Sometimes you see it and sometimes you don’t. Sometimes your mind is so busy thinking, you don’t see anything at all! I was driving home from meeting with a chef about an upcoming photo session. Late afternoon winter light in Vermont can be absolutely incredible. I drive this stretch of highway sometimes four times a day, but never really saw the mountain in front of me until today. The way the low angle light hit the leafless trees and rock crevices, weaving in and out around the dark, thin limbs, the mountain came to life. I was afraid to look away, afraid that I either was finally seeing light like one of my favorite photographers Jay Maisel , and unless I completely understood what I was seeing I may look away and it would be lost, again. I looked away enough to keep the car on the road, thinking for a while how much I must be missing rushing here and there.
Strange as brains tend to float from one thing to another, I found myself for some reason thinking about Nigella Lawson’s cookbook “How To Be A Domestic Goddess”. I had recently picked the cookbook up in a resale shop, and had tried a few recipes. Now you have to know I have never really connected with Lawson’s cooking style. My first introduction was with her book “Forever Summer”. I collect cookbooks, first for the photography (lame I know), I figure a good cookbook is shown through images, and a cook who doesn’t care about the photographs probably isn’t that great a cook (can you follow my logic). I make the analogy to my main career veterinary medicine, if you have dead plants in the waiting room, your clients may think “ if you can’t keep your plants alive how can we expect you to keep our dog around!”
So Nigella’s style of cooking just seems so simple, and her knack to always add 2 tablespoons more of ingredients (I have tried it and it really does not make a difference most of the time), 1 cup flour plus 1 tablespoon, 1/2 cup sugar plus 1 tablespoon. The photography was also un-inspiring.
Anyway, I want to find out what the big fuss is about this particular person’s skills so I have half heartedly been cooking my way through the “Goddess” book. So far I am at 50/50, 50 percent of the recipes are simple and really delicious, 50 percent are not worth trying (banana muffins) again for various reasons (my research pool is only about 4 recipes deep so not statistically large enough to mean anything).
These cream cheese brownies were very delicious and very easy. This is the first time I have seen the cream cheese incorporated as itself, not mixed with sugar and such. It is a nice touch, saves messing another bowl, and the cream cheese on its own combined with the sweet chocolate cake is a refreshing change. So I am trying to keep an open mind, see Nigella with a different light. Who knows, I may become a fan after all! p.s. the photos in this book are better than “Always Summer” I thought.
Cream Cheese Brownies
ingredients:
4 ou. bittersweet chocolate
1/2 c. unsalted butter
2 large eggs
3/4 c. sugar
1 t. vanilla extract
1/3 c. plus 2 T. (there she goes again) all -purpose flour
pinch of salt
7 ou. cold cream cheese
9-inch square pan, greased and lined with parchment or wax paper
preheat oven to 350′F
Melt the chocolate and butter over medium to low heat in a heavy saucepan. Beat the eggs in a bowl with the sugar and vanilla. Measure the flour into another bowl and add the salt. When the chocolate mixture has all but completely melted, take the pan off the heat. It will continue to melt in the next few minutes. Cool slightly, before beating into the egg and sugar mixture. Finally add the flour mixture and beat until smooth. Pour half the mixture into the prepared pan, slice the cream cheese thinly and lay on top of the batter. Pour over the remaining batter to cover the cheese completely, use a rubber spatula if needed to spread it evenly. Bake for 20 minutes, the top should be slightly paled and dry, but a cake tester poked in the center will come out still sticky, so don’t use this method to figure if it is done. Cool about 10 minutes before cutting into squares and eat warm or cold.
Makes 8-10
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