Fudged!

You'd think that two people with cooking skills and master's degrees could make some goddamn fudge, wouldn't you? Well, you would be sorely mistaken. First, we didn't have any beer. And we didn't have enough chocolate, so a little elf ran out into the inclement weather and got some. When he returned, he retreated into the bowels of the house and asked not to be disturbed.
We had a recipe from someone's childhood called "Millionaire's Fudge" which my friend Christine claimed she'd made more than a few times in the past. "It's easy," she shrugged. We spent awhile getting ready in front of the fire with fresh bottles of Jubelale. This Millionaire's Fudge Recipe was on a card with virtually no instructions, so I guessed it would be easy and soon we'd be munching away on yummy fudge. We put some walnuts in to toast...and then forgot about them. They did come out with minimal burning. While this should have been an omen of things to come, we failed to heed it. This Millionaire's Fudge recipe called for about 17,000 cups of granulated white sugar, another bushel of marshmallows, about 50 pounds of semisweet chocolate chips, a case of butter, and a pallet of chocolate bars. We mixed em all together as specified on the card that said Millionaire's Fudge.
The marshmallows looked like googly eyeballs as they melted.
What we did not know about fudge, but that we learned right away on the internet AFTER we didn't know it and went ahead anyways, was that you HAVE TO BOIL IT OR IT WILL BE MEALY AND CRUNCHY AND DISAPPOINTING. We reckoned that once the damn stuff was all melted together, she was a done fudge. Alas, no. The recipe, however, did say boil, but it didn't say "or else" afterwards, so we ignored it. We now had a huge pan of crappy fudge. We debated what to do with it.
"Well," Christine suggested, " You could put it out at the bus stop in front of your office."
We snickered. After another beer and much deliberation, we dumped the fudge back into the pan to boil it, rationalizing that it already sucked, and boiling it now might give us a shot at the fudge turning out. We got out the candy thermometer so generously given on loan, and stirred the tarry cauldron of crappy fudge for a very long time. Until it got to soft ball stage, and then we hooted and tasted. It seemed....better, but not perfect. We again dumped it into a casserole and stuck it out in the garage to cool. While we waited for it to cool, we drank another beer.
Christine confessed to me that she was embarassed. "You should be,"I told her. "The world expects so much better from you."
(Okay I didn't say that. I merely commisserated.)
After much ballyhoo, the garage came forth with a relatively cool pan of fudge. It sucked. It was still mealy and crunchy and disappointing. And now it was also burnt. We scraped it into the trash, deeming it unworthy of even the bus stop denizens.
Friday: Fudge Redux.
Also: fuck!