Cocoa and Brownies

Today was the kind of day that I love: raw, cold and rainy. I've been doing a lot of puttering around and organizing this past week–much needed after two years. Call it delayed fall cleaning or pre-Christmas decorating frenzy (I've promised my boys Friday) but either way, I'll take it (as will my husband). When I clean and organize I do it right: I start with the bookshelves and work inward in the space. Just having my books dusted off, shelves cleaned with Murphy's Oil Soap® (love the smell!), and organized again, speaks volumes for me (hee hee!). PHOTO: Cocoa served in a favorite cup and saucer combo in the Country Fare pattern, originally made by the Zanesville Pottery Company in Ohio before it was bought, and somewhat altered, by Louisville Stoneware. The aqua and chocolate brown combination of color remains one of my favorite colorways. I have collected the pattern for about 20 years after remembering a few pieces in this pattern, and cocoa in them, at my grandparents' New Hampshire farm.

Well, I don't enjoy this kind of weather for days on end–maybe sometimes–as I do welcome the sun. As I have "November in my soul" I rather embrace our four months of November-like winter weather here in Kentucky, especially as we no longer experience the prolonged heavy winters of the Northeast. It suits my natural inclination to burrow in and nest, to not have the excuse of sunshine and gardens to make me feel guilty about wanting to be indoors.

All of our driving rain today–as Aunt Cynthia said, "It's raining bullets out there!"–is heading to the New England in the form of a big snowstorm. [All evening it's been raining so hard that my satellite Internet has been fading in and out–I'm hoping I can post this and upload photographs before bedtime**] I'm thinking of our daughter who is thrilled that they are finally skiing where she works in Vermont and of my mother and my friends all cozy in their New Hampshire houses with their wood stoves going and the snow falling down. Snow days were always a gift back home: a day of quiet when the world outside seemed to surround with more than a soft white blanket, but a needed pause and buffer. Here on our ridge farm we now have fences, even one enclosing a few acres around the doublewide, and it just feels so cozy and safe, even if our gate has a "welcome" sign on it. Add the rain and the wind and it's bliss on a December day.

I once wrote about this phenom in one of my first essays for the former Victoria Magazine and sometime I will reprint it here or include a PDF link to the original scanned article (it is not on-line as yet but I do intend to get links to all of my published articles over the years on my website). That essay spoke of how I organized all of the books at the farmhouse where I grew up, way back in the spring of 1988, and how that process both grounded and reconnected me with the people and places in my life. Then I was nesting before the birth of my oldest child; now I am settling in, finally, to my new life in Kentucky. That's really what it's all about: finding a place for everything and everything in its place–and finding a place for ourselves in the world. One closet, cupboard or room at a time–one book, one person, one experience, one moment at a time.

With the rain and gloom I decided we all needed a massive chocolate infusion! One of my favorite series as a child, and still today, are the Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle books by Betty MacDonald (who also wrote the classic farm memoir, The Egg and I, about her chicken farm in Washington state). These kinds of, what I call, book memories are what I was reminded of today while I was making homemade cocoa and brownies for my boys when they came home from school:

Mrs. Foxglove was baking brownies. Thick chewey chocolatey nutty brownies. The kind her four children loved. She slid the last pan into the oven, lifted Solomon the black cat down off the kitchen stool where he was drooling up at Alma Gluck the canary, and sat down herself.

It was a very dreary February day. The sky was gray, the snow in the yard was gray and slushy and a cold raw wind was swooshing around the house...The brownies were baking beautifully. She switched the bottom pans to the top shelf and the top pans to the bottom shelf, then closed the door and put the milk on to heat for the children's cocoa.

From "The Crybaby Cure," Hello, Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle by Betty MacDonald (1957)

Most of the Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle stories (in four collections–illustrated by Hilary Knight, of Heloise fame, and later by Maurice Sendak, with a fifth one added in recent years, reassembled posthumously) start with a cozy domestic scene in a family, with a stay-at-home mother preparing some sort of lovely snack or meal (the books were written in the late 1940s and 1950s post-War era that predates even my own nostalgic childhood). That image of domestic bliss is soon shattered by some kind of childhood malady which eventually requires the mother to break down and call Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle, the neighborhood "good witch" and grandmother-to-all who swoops in and solves all sorts of things with magical cures and her innate understanding of the childhood condition. What else would you expect from a woman who lives in an upside-down house filled with treasures, bakes constantly and whose husband was a pirate and buried his treasure somewhere in the back yard? [It goes without saying that she wears an apron and smells of vanilla and baked sugar cookies.]

So you can see that loving children the way she does, Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle just naturally understands them even when they are being very difficult, which is of course why all the mothers in our town call Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle whenever they are having trouble with their children. Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle always knows what to do and then of course she has a big cupboard of magic powders and pills and appliances to help cure children's bad habits.

All of this is a usual long-winded preamble to a recipe! Here is my standard, without fail brownie recipe (it only fails if you lengthen the cooking time, unless you like dry brownies) that, if baked properly, replicates "baked fudge." But there is a fine line between underdone and overdone here so beware! Also, these only take a few minutes longer to prepare than a boxed mix but are likely more expensive in ingredients–worth every indulgence in extra cost (unless you buy your Bakers® chocolate and butter on sale, like I do).

If you can't decide between whipped cream or mini-marshmallows, by all means, please use both!

I always make the standard hot cocoa recipe on the side of the Hershey's® Cocoa box (also better than boxed cocoa mixes–and you can liven it up at Christmas with peppermint extract or Schnappe's®). I've probably posted these brownies here In the Pantry before (but I'm too tired to check). If so, here they are again–they are that good:

Brownies "Cockaigne" (from the mid-1970s edition of The Joy of Cooking)

• 4 squares unsweetened chocolate (1 oz each)
• 1 stick (1/2 cup) butter
• 4 eggs, room temperature
• 2 cups sugar
• pinch of salt
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 1 cup flour
• 1 cup chopped nuts, optional (walnuts or pecans are best)

1. Melt chocolate and butter together on low heat; cool until warmish but not hot.
2. In the meantime, beat eggs, salt and sugar until light and frothy, preferably with an electric mixer.
3. Stir in cooled melted chocolate mixture, but not all the way.
4. Before chocolate is thoroughly mixed, add flour and nuts. Stir just until moistened.
5. Pour into a 13x9" pan (or large jelly roll pan–although this will require a bit less cooking time and create a thinner brownie) and bake for 25 minutes at 350 degrees.

You can also make substitutions like peppermint or almond extract, or Grand Marnier, for the vanilla. Chopped up candy canes or Andes® or Heath Bar® pieces (all variations I made for a recent bake sale) also work well in place of nuts. You might try Cinnamon Red Hots at Valentine's Day or even a bit of cinnamon in the mix. Otherwise, there is no use messing with perfection!

**NOTE: I am posting this on Wednesday morning, December 9, after our storm ended and the satellite would let me do so–even this morning it is a struggle with the high winds. I miss DSL! There, I've said it. I also have never figured out what "Cockaigne" means, either.

I Wore My Apron to Walmart: A Domestic Tale

Yesterday was a bit trippy and unusual for me as many days have been here in Kentucky. I got up, put on one of my aprons (something flowing and with an ample bib, purchased at the Bird-in-Hand Farmer's Market in Lancaster County, PA a few years back), threw on a comfy black fleece cape (perfect for mild Kentucky winters) and headed to my friend Anna's who was making over 200 donuts for a community gathering to help a widow in need. My job was to show up and truck Anna and her trays of donuts to the event, a feat that doesn't really work in a horse and buggy. [Of course I deliberately did not eat breakfast so I could nibble on some--I don't usually like donuts but Krispy Kreme® has nothing on Anna Hurst's homemade glazed donuts.]

I love my aprons and all they represent and have a large collection: some new but vintage in style, some old and collectible, some soon to be made out of fun material I have found recently. Aprons are affordable works of art, iconic bits of our domestic past, usually one-of-a-kind, and much has been written about them, especially by apron guru EllynAnne Geisel, who wrote The Apron Book. [My friend Linda gave me this book for my birthday.] The best kind of apron has pockets and is large enough to wrap around and cover you. There is something "Wonder Womanish" about an apron. I always feel empowered, in domestic mode, able to multi-task and focus in a single bound (in fact, I'm wearing one now). My Mennonite women friends don't leave home without them and wear them as part of their dress. There is an assured confidence in their step as they wear their domestic armor and take great pride in their domestic abilities ("not that there is anything wrong with that..."). Of course, men have worn them throughout history, too (think blacksmiths and other artisans, cooks, waiters).

After we dropped off the donuts, we decided to do our shopping for the "frolic" that we're having at our house on Friday. [More on that later but it is a gathering of people for a barn-raising, in our case "shop raising," and the women in the community all cook for them: ours is a modified version.] So we headed to Somerset, the nearest "big shopping" town, and to the ubiquitous Walmart Super Center. I bought a big water cooler, a coffee urn and groceries.

As it was warm I left my cape in the car. I was half-way in the door when I realized I still had my apron on. Never mind, I thought. This will be fun. Besides, it miraculously coordinated with my skirt and shirt and those large pockets are so handy. And Anna was in her apron as she always is, except for church dress. [Anna and the women in her Mennonite community wear calico patterned aprons and dresses which are more varied than their plainer Amish counterparts.]

What unfolded was an experiment in contemporary life. I got a few strange looks and one woman asked me if I worked there and did I know where the ladies' socks were? "No, but I'll bet one of those people running around in a blue polo shirt and Walmart badge could help you." She seemed shocked that I was not an employee, despite my floral-designed apron. People really didn't seem to know what to make of me. Rather than the Mennonite bonnet I was wearing one of my usual bandanna headbands and German felt clogs. I then heard a guy in cosmetics whisper to his wife "There are a lot of Mennonites here today..." He was probably also questioning why I was browsing in the Valentine card section.

The highlight of the day came on the way home at Kroger. A man came up to me, tall and elderly and well put together. "I love your apron--I have one at home, well, it's white of course, but I wear it all the time. You look like you mean business both as a cook and a shopper." I offered that I'd forgotten to take it off earlier. "Oh no, it looks great!" Well, that just tickled me.

Then I came home to this blurb in the Farm Show newspaper on "The History of Aprons" [written, or compiled, by Mark Newhall, editor and publisher in his "Editor's Notebook" (vol. 33, no. 1)]. Well, it really spoke to me about why we love them so, as much for their nostalgic associations as for their practicality -- Yikes, I just found a slightly different tweaking of this copy at Itz Sew Lucy so who knows where the origin of the copy comes from! It is all over the Internet, unattributed. Old Anon, perhaps?]:

Do your kids know what an apron is? I'm not sure mine do because my wife never uses one. But her grandma did. The principal use, of course, was to protect the dress underneath, but, along with that, it served as a potholder for removing hot pans from the oven. It was also wonderful for drying children's tears, and on occasion was even used for cleaning out dirty ears. From the chicken coop, the apron was used for carrying eggs. When company came, those aprons were ideal hiding places for shy kids. And when the weather was cold, grandma wrapped it around her arms. Chips and kindling wood were brought into the kitchen in that apron. From the garden, it carried all sorts of vegetables. After the peas had been shelled, it carried out the hulls. When unexpected company drove up the road, it was surprising how much furniture that old apron could dust in a matter of seconds. And when dinner was ready, it served as a flag to call the men in from the fields to dinner. It will be a long time before someone invents something that will replace that old-time apron that served so many purposes.

[They forgot to mention pockets for clothespins and tissues, two of my favorite uses.] I had a good chuckle because not only did a man write about an apron, or at least include a blurb in his column, but a man paid me such a kind apron-related compliment at the store, and then my husband passed me the above article while we were reading last night (do you think that Farm Show is on my side of the bed? On second glance, all aprons aside, it will likely be on occasion now...and I don't even have space to talk about the "Goosemobile").

[NOTE: The lovely vintage image at top is from the Itz Sew Lucy website -- trying to find original source of that, too. But can you beat that? A bib-aproned clad woman in what appears to be an early 20th century pantry space or well-appointed period kitchen. Be still my heart! Also, the black and white image of "Grandma Love" from Coalgate, Oklahoma is from a collection of original photographs I purchased on eBay a few years ago. While I did not take the image, it belongs to me, so please use only with permission or credit "Grandma Love, Coalgate, Oklahoma." ]