The succulent with the pink flowers, bergenia, which grows on my rock wall has bloomed--in February, for heaven’s sake. To a Kansas girl, relocated from windy, frozen tundra conditions, Seattle’s green in mid-winter is unbelievable, so much so that I forget those other encouraging signs of spring until that pink flower shows up, clambering up the wall of rocks lining my driveway. I consider the pink flower’s bloom to be the high point of my winter, and daffodils won’t be far behind.
I have used dark chocolate in much the same fashion, to be the high point of a day of questionable repute, a reminder that pure joy can be experienced in eating without lifting a finger to cook.
My 53rd birthday, nine years ago, was my first one in Seattle, and I did those medical things you’re supposed to do in your fifties with my first doctor here in Seattle. Her nurse took my blood pressure, and when my doctor came into the examining room, she placed her chin in her hand just so while she looked down at the reading on my chart and said, “Do you think you eat a lot of salt?” I had to reply that I’d been known to knock back a potato chip or two, and she went on, “because your blood pressure readings are teetering on the low range for high blood pressure, and if you wanted to try cutting back sodium, I’d encourage you to do that.” Controlling my diet beat taking blood pressure medication, so I murmured something like “thank you, thank you,” and backed my way out of her office.
My first stop was the library, where I checked out everything I could find on high blood pressure; we librarians think all answers are in books! The books faulted things like Mediterranean diets, where we don’t get enough protein spread throughout our day, and there was some other mumbo-jumbo about high carbohydrate intake which irritated me, but I decided that if I chose my breakfast cereal based solely on sodium content and curtailed all use of processed foods like my beloved Zatarain’s rice mixes and canned soups for lunch, I could continue much the way I’d been eating—which was, after all, pretty darn healthy where vegetable and fruit choices were concerned—but that I would never, ever give up dessert, even if it were only chocolate. Dessert then became one square, a mere ounce, of a dark chocolate bar, but I ate it three times a day. My blood pressure did drop, after time, and has stayed steadily just at the low-high end for nearly 10 years, although I doubt that the chocolate is solely responsible.
Such diligence in dessert control hasn’t stayed with me, however, but some form of chocolate has always been my go-to dessert choice. Sometimes, I need the chocolate to be a rich brownie, always made with Droste cocoa or Callebaut 45% semi-sweet or Ghiardelli unsweetened if we’re talking melting chocolate. Other times, I’m content with a Double Chocolate Milano or a LU Little Schoolboy, the 45%, not the Extra Dark. If I’m making my Caffe Mocha Muffins as a sinful breakfast indulgence, I’ll use one 70% Lindt bar instead of the recipe’s suggested chocolate chips. But somewhere in the day, one or other of these forms of chocolate has to show up, and these are the only brands and resulting textures that I want.
I remember a story my mother has told only a couple of times, but it has stayed with me, and I think it fits in this chocolate-as-dessert-justification. Although my grandfather had some Scotch ancestry and was a United Presbyterian, the stricter kind and not the more liberal version of Presbyterianism; AND although my grandmother gardened and canned and stewed and preserved; AND although my mother and her siblings were growing up in the Great Depression on a farm in Nebraska, none of these factors seems to have stunted their family enjoyment of food nor scarred them with worry about scarce provisions. My mother mentioned that barrels of potatoes and apples were stored in their basement, and when she was sent down to fetch one or the other, her mother or father always advised, “Get the best, and then you’ll always have the best.” She allowed as how that got pretty hard in an approaching spring when the potatoes or apples were wrinkled and dried out, but at least she could bring up the ones with the fewest bad spots.
In similar function, I always have my brownies or those lovely muffins in the freezer, and there’s always an open box of one of the two favorite cookies in the pantry. All last a long time, stored properly, and getting home to eat one means that I have “gotten the best” instead of settling for an inferior dessert somewhere else. I ”have the best” at home; I can wait to “get the best.” It’s sort of like cooking for yourself first, before you consider all the other needs in the family, and if dessert is a part of that planning, maybe some days, you should even eat it first!
Next time: A celebration and summation of our first Supper Cook menu!
The quickest, easiest brownie, using the fewest dishes, in case you don’t have a favorite recipe:
Better Homes and Gardens Brownie
(a classic recipe for an 8x8 pan)
Heat the oven to 350 degrees. Butter a square baking pan, 8x8x2”.
2 ounces of unsweetened chocolate (I use Ghirardelli or Valrhona)
1/3 cup unsalted butter
Melt chocolate and butter together, using a double boiler if you have one, but paying close attention and stirring, otherwise. Let the mixture cool slightly while you gather the rest of your ingredients.
1 cup sugar; 2 eggs
Using your favorite wooden spoon or rubber spatula, beat in the sugar and, adding each separately, the eggs, to the chocolate/butter mixture
3/4 cup flour; 1/2 tsp. baking powder; 1/2 tsp. salt
Blend in the flour, baking powder and salt.
Now’s the time to add anything wonderful: up to 1 teaspoon of instant espresso powder or a tablespoon of Grand Marnier or Kahlua or the grated zest of half an orange or 1/2 cup of toasted walnuts/pecans or 3/4 cup of 60% chocolate, chopped into 1/8 inch chunks/chocolate chips or 1/2 teaspoon of ground cinnamon.
Spread the mixture evenly in the prepared pan.
Now’s another time for another type of addition: dollops of peanut butter/almond butter in each quadrant of the pan, which you then swirl with a knife thru the mixture or the same of any thick jam or preserve like raspberry or blackberry.
Bake 30 minutes or just until set in the center, watching those edges. If the edges are brown, get the pan out of the oven ever so fast as you can.
Refrigerating overnight makes cutting squares easier, if you’re planning to do so. Otherwise, just serve them direct from the pan after a slight cooling. And, as always, get the ones you don't eat in the freezer immediately, where they will provide you with pleasant anticipation for a long time to come!
The recipe makes 16 2” squares.
No comments:
Post a Comment