Creamy Chocolate Smoothie

Tuesday morning. January. Megan took a pregnancy test.

She didn't tell me she was taking it. I was making coffee. She was in the bathroom. She came out holding the test and her face was — I can't describe her face. It was every face. Shock and joy and terror and disbelief and something ancient and primal that I've never seen before and will never forget.

"Jake," she said.

I looked at the test. Two lines. Positive.

I dropped the coffee mug. It shattered on the kitchen floor. I didn't care. I pulled Megan into my arms and she was shaking and I was shaking and we stood in the kitchen in our pajamas, holding each other, glass and coffee on the floor, and the only sound was her breathing and mine and the heater clicking on and the world, the entire world, rearranging itself around this moment.

"We're pregnant," she said.

"We're pregnant," I said.

We laughed. We cried. We cleaned up the coffee. We sat on the couch and stared at the test and she said, "Is it real?" I said, "It's real." She said, "We're not telling anyone." I said, "Not yet." She said, "Not until we're past the first trimester." I said, "Okay." We agreed. We would hold this between us — this tiny, fragile, impossible thing — and protect it with silence until it was safe to share.

I made scrambled eggs. The simplest thing I could make with my hands shaking. Eggs, butter, salt. The first meal I cooked knowing I was going to be a father. It tasted different. Everything tasted different. The air tasted different. The light through the kitchen window was different. Everything was different because everything was.

The eggs were perfect — or maybe they weren’t, and I just couldn’t tell, because nothing I tasted that morning tasted like anything that had ever existed before. After we cleaned up the broken mug and sat on the couch for a long time just holding the test and each other, Megan said she wanted something sweet. I didn’t want to leave the kitchen, didn’t want to break the spell, so I went back to the blender and made this — four ingredients, two minutes, the second thing I made knowing I was going to be a father. It tasted like a secret. It tasted like the beginning of everything.

Prep Time: 5 min | Cook Time: 0 min | Total Time: 5 min | Servings: 2

Ingredients

2 cups milk (dairy or unsweetened almond milk)
2 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder
2 tablespoons honey or maple syrup, plus more to taste
1 frozen banana, sliced
1/2 cup plain Greek yogurt
1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
Pinch of fine sea salt
4–6 ice cubes (optional, for a thicker, colder smoothie)

Instructions

Combine. Add the milk, cocoa powder, honey, frozen banana, Greek yogurt, vanilla extract, and salt to a blender. Add ice cubes if you’d like a thicker, colder consistency.
Blend. Blend on high for 45–60 seconds, until completely smooth and creamy. Scrape down the sides if needed and blend again for 10 seconds.
Taste and adjust. Taste the smoothie and add more honey if you’d like it sweeter, or an extra pinch of salt to deepen the chocolate flavor.
Serve immediately. Pour into two glasses and serve right away. Drink it while it’s cold. Drink it slowly. You deserve this.

Nutrition (per serving)

Creamy Chocolate Smoothie — The Sweetest Thing I Could Think to Make After