#9 - Dessert, otherwise known as chocolate

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 53^rd 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.  

#8 - Fruit

I don’t remember what she looked like, nor do I remember where I met her or under what circumstances this exchange took place, but I’ve been jealous of this woman for over 35 years.  We were probably talking about food, a conversation I have had with everyone I’ve ever met eventually, and she grinned as she said, “I need to eat a candy bar after I eat lunch, so I do.”

Her wry deliverance—“I need”-- and her quick grin have stayed with me powerfully through the years, and when I hear the echo of her voice, I always wish I were That Girl, whoever she was.  Of course, I was an adult when I heard her say that, and even all those years ago, I’m sure her definition of  “need” was much different than the one ringing in my head all the time, but that makes little difference to my feeling that I have to justify myself every time I’d like to have a candy bar.  However, that little mind game is a story for next time.

This time, I’m talking about fruit, whole pieces of fruit served without any preparation or adulteration, and I do indeed think of fruit as something I “need” to eat, whether I want to or not.  Back the 30 years ago before my daughter was born when I was teaching myself to eat healthy (See #7 – A Second Vegetable), I decided that I would eat fruit only if I took the time to do so, and that’s when I devised another of my Supper rules: Fruit is to be served as a separate course, and it must be eaten every Supper time.

I suspect I was influenced by the obviously romantic descriptions read or seen in movies of long European meals eaten in summery orchards or vineyards. After all, it’s easy to imagine yourself eating fruit when it’s juicily ripe and doesn’t need anything but a light wash to make it appetizing. And you’re already sitting down!  How hard can that be, to cut up a peach and share the slices around the table??  We’ve all raised our children to enjoy pieces of banana, just the way my niece was a blueberry eater, and I can still see her bald little head and tiny index finger chasing frozen blueberries around on her highchair tray.  Once they were in her hand, they were smooshy enough to spread all over her face so that she was blue from her nose to her chin, very happily so.  That was too messy for me, so my own daughter never got to enjoy a baby blueberry course.

She did, however, carry the “fruit as separate course” rule with her into college. In their first apartment together during their sophomore years, one evening after she and  her college roommate  had finished their evening meal and cleaned up,  my daughter was standing in the doorway of the kitchen eating a banana.  Her roommate asked, “How can you EAT that?”  My daughter replied, “I need to.” 

Adult fruit servings, particularly in the winter, as we are now, are harder to plan and eat, however.  There’s the apple, nut, cheese thing, matching very nicely with red wine, making everyone linger at the table. . . nice thought, but I really don’t like apples, so it’s not my ideal. I have trouble taking bananas seriously enough to eat them at Supper; they’re sort of a breakfast food in my book.  And this isn’t the season for lush tree fruits or berries.

I will, however, cut up an orange or wait for a pear to ripen on the counter and cut it at the table at the appropriate time; pineapples from Costa Rica have just come to my grocery market, and I will sharpen my big knife and attack a pineapple with abandon, thus having a piece of fruit which lasts several days in the fridge. If I wait a week before I buy another one, I won’t suffer those sore places in my mouth from eating too much citrus!

I will also relax the rule when I can find a way to serve fruit before the meal begins, as a part of an appetizer, for example, so when grapes are in season, they’ll be offered with cheese before Supper.  And this winter, I’ve been segmenting grapefruit (Here’s how to segment a citrus fruit: http://cookblast.com/video/how-to-segment-an-orange-awt-on-itv-s-daily-cooks-552540) to layer with avocado, toasted walnuts, and a lemony vinaigrette on a bed of lettuce.  The Fruit Course is covered, in both scenarios.

On a bad day, though, when eating fruit is just one more damn thing, and it’s one thing TOO much, there are always those Orange Essence Prunes that Sunsweet packages.  Two of them are just perfect when I’m feeling put upon, and then I can still feel good about moving on to dessert!

Next time: Always dessert!

How I cut up an orange without peeling it:

Do the first step of the Segmenting a Citrus Fruit video referenced above, cutting off the ends of the orange.  I do this on a plate so all the juice is caught there, therefore,  I’m definitely NOT using my big knife!  Save those ends; they’re fun to scrape with your top teeth, and the bottom one is the sweetest, so save it for yourself.

Place a flat edge of the orange on the plate, and cut down vertically right through the center of the orange, being sure you cut through that white dot in the center, even if it isn’t in the center of the orange.

Now, leaving the resulting half an orange on the same flat edge, cut down through its center again, again being sure you’re cutting through that white center dot.  Do the same with the other half.  Now, you have four wedges.

This step is where it really pays to keep your knives sharp!  You’re going to cut off the narrowest part of each wedge, keeping each wedge standing vertically.  Doing so guarantees that you’ll take all the seeds with you, but it will be messy, so keep up your courage and vow to sharpen your knife before the next time you cut an orange this way.

Now, cut the neatly-clean, de-seeded wedges in half horizontally, and you’ll have little trapezoid shapes of orange that you can stick in your mouth, orange flesh first, just between your front teeth. Grin, so that only the outside of the orange shows.  Try it; it looks crazy, and the kids will LOVE it.