The Luxe: Miloholics Anonymous

Miloholic's Drug of Choice

After seeing what Franco and Grace wrote about, I'm almost embarrassed to admit what I indulge in. It isn't a four-figure steak in a fancy restaurant. Or a truffle-infused burger. Or a slice of cake that costs about a day's pay.

It's Milo.

Yes, you read right. Milo. That good ol' chocolate powder that we grew up with. I sometimes do use it for its intended purpose—mixing it with milk (low-fat, thank you very much) and drinking it before heading off to the gym (ha!). But I have a Milo-drinking ritual which I strictly follow:

I rip open one of those little green single-serve packets, dunk all the contents in a glass of milk, and stir. I don't allow all the chocolate bits to melt into the white liquid—I leave a thin layer floating on top of my milk. I scoop up the partly crunchy, partly gooey mixture with a spoon. I put the Milo, moistened with some milk, into my mouth and allow it to melt on my tongue a little before I chew. I down my chocolate milk.

More often than drinking it though, I have Milo as a snack. I thought it was normal behavior until a co-worker gave me a strange look when I talked about it. I brought a packet for him the next day and insisted that he put a spoonful in his mouth. "Well?" I asked. "It tastes like..." he began, with a hint of fear in his eyes, "...Milo."

So I wasn't able to convert him, but that didn't and hasn't deterred me from indulging in what said co-worker deemed a weird snack. Milo is my guilty pleasure on late nights when everyone is asleep and my sweet tooth starts acting up. I'd sneak into the kitchen, scoop some Milo into a bowl, and feast on spoonfuls of the brown powder while watching The Janice Dickinson Modeling Agency (another—far worse—guilty pleasure). I have a Milo-eating system as well, one that involves pressing it into the back of a spoon, taking little licks until the powder turns into something that's half solid-half liquid, and then licking the whole thing off. Interspersed between these licks, I gobble down spoonfuls of the stuff.

And while I could probably convince myself into thinking that Milo is really, truly good for me, and that I could have as much of it as I want ("Milo Everyday," right?), there's no escaping one simple fact: It's frickin' chocolate.