a taste of nostalgia

When I was a kid, my parents took me to work with them every day. They owned a mail order t-shirt business, and every once in a while my dad would take me with him to the post office down the street. Next door was a little Italian bakery that sold the most delicious brownies I've ever tasted in my life. My dad treating me to those brownies on our post office adventures is one of the really special memories that I've cherished for as long as I can remember.

When I was about eight, the bakery closed and I never got to have the brownies again. But I think about them from time to time, remembering not just how delicious they were but how special I felt when my dad would buy one for me.

For the last week or so I've been craving these sandwich butter cookies that look like leaves with chocolate spread in between them. So today my mom took me out to a local bakery to buy some -- but they didn't have any. We then proceeded to the post office so that I could mail my Flapper Doodle packages. While in the parking lot, we noticed a bakery that we'd never been to before, so we decided we'd try them for the cookies.

In the most beautiful twist of fate EVER, it turns out that it's the same bakery from my childhood!! They just moved!!! We always thought they had closed, but there they were, right across from the new post office that I've been going to for months. And they had the brownies. THEY HAD THE BROWNIES.

It's amazing how certain sights, tastes and scents can trigger really deep memories that you never would have thought about on your own. Right now, I'm just floating on a little cloud of nostalgia and childhood, enjoying all of the memories that came swirling back to me at the mere sight of this brownie.

my famous brownies

Ok, well they're only famous in my family, but still. It's the one single recipe that I know I make better than my mom, so to me that's something. She can take care of the gourmet chicken recipes and apple pie (seriously, nobody else on the planet should be authorized to make apple pies -- hers put all others to shame) but when it comes to brownies, nobody else in my family even bothers. It's my territory.

I've been making these in some form or another since I was old enough to bake -- the recipe is actually adapted from a kid's cook book I had when I was a child! They might not suit everyone, but these are exactly what I look for in a brownie. They're dense enough to warrant being called "brownie" instead of "cake," but not so dense that they're fudge-like. They're sweet and chocolatey, but it's not like Willy Wonka's factory exploded in your mouth. There's such a thing as too sweet and too chocolatey. And they end up with a really amazing, thin crusty top that I've never been able to duplicate with any other brownie recipe.

Ok, so here's what you'll need!

1/2 c. melted margarine
1 c. sugar
1 tsp. vanilla
2 eggs
2 oz. unsweetened chocolate
3/4 c. flour
1/2 tsp. baking powder
1/4 tsp. salt

Preheat the oven to 350'. Melt the chocolate in the microwave on low heat. Mix the margarine and sugar with a wooden spoon. (I always taste test at this point. Margarine + sugar = yum!) Add vanilla, eggs and melted chocolate. Mix well. In a separate bowl, stir together flour, baking powder and salt. Add to the batter and stir well. Oil a 9" square baking pan (note: you can use an 8" pan, but for some reason they come out sooo much better in a 9" pan) Spread batter into the pan, bake for 30 minutes. Once cool, serve and enjoy! (And if you live with hungry siblings, you should stash a few brownies in your room so that they don't eat them all.)