30 April 2024
Jovials: Checkmate — The Checkerboard Crumbles
On this date, this not-so-sudden development is ominous. This reality is no laughing matter. It reminds me of Nixon announcing his latest Economic Plan on my birthday.
For at least a decade, closer to fifteen years, I have enjoyed the Jovial Checkerboard Cookies. This product has been made by a company that was a complete unknown to me, and probably still is. They’ve got their own website now, adding to the ominous aspect that usually leads to complete disappearance — poof — from the real world.
We first purchased these unpretentious cookies in their unpretentious boxes at Whole Foods, sometime in 2008??? And then Whole Foods became Amazon Foods.
The Einkorn wheat is a singular and spectacular ingredient in these cookies. I suspect that “single grain” is what’s done this confection in. Wheat shortages in Europe, anyone?
Dear Husband came home about a month ago with 5 boxes of the Jovials. He informed that the product was being discontinued and was half-off.
I laughed.
The next week, he carted into the domestic sphere another 4 boxes — from a different store.
I didn’t laugh.
It became apparent to me that our small small world of store-bought cookies has just crumbled to its last crumble.
The Jovial was my one remaining snack item on the corporate list of dwindling foodstuffs. I’ve gotten rid of the Graham Crackers from an Indie Company that’s a shill for Big Graham. The unit price was almost $6 a box!
And I’ve completely banished Big Cereal from my pantry. The stuff tastes like the post-recycled cardboard it’s packaged in, and my breakfast choices had already been reduced to bran flakes and shredded wheat. Homemade granola and oatmeal more than suffice for nutrition and taste. And isn't that what food’s all about??
But I digress.
The Jovial Cookies were wonderful treats at any time of the day, even after the breakfast toast, when there’s half a mug of tea left and the food-to-fluid ratio need to be equalized. The dark chocolate delightfully blended with the vanilla flavor without an excess of sugar, or much sugar at all!
I get the feeling that We, The People, have all been checkmated here in the USA, but it’s a false emotion. How can people who can barely play checkers ruin the chess game of life?
I shall await the new-and-improved Jovial which, in a mere few years, shall return to the grocery-store shelves — along with thousands of other vanished provisions and morsels that have bit the FJB dust.
By then, I will have found another jovial cookie with which to enjoy the lost art of eating, along with the lost art of cooking!