Category: Food

Food Poem: Breakfast by Joyce Sutphen

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My father taught me how to eat breakfast
those mornings when it was my turn to help
him milk the cows. I loved rising up from

the darkness and coming quietly down
the stairs while the others were still sleeping.
I’d take a bowl from the cupboard, a spoon

from the drawer, and slip into the pantry
where he was already eating spoonfuls
of cornflakes covered with mashed strawberries

from our own strawberry fields forever.
Didn’t talk much—except to mention how
good the strawberries tasted or the way

those clouds hung over the hay barn roof.
Simple—that’s how we started up the day.


Joyce Sutphen, “Breakfast” from First Words, Red Dragonfly. from the Writer’s Almanac, Monday 9/13/21

A simple start to the day with a loved one is so comforting. What is your favorite morning ritual?

Food Poem by Brad Ricca

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The Beautiful Sandwich

She could always make
the most beautiful sandwich.
Laced swiss cheese: sliced
crossways, folded once.
Ham in rolls like sleeping bags.
Turkey piled like shirts.
Tarragon. Oregano. Pepper.
Herb dill mayonnaise the color of
skin. On top: the thin, wandering line of
mustard
like a contour on a map
in a thin, flat drawer.
Or a single, lost vein.
The poppyseeds hold on,
for now.

Placed on a plate like isolated
driftwood
or a large, solemn head.
The spilled chips in yellow piles
are like the strange coins
of tall, awkward islanders.
The thin dill pickle: their boat
slides into
the green-sour sea.

Brad Ricca, “The Beautiful Sandwich” from American Mastodon, © Black Lawrence Press. Shared from the Writer’s Almanac email, Wednesday, February 17, 2021

What a beautiful landscape of designed care in a sandwich!

Happy sandwich making,

Hungryphil

Savory Corn Pancakes

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I’m not sure how I started making these pancakes. My addiction to recipe, cooking shows, food writing makes sources difficult to trace. My daughter asked to learn how to make this when visiting on break from college. She made the pancakes pictured in this post. I’m a proud foodie mommy. We like the balance of savory and sweet, Deshi flavors delivered in Western form. A perfect Bengali in Indiana recipe.

  • 1 Can of Creamed Corn
  • 1 Cup of pancake mix or flour
  • 1 egg
  • 1 Tbsp chopped shallot
  • 1 Tsp chili pepper
  • 1 Tsp of chopped cilantro (Atiya has a complicated relationship with cilantro, omitted in these pancakes)
  • Salt, pepper
  • Milk or water for desired consistency: a loose batter will be more “custurdy/eggy”, a thicker batter more bread-like.

Mix ingredients in a bowl. Heat a pan. Add a sliver of butter or olive oil to coat the bottom of the pan. Adjust heat while cooking as needed to avoid burning the pancakes.

Serve with warm maple syrup or blueberry compote to balance sweet and savory. Adjust the recipe to your own taste and enjoy!

Forgive me, if this is a repeat recipe post but I promised Atiya I would post this for her to find.

Cooking in the time of Corona

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The restlessness to get back to “normal” was so vivid for me yesterday as we past a local water park teeming with children and families. No masks, no 6 feet distance, no indication of a pandemic. It was an almost nostalgic surreal vision. Addressing our level of comfort with safety and health is now personal and subjectively enforced (the effectiveness of masks-handwashing-social distance use has been proven). Without public mandate, it can be confusing and challenging to self-monitor and so easy to judge the choices of others. Everyday warrants revision of the boundaries to the question, “am I protecting others from viruses I am hosting?”

Within this uncertainty and confusion, I found comfort in the regularity of meals together and the kitchen. So, today I offer a food retrospective of my last three months in social isolation with family. As I watched drenched children scurry back to the water-slide steps, I was thinking about the last few months at home, things I miss, things I enjoyed. I miss eating out: the sound of dishes, muffled conversations, laughter, smells, wide exotic and familiar views, and sitting across from loved ones and friends. But, I can’t complain, what a privilege its been to cook for family who will disperse again too soon.

Hoping you continue to find your way to comforting routine as we move through the phases and cycles of Covid-19,

Hungryphil

Food Poem- Hymn to the Belly

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ROOM! room! make room for the bouncing Belly,
First father of sauce and deviser of jelly;
Prime master of arts and the giver of wit,
That found out the excellent engine, the spit,
The plough and the flail, the mill and the hopper,
The hutch and the boulter, the furnace and copper,
The oven, the bavin, the mawkin, the peel,
The hearth and the range, the dog and the wheel.
He, he first invented the hogshead and tun,
The gimlet and vice too, and taught ’em to run;
And since, with the funnel and hippocras bag,
He’s made of himself that now he cries swag;
Which shows, though the pleasure be but of four inches,
Yet he is a weasel, the gullet that pinches
Of any delight, and not spares from his back
Whatever to make of the belly a sack.
Hail, hail, plump paunch! O the founder of taste,
For fresh meats or powdered, or pickle or paste!
Devourer of broiled, baked, roasted or sod!
And emptier of cups, be they even or odd!
All which have now made thee so wide i’ the waist,
As scarce with no pudding thou art to be laced;
But eating and drinking until thou dost nod,
Thou break’st all thy girdles and break’st forth a god.

“Hymn to the Belly” by Ben Jonson. Public domain.

From the Writer’s Almanac Podcast, June 11, 2020.

This poem is dedicated to Agatha, my belly. She likes mysteries and is sometimes cranky. Due to pandemic related social isolation and coping by cooking, she has grown in the past three months. We relate to the last fragment of this 16th century poem: “thou break’st all thy girdles and break’st forth a god.”

May you make room for your belly,

Hungryphil

Bittermelons and Brownies: How to Eat Eggplant

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“I liked eggplant long before Atiya ever did,” complains Amani, my eldest. In my kitchen, eggplant fuels simmering sibling jealousy over a pot of shared taste. The rivalry started when they were young with Bengali Eggplant Bhaji. Sliced eggplant fried in a combination of spices and mixed with rice delivers a simple taste though a complex textures: crispy skin, moist flavorful flesh and roasted spiced oil coated rice. Eggplant bhaji with rice introduced warm heat to otherwise mild child-fare of daal or classic chicken and potato curry. “Begun” in Bengali, literally translates to “no virtue.” Unlike the celebrated bittermelon, eggplant’s nutritional authority is sadly suspect in South Asian cultures.

Italian eggplant can be bitter. Most recipes suggest salting and draining sliced eggplant before cooking. I accepted the occasional eruption of bitterness that destroys dinner as punishment for my laziness. Thankfully it doesn’t happen often. I rarely cook eggplant for guests. The unpredictable bitterness of eggplant gives it a dangerous, naughty vegetable vibe. According to my minimal online research, eggplant can be bitter when young and female (more seeds to protect from seed eaters). This thought invites too many jokes about protective moms and bitter young females. Yes, there are boy and girl eggplants. Apparently, identifiable by the navel, a slit or long line suggests a girl eggplant and a round navel, a boy. This determination is easier said than done. Basically, you want a heavy, ripe, boy eggplant with a round belly button. Contemporary sexual connotations of the eggplant emoji, I’m told by my teenager, makes my advice extra unsavory.  I’ll leave the implications of gendered vegetables for another time. Long and lighter in color, Japanese eggplant is rarely bitter. When given a choice, or not making eggplant parmesan, I always opt for the Japanese variety. You note your risk when choosing and cooking eggplant. Like many potential bitter things, it is worth the effort.

Eggplant and mushrooms are like meat for vegetarians. These vegetables have hearty structure and absorb flavors like a sponge. Peeled, chopped and cooked, eggplant can be smooth and creamy. Thinly sliced and fried, eggplant can be light like summer squash. Sliced, in rounds, with the skin, eggplant can have structure and chew. The vegetable has moods (insert inappropriate young female joke here).  In the Food Network Chopped kitchen, eggplant is the rare actor who can play any role. 

A member of the nightshade family with cousins like the tomato and potato (all three go very well together), eggplant can make undue demands on sensitive stomachs. According to Ayurvedic tradition, eggplant aggravates both Pitta and Vata constitutions. One must be not only careful with the taste of the eggplant but also the effects. Eggplant has personality and power you may not be ready to ingest. Purple eggplant flowers are beautiful and in classic eggplant nuance, have thorns. A vegetable with such personality! No wonder my girls fight over it.

Ingredients

  • 1 medium eggplant or 2 Japanese Eggplant
  • 1 teaspoon turmeric
  • ½ teaspoon chili powder
  • 1 teaspoon cumin powder
  • 1 teaspoon coriander powder
  • 1 teaspoon salt
  • 1 teaspoon flour (optional)
  • ¼ cup vegetable oil

1. Slice the eggplant into ¼ inch rounds. Salt generously. Let sit and sweat for ½ hour. Rinse and let dry. If using long Japanese eggplants, skip this step. Or just risk it.

2. Make a spice mix of 1-teaspoon of each turmeric, cumin, coriander and salt, ½ teaspoon of chili. Add flour, if uncomfortable with spiced oil laden eggplant. The key is to mix the spiced oil and soft eggplant with plain white rice. The spiced eggplant oil infuses the rice. Eaten alone, this eggplant dish can feel very heavy and oily. Alternatively, adding flour will make a crispy coating. Add enough water to make a batter that clings to the eggplant slices to floured and un-floured spice mix.

3. Heat enough oil in a pan to cover the bottom. Dip each slice of eggplant in the spice mixture, encouraging the spice to cling, and shallow pan-fry each piece, over medium heat, until soft and brown. If using less oil and no flour, cover and allow steam to soften eggplant. In this case the eggplant with have a less roasted flavor.

The eggplant fried with flour in particular does not keep well. It can taste slimy once refrigerated and reheated.

If you find the eggplant bhaji bitter have an egg sandwich instead.

Like life, you eat eggplant by embracing unpredictable bitterness, absorbed atmosphere of flavors, potential indigestion, and a diversity of expression that ranges from light and creamy to dark and roasty.

Begun Bhaji with paratha

Bittermelons and Brownies: How to Eat Lentils (Daal)

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Life boils over like daal. It is eventually, inevitable. You can put a wooden spoon across the top of the pot, add salt (risking chewy lentil soup) and do other tricks, regardless assume you will have to clean the stove after cooking a pot of lentils. Sometimes like a pot of boiling daal our lives spill over despite our best efforts.

The world of lentils is a vast array of colors, shapes and sizes. The health benefit of plant-based diets that includes lentils is well documented. Lentils (along with beans) can also cause uncomfortable gas. To reduce the magic of lentils to what it can do for us flattens the story. Instead I like to consider how we interact with lentils from growing, collecting, distributing, cooking and eating.

My relationship with my pot of daal is always mixed, full of suspicion and familiarity. Daal is like family, always comforting and nourishing yet sometimes boiling over, chewy and messy. The first tastes of both my daughters included mushy rice with light daal or kitchuri. Their taste palate expanded each time I added a tiny bit of vegetable or meat to the neutral rice and lentil base.

Lentils bloom when they meet water and fire. The rush of expansion makes them explode beyond their confinement. It can be both liberating and traumatic. The softening and rise of cooking lentils have a lot to teach us. Transformative events break us down, fuel our growth, make us softer, sometimes spill over, and sometimes create a mess. There is risk, and reward.

As a location in existence my pot of lentils encounter water, heat and me to become daal. Lentils are more than mere vegetable protein, nourishment for humans, in ways that our human centric mind may not fathom. Lentil transform into daal by virtue of all the things that are not lentils, not it. Lentils left alone would remain in its grain state. Everything around it not lentils in a specific combination help alter its state into a soup. A good source of fiber, lentils and legumes absorb flavors. In this way, lentils are similar to flavor absorbing eggplant with the added benefit of fiber.

Eating daal with the right hand is an art form. Learning how to eat soupy rice takes practice. The angle and speed of delivery from plate to mouth requires careful modulation. Culturally, thicker daals are served during winter months, while light lemony daals are enjoyed during the summer months. Khichuri (a dish of rice and lentils) would be served mostly during Monsoon months with fried eggplant.

This was one of my first dishes I learned to make after learning how to cook rice and fry an egg. Thank you Bhabi for teaching me to make daal and bhaji.

Rice, daal and fried eggplant. This is a good start for a Bengali meal.

Ingredients (You’ll find the proportions that suit your preference)

  • 1 cup Lentils
  • 2-3 cups Water
  • 3 Tablespoons Ghee
  • 1 teaspoon Tumeric
  • 1 Medium Onion or 3 small shallots
  • 1 clove of Garlic
  • 1 teaspoon Cumin Seeds

1. Boil the rinsed lentils over a medium flame (red, split pea, yellow, azuki, kidney, urad etc.) until soft. Add at least double amount of water. Add more water, the bigger the bean. You want the water to cover the beans by at least an inch.

2. Once the lentils are soft, add tumeric and salt. A teaspoon of each for every cup of lentils is usually enough.

3. This where you can get as fancy or keep as simple as you like.  Saute in ghee or the oil of your choice: onion slices for a basic dal.

At this point you can also include: garlic, ginger, tomatoes, cumin seeds, garam masala, coriander leaves, dry chili peppers, bay leaves, depending on what you have and like.

You can also add coconut milk or cream for the heavier beans like kidney or adzuki to give the daal, heartiness. On the other end of the spectrum for a light summer daal you can boil and strain red or yellow lentil fibers add lemon juice, cilantro and mint for a bright broth.

Pour the flavored oil with the spices and fried onions over the soup. Mix in or leave the flavored oil and toasted spices floating above the rich soup. Enjoy with steaming rice or hot flaky bread.

Food Poem – Easy by Roland Flint

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While she starts the water and measures the pasta,
he sets the table and peels the garlic.
She cuts up broccoli, strips snow peas, readies fish—
he presses the garlic, fixes her a kir, and him a gin.
She sautés the vegetables while he grates cheese,
readies the candles, and puts flowers on the table.
She puts pasta in the boiling water, and fixes salad,
which he takes to the table with the cheese.
She mixes a salad dressing, he opens the wine
and takes it to the table, where everything is ready,
except for the pasta, so he lights the candles
and puts salad from a big walnut bowl into small ones.
 Now she or he brings the pasta, greens and fish
mixed in, and they sit to talk, drink wine and eat.
Though October, they sit on a small screen porch
in the back of the house where they have lived
for twelve years of their twenty together,
the last six, the children gone, alone.
Once, during dinner, if they stop talking
and listen to the music, they may, without drama,
hold hands a moment, almost like a handshake
by now, most friendly, confirming the contract,
and more. She is a pretty woman of 51, who has
kept herself trim and fit. He is 56 and hasn’t.
 Later, they will clear the dishes and clean up,
and she will bring tea and fresh fruit to bed,
where they will watch a little television or not,
with herbal tea and the fruit. After that, if
they make love or not, they will talk a long time,
her work or his, the budget, the Middle East,
this child or that, how good dinner was, how
easy it is, the times like this, when it’s simple.

 “Easy” by Roland Flint from The Yellow Shoe Poets: Selected Poems 1964-1999. © Louisiana State University Press, 1999.
From Writer’s Almanac Podcast

Wishing you all loving simplicity this weekend,

Hungryphil

Bittermelons and Brownies: How to eat a good bite (lokma)

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It used to be general practice for South Asian mom’s to hand-feed their children rice until they developed the dexterity to eat on their own. I continued that practice with my own kids by mixing the various curries with their rice and shaping small sized globes of rice. When they got to be three or four, I would make the bites, the lokmas, and arrange them on their plates, for them to pick up with their right hand and pop into their mouths. As you know, there are rules to learn and practice: right hand, finger tips, no food should touch the palm. The Bengali word for the curry mixed and formed rice bite is LOKMA.  

Mixing and eating with the hand offers two advantages. First, in mixing the rice breaks down and the curries adhere to the rice. Second, each bite can be individually tailored. One bite can have added chilies, one bite can have more vegetable, another can have more meat, maybe you go adventurous and mix otherwise unmixed curries. The possibilities become limitless. By forcing the hand eating experience into fork and plate environment a lot of the flavor is lost in the name of civilization.

Eating curries and rice with a fork is immensely unsatisfying. Here’s why:

Any braised meat or vegetable dish cooked with spices (otherwise known as curry) was historically meant to be eaten with rice (or bread).  Never alone! Rice is the main dish. Everything else, including meats, merely garnish and flavor. This is why in South Asia the question asked of family and friends is “did you eat rice?” instead of “did you eat lunch or dinner?”

Rice is served at the center of the plate ready to receive the courses of bittermelon, daal, vegetable bhaji and meats. The rice, whatever it is, jasmine, basmati or brown, is the final component that softens, absorbs and most importantly FLAVORS curries.  Hence, first problem about eating with a fork is substantive. A fork-ready bite requires a higher proportion of flavoring, bhaji or curry than hand mixing. We can no longer eat enhanced spiced rice.  Instead, the fork is the instrument that converts rice into a side dish at restaurants.

Second problem is formal. We are missing the optimal flavor when eating with a fork. The mixing of curry to rice with a fork is always incomplete. It is difficult to break down the rice enough for the curry to be absorbed. Eating with my hand I can press the rice together with the curry just enough to adhere on its journey to my mouth. That moment of adherence, when the rice forms a compressed bite, is the perfect amount of curry to rice ratio.

Third problem with fork deshi (South Asian)-eating is textural.  The feel of our food is part of the pleasure. The creaminess of rezala (chicken cooked in yogurt and onions) or the bright-spiced oil of fried eggplant mixed into the soft warm rice is a part of the experience. I can feel and pick out the cardamom, cinnamon stick and bay leaves to rest and perch gently on the side of my plate. I can pick up my chili pepper or my lemon quarter to enhance any bite I choose. I can’t eat fish with a fork because I can’t pick out the bones. Fish curry with bones tastes richer than fork-friendly curries using sliced fillets. The fork compromises the taste, texture of curries and the central role of rice. 

BUT, I have to admit, eating with my hand can be messy even when allowed and not frowned upon. And worse, despite all the washing in the world some pungent curries can refuse to leave.  The turmeric and cumin can stain the fingernails. I want to eat my curry not smell like it or wear it. 

The basic revulsion of eating with hands in the West would limit me from mixing each bite for my guests. Maybe I could form bites, like sushi, to be picked up with a fork. The hand eating experience would still be lacking but perhaps the taste can be recovered a bit?

This is quite a problem. How can I get the taste of a well hand-mixed bite of Deshi food with a fork? Can I design a fork/spoon that can form little rice bites? Disappointment, not necessity must be the mother of invention. I have yet to translate that experience of composed rice bites to the American table.  This is my design, cooking and eating challenge.

Take for example my dinner tonight: Chicken and potato curry, basmati rice and roasted vegetables. I mixed and mashed it as best I could with a fork and made bites with a cookie scoop. The bites did not form as well as hand mixing would allow.

But, it does give me an idea of building a 7 course meal with these premixed rice bites. Rice with Bittermelon (bitter), Rice with Dal (salty), Rice with Vegetables, Rice with fish (Garlic), Rice with Chicken (Ginger), Rice with Beef (spicy), Rice pudding (sweet).

Lokma: A bittersweet journey in 7 bites. This will have to be my next food design experiment.

I theorize that Amani’s love of tapas was latent in her childhood plate of radiating “lokmas.” She expects satisfaction from each bite of food and her standards can be high.

Bittermelons and Brownies: How to Eat Brownies

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Brownies represent the alter ego of bittermelons. Instead of embracing the bitter, brownies challenge us to endure the abundance of sweetness.  Brownies with a hint of roasted bitterness and bittermelon bhaji with a hint of roasted sweetness operate like a dynamic gastronomic yin-yang. Most taste and encounters with others happen within this range. Sweetness and bitterness, ease and effort, are encounters that asks us to notice our repulsion and attraction to things. Life happens between tastes of bittermelons and brownies, between bitter medicine and sweet poison.

I have yet to meet a person who hates brownies. Unlike bittermelon, brownies are not an acquired taste. The sweet, moist and dense brownie conquers and overcomes bitterness unlike bittermelon bhaji that celebrates it. The beloved brownie does not have the unpleasant bitterness of a thing that cleanses the human liver or the risk of a thing that boils over and requires unpleasant cleanup, like dal.  There are ways to make an experience of brownies, unpleasant. Just imagine biting into a brownie and hearing an unwelcomed crunch, maybe of an errant eggshell shard.

Broken off into small bites with hot coffee or cold milk, or spooned from a bowl, warm and draped in melting vanilla ice cream, casual or elegant, there is no wrong way to eat a brownie. A miracle food in my house, brownies are one of the few foods celebrated by all members of my chopped and blended family.  In the past, in addition to special occasion dessert, a squat tower of brownies served as the platform for birthday candles, as well as traveled, boxed, to school as birthday treats instead of cupcakes.

Brownies represent a magical definition-defying confection between cake and candy. A small square aims to deliver big taste for the elegant and casual American diner. Dense and moist enough to be picked up and bit into without an uncivilized shower of cake crumbles, brownies exist for a society on the go and perfectly represents a designed American cultural experience.   In fact, the brownie was invented as a portable dessert for the ladies meeting at Chicago’s Palmer house to discuss the Chicago World’s Fair. Today a “to-go” version of this confection at the Palmer House comes boxed and wrapped with a ribbon. The packaging also includes a brief history and the original recipe. The taste can be described as dense yet delicate, with a texture between fudge and cake that melts in your mouth. The walnuts that give the confection texture compose the top layer and are coated with a light glaze. The recipe says it’s an apricot glaze but a fruity taste is hardly noticeable.

I chose Michael Ruhlman’s,  Make Ahead Brownies recipe as a guide for Atiya’s 15th birthday brownie for two reasons:  he claims the recipe is as “easy to make as pancakes” and his recipe yields a big half sheet pan. I quickly learned that the abundant size came with other considerations. For example, an equally big bowl and muscles are needed for mixing. I tried mixing the batter in the stand mixer while pouring the melted butter. I ended up with a melted butter shower all over the countertops and floors. It was a messy unpleasant clean up.

The next time I baked these brownies, I learned my lesson and stirred the batter in my largest bowl with my very own elbow grease. This was one of the few cooking instances where technology did not enhance the experience. Beware of technological shortcuts.

The brownies are wonderful: intensely chocolaty, fudgy, dense and delicious at any temperature.

I love the simplicity of the measurements that can be easily halved by the math-challenged like me. Look to Ruhlman’s recipe for details and his introductory narrative.

Ingredients (the amounts are NOT gentle suggests)

  • 2 cups flour

I have Pillsbury brand flour, last year 2016 Gold Brand flour was recalled due to e.coli. How does e.coli get into flour? We take the neutrality of flour as a given. Consider the dangers of anything processed.

  • 2 cups cocoa powder

I was sad but not surprised to learn of chocolate’s high carbon footprint. I used Hershey cocoa power and have no idea about the environmental and social impact of their chocolate sourcing or production.

  • 1 teaspoon salt

The power of salt, like water, can easily be overlooked. It makes me think of the fairytale about a king who asked his three princesses, “How do you love me?” To his satisfaction the first answered, “Like honey, father,” and the second answered, “like sugar, father.” To his great disappointment the youngest princess answered, “like salt, father.” Years later when she served him a meal without any salt, the king understood the value of salt.

  • 8 eggs

There are so many fun books dedicated to eggs now. This recipe comes for Michael Ruhlman’s Egg: A Culinary Exploration of the World’s most Versatile Ingredient.

  • 4 cups sugar

In addition to the notorious history of sugar production tied to slave labor, the detrimental role of sugar for human health, makes it a treat with a high cost.

  • 4 teaspoons vanilla extract

What a magical ingredient! Every time I open a jar, I have to take a whiff of the sweet spice.

  • 1 pound (4 sticks) of butter

How many cups of milk does it take to make a stick of butter? This is definitely a luxurious recipe. One I probably would not make in Dhaka, unless there was a super special occasion like a birthday.

  • 2 cups of chocolate chips

Chocolate chips have an odd birth after the 1938 invention of the chocolate chip cookie at the Toll House Inn by Ruth Wakefield. Legend has it that WWII soldiers from Massachusetts shared their care package cookies with their fellow soldiers and the cookie became popular on warfront and then the home front.

Mix dry ingredients. I like to add two teaspoons of espresso powder.

Mix eggs, sugar and vanilla. Add the melted butter in a small steady stream while whisking or the eggs will get scrambled. You may have to take breaks. I did.

Add dry to wet. Mix gently scraping the sides and the bottom of the bowl.

Pour batter on a parchment lined baking sheet. Bake at 350 degrees for 20-25 minutes.

The sheet of brownie emerges from the oven, unconvincingly done, gooey and soft. The surface will still look wet and slightly cracked. The best thing to do is let it cool. If you cut into it, the chocolate will ooze. This is the HARDEST part about this recipe: waiting. After what seems like an eternity your cooled and better yet, chilled brownie will be easier to cut into squares. Eat, share and freeze for later.

The simple sweet has a complex and even bitter history that reaches back to the chocolate of the Aztecs and forward to a group of women discussing the Chicago World’s Fair to introduce America’s productive power to the world. The story of the brownie is deeper than its shallow flat form. The brownie eaten at birthdays, received in care packages, shared with friends, eaten alone in consolation becomes a part of your story. The decadent and luxurious confection between cake and candy comes at a high cost to the environment and to your health. Brownies only make sense when shared with others as a treat, in small bites of unhealthiness to celebrate the dark sweetness of living.

How to eat brownies?  Make a lot; share even more, like any guilty pleasure.