

Back to the chocolate pudding and cream, I guess Alan's non-preference is based on the fact that when you scoop your pudding with a bit of cream it dilutes the sweetness of the pudding -- good for me, because I'm not partial to very sweet treats, but bad for Alan or anyone who likes chocolate-flavored sugar.