PMS + Shopping at Whole Foods = One Bad Idea

Every time I buy groceries at Whole Foods, it becomes quite clear as to why it has been at least three months since my last trip – it takes approximately that length of time for the horror of shopping there to fade from my mind. Today was not any better.

As if wandering about the produce area for fifteen minutes looking for the inorganic zucchini was not irksome enough, once I escaped that level of hell, I was trailed by a guy who might possibly be the most tedious man on the face of the earth (or, at least, the Commonwealth of Virginia).

On and on he went in a very loud, whiny voice pontificating that “it is not what in particular one eats, but the important thing is to eat a varied and balanced diet.” I have no issues with his premise, in fact, it is a theory to which I subscribe. However, to hear that blowhard lecturing his mother (mother-in-law? nanny?) for three isles of grocery shopping in his oh-so-condescending manner nearly made me start beating him about the head with my $7.99 per pound pork loin roast (and why, pray tell, do I have to pay three times the amount for a pork loin without additives? ).

The mother (mother-in-law? nanny?) appeared to have fallen into some sort of daze that was only broken when the guy would ask her some inane question in support of his sermon (“What about eating such and such? Would that be good or bad for you?”) or when she would hit me with her grocery cart. Yes, three times she drove her cart directly into me. Not a word of apology or even a blink of acknowledgement. Perhaps she was hoping I would get so angry that I’d put her out of her misery with a large lined-so-there-is-no-dangerous-metal-seepage can of organically grown, fire-roasted (for her pleasure) tomatoes.

I finally got through the last of the dried food isles and saw my escape to the refrigerator case on the far side of the cheese display. Never have I been so happy for the opportunity to buy crème fraiche. Unfortunately, I did not escape without hearing his conclusion that “It is all so obvious to me, I don’t know why more people don’t see it.” Aaack. Whole Fools it is.

The First Pitch

[For those who asked… ]

Every family has their Thanksgiving traditions. Our more pedestrian ones call for the dressing to be made from sourdough bread, my father’s favorite creamed pearl onions to be on the table even though he is the only one who eats them, and any and all carrots present must be maple/mustard glazed. But a few years back, at a Thanksgiving dinner at my oldest sister’s home, a new tradition was started.

First, a little background on my oldest sister, JAC, and her husband, SJC. JAC is employed as a cheesemonger at an upscale grocery store and is the family’s resident “gourmet”. She is also, for lack of a more complimentary term, a grazer. She nibbles all day long. She’ll even pick at the food on anyone’s plate that is within somewhat reasonable reach, but for her to share the food off her own plate… nope. And she never serves anyone enough food at one sitting to really satisfy the appetite. There are definite food control issues at play (I won’t even go into “The Cereal Incident” and its aftershocks that can still be felt to this day).

My brother-in-law has also battled with control issues most of his life, but his are mainly anger-related. I am quite proud at the progress he has made over the years (such as he no longer rams other cars with his car), but my sister can try the patience of a saint. So back to Thanksgiving…

JAC had gone to great lengths to procure some special pâté to serve as an appetizer before the big dinner. When she brought it home from the store earlier in the week, she had pointed it out to SJC and specifically told him the reason it was in the house.

So Thanksgiving afternoon rolled around, appetizers were removed from the refrigerator and JAC noticed that something was amiss with the prized pâté. Not only had it been opened, but “someone” had removed a huge chunk from the middle. My sister went ballistic.

In front of everyone, she started in on SJC with how she had explicitly told him why she had bought the pâté (to which he replied that she never told him he could not eat any beforehand). Then she moved on to why he could not have just take some off one end instead of digging it out of the middle (to which he replied that it was just food).

My sister opened her mouth to start in on the third installment of her tirade when SJC picked up the offending pâté, carried it out to the back deck and chucked it about twenty feet into the woods. The problem was solved, JAC closed her mouth and a family tradition was born.

The following Thanksgiving, my other brother-in-law provided a set of custom made wings to help that year's pâté to be more aerodynamic.

Sometimes You Feel Like A Nut

After fifteen-plus years of marriage, I am pretty much accustomed to RWT’s spontaneous and rather arcane pursuits…

RWT: “I think I’ll build a sailboat”
MKT: “Sure, honey.”

RWT: “Will please record the weights of all the veggies you pick from the garden so I can run a cost analysis?”
MKT: “Sure, honey.”

RWT: “I’m going to make hammocks to give to our relatives for Christmas.”
MKT: “Sure, honey.”

RWT: “After I retire, I plan on auditioning for Cirque de Soleil.”
MKT: “Sure, honey.”

RWT: “We need to collect all of these acorns and have an acorn side dish this year at Thanksgiving.”
MKT: “Sure, honey.”

As with most of his ideas, I have not a clue as to the origin. I’m not sure if the latest is merely a side-effect of his not getting any REM sleep because acorns have been raining down on the roof of our house for the last three days. Or perhaps it is some sort of karmic payback for the tree dropping a limb on our car. But, whatever the cause, I see acorn processing in my immediate future. I’ll be sure to let you all know how it goes.

The Devil Packs Samsonite

Back in the olden days, when I had a real job and traveled nearly 50% of the time for work, I found myself urgently needing a new suitcase – the day before I was scheduled to leave on a 2-week trip to Japan, the zipper ripped out of my trusty old soft-sided suitcase. So, in a fit of desperation, I headed to the local mall.

In one of the big department stores, I saw it. The perfect suitcase. Large. Hard-sided. A nice understated black. Samsonite. On sale (!!!). Two side latches and a main latch with a combination lock. Yes! Just what I wanted. I pulled it down off the shelf, undid the side latches (which have a nice little slide lock that keeps them coming open accidentally), flipped the main lock… nothing. Locked. Locked?!? I made sure the combo was set to “0-0-0”, tried it again… nothing. Locked. Crap.

Okay, they must have another one. I looked around. Errr. None were in sight. I finally flagged down a saleslady. Nope, no more in the back either. I asked her if she knew the combination. Ha! That is why it was on sale.

But I wanted this suitcase. I needed this suitcase. So I started to think to myself “what would someone who would do something so juvenile as resetting the combo lock on a suitcase that was not their own set it to?” A-ha! I entered three numbers, flicked the latch and, ta-dum!, it opened. What where those numbers? 6-6-6.

I took the suitcase over to the saleslady, who told me again it was locked. I told her I wanted to buy it anyway. Got it home, reset the combination (I’m not terribly superstitious, but really wouldn’t you?), packed the suitcase full of clothes and shoes, and went off on my trip.

It has been nearly 10 years since I bought that suitcase and it is still going strong. RWT just took it on a trip around the world. It followed him home by a week, but I knew in my heart that it would eventually find its way back to me. My devil suitcase.

Salt or No Salt?

The other night I mentioned to my dining companion how I nearly always have a pitcher of margaritas in my freezer. And, for some reason, he found that fact highly amusing. I’m not sure what was so funny – that anyone would keep a pitcher of margaritas ready and waiting, or that I would.

Of course, I am not talking about margaritas from a mix or those that come in a "Just Add Tequila" tub. Blech-blech-blech. I use freshly-squeezed lime juice, Triple Sec (for some reason I prefer it to Grand Marnier in this application) and decent tequila (but not fine tequila because it would be a waste to use it in a mixed drink). Whir it all together with ice and some sugar (amount needed is very dependent on the limes and requires lots of taste-testing) in the trusty blender and pop it in the freezer.

When the mood strikes for margaritas, I pull the pitcher from the freezer, let it sit ~30 minutes (if I can wait that long, I have been known to nuke it and/or hack away at it with a large metal spoon) and then have at it with the how-did-I-live-without-it-for-so-long stick blender to break up any large ice crystals that may have formed.

I was running low on tequila and the freezer is currently devoid of any and all pitchers, so I stopped by the package store today while on my way to commissary. (Note to non-military folks – although the name suggests otherwise, the package store is not where you go to mail the very, very late birthday present to your sister, but where you buy cheap, tax-free liquor.) I was standing at the checkout counter paying for my large (1.75L) bottle of tequila when the two young solders behind me decided to comment...

BabyArmyGuy1 (with a good ‘ol boy accent): Boy! That is a big bottle of tequila.
Me: Yup. I need to make some margaritas.
(I decided not to tell them how it is my freezer that needs them.)
BabyArmyGuy1: When I drink get tequila, I get mean.
Me: Hmmm.
BabyArmyGuy1: The first time I drank tequila, I left the club and ended up punching a Colonel.
Me: Really?!?
BabyArmyGuy2 (who is much cuter than BabyArmyGuy1 and is obviously feeling left out): I'm a sweet drunk…
Me: That's good.
BabyArmyGuy1: When it happened, I had no idea she was a Colonel.
Me: (Laughing)
BabyArmyGuy2: (Cannot think of a thing to top his buddy's comment and looking quite chagrined)

At that point, the two soldiers started discussing the how much that particular female Colonel can bench-press and I exited the package store still laughing. It is nice to see that, in addition to learning how to kill in all sorts of sundry ways, some young soldiers are apparently also working on excellent comic timing.

Now off to make those margaritas...

Snail and E

I was looking for an old photo to show a friend of mine and I thought it was in my cedar chest in a box with a bunch of college memorabilia. Well, I could not find that particular photograph, but I did find all sorts of old letters.

Most was correspondence from guys who, even after reading their letters, I cannot recall. Nothing. Nada. Zip. The letters were silly, dopey, funny and a more than a few totally stupid, but nearly all long forgotten.

One guy I do faintly remember (the picture I found of him helped) was a summer “romance” (I was all of 13 or 14, so, other than a few chaste kisses behind the church, nothing much that could be considered in the least bit romantic actually happened between us). There are at least a half-dozen letters from him, but I have no recollection of writing from my side. I wonder if he wrote me for weeks after he went home without my reciprocating or if I just wrote him unmemorable (to me, at least) drivel. I suspect the former.

I’ve never been much of a letter writer. While I can type nearly as fast as I can compose the words in my head, my actual handwriting at that speed is completely illegible. I tended to woefully neglect my written correspondence before email came along. But, as much of a godsend email has been, it suddenly hit me today how fleeting it is. I am not an electronic pack-rat and twenty years from now I highly doubt I’ll be able to read my current letters to and from friends. Heck, I can’t even reread those from just last week.

Then I start thinking about going through that box this morning. I read the first four or five letters, had some laughs, but quickly tired of reading twenty-year-old words that no longer had any emotional resonance. If they had not been there physically in front of me, I never would have given them another thought again in my life. I can’t miss what I can’t remember.

And the truly memorable letters, such as my ex-fiance’s heart-torn missive (written on Garfield notepaper, no less) that accompanied the engagement ring he gave back to me after I returned it to him when I broke-off our engagement, I can recall every word without even having to look at it.

So I hope it is that way with the email -- the important letters will be etched in my mind forever and the others are not really worth remembering.

Pet Names

My family has a tradition of giving our pets rather sensible names…

Morgan (an alligator lizard who ate mealy worms – what a nightmare)
Myrtle (one of numerous Myrtles – all were turtles)
Corkey (also one of many – all parakeets)
Cindy (short for Cinderella – my sister’s guinea pig that I dropped and I will never, ever be forgiven for doing so)
Butterscotch (my hamster – that I did not drop)
Lewis & Clark (experimental goldfish – Lewis was kept in constant light and Clark in the dark)

The cats –
Kiki (yes, I now know what that is slang for in more than one language)
Bobbie (who had seven toes on each foot)

And, in order of age, the dogs –
Jeremiah
Beau (actually Beauregard Zachariah)
Tasha (named after my mother's favorite childhood toy – a rather large, felt-stuffed, chartreuse dog name Natasha who currently resides in my cedar chest)
Sammie
Jessie
Scooter (he was constantly underfoot as a puppy – "Scoot!")
Anna (registered name “Diamond Anna”)

Most of the names of the early pets stuck. But, once my sisters and I were older, did we call our pets by their names? Of course not. My beloved calico, Kiki, more commonly went by Keeker-Weeker-Eeker-Squeeker. Or Eeker. Or Squeeker. Bobbie was Tube-Cat (she was very long and lean) or Bobbie-Wobbie-Obbie-Squobbie. Are you seeing the pattern yet?

And it was worse with the dogs (after all, how often do you really bother calling a cat’s name?). Tasha was Tasha-Squasha. Then Squash for short. Then Squash-a-lump for long.

Jessie is also known by Jesse-a-lump, while Sammie’s queenly nature is reflected by Sammirella (Sammie belongs to the same sister as the long-departed guinea pig that I dropped, and, for the record, I have never, ever picked up Sammie, let alone, dropped her).

Scooter (my father’s dog) is Scooter-Wooter-Ooter (that variation is somehow always tied to the pet residing in our parent’s house) or, my favorite, Ooter-Brauten.

However, the one who gets it the worst is my current dog, Anna. The fact that her name just begs for it does not help the situation. The most obvious: Anna-Banana. That quickly morphed into Banana-Boat then Banana-Nut then Peanut then Sweet Pea. But there is another branch originating from Banana-Nut… Banana-Nut Muffin then shortened to Muffin (which, coincidentally, was the given name of the cat that Kiki was named after – a very long story). And now Anna is currently going by Muffin-Head.

Odd? Yes. But it could be worse. RWT grew up with a half-sister named Emily and a pet Doberman named Emily. His parents both loved the name and, after they divorced, they each utilized it during their second marriages. Perhaps nonsensical pet names are a good idea after all.

Cookie Collection Recipe 9

This recipe for Greek Toast is an old family recipe of my grandmother's. I've never seen anything like it in any Greek cookbook, but have seen similar recipes in Italian cookbooks. Perhaps it is the addition anise seeds that make it "Greek". It is an easy method of making biscotti because it is a batter that is poured into a loaf pan for the first baking rather than being shaped into a free-form loaf.

My grandfather always dipped these cookies in his coffee before eating them, but since I don’t drink coffee, I like them plain.

This recipe is easily doubled or tripled or quadrupled and the cookies can be stored for a very long time before there is any loss of quality.

Greek Toast
16 biscotti-like cookies

2 large eggs
⅔ cup sugar

1 teaspoon anise seed
1 cup bleached, all-purpose flour

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees and grease and flour a 4½”x8½” loaf pan.

In a medium bowl or the bowl of a stand mixer, combine the eggs and sugar and beat well until thick and pale in color. Mix in the anise seeds and gradually add in the flour. Mix the batter until well combined and pour into the prepared loaf pan.

Bake 20-30 minutes until the top is lightly browned and springs back when lightly touched. Remove the loaf from the pan and cool on a rack for 10 minutes.

Cut the loaf into 16 slices and place the slices on a half-sheet pan and bake 5 to 7 minutes until toasted, turn the slices over and bake an additional 4 to 5 minutes or until desired crispness. (Keep in mind that they will become more crisp as they cool.)

Allow the toasts to cool on a rack and store in an airtight container.

Cookie Collection Recipe 8

“Butches” is a RWT-ism for Snickerdoodles. They are one of his favorite cookies, but he absolutely refuses to say such a silly word as “Snickerdoodles”. Hence, the term “Butches” was born. My niece immediately questioned her uncle’s authority to unilaterally change the name of a cookie, but she could not sway him in his conviction. So call them whatever you’d like, but this is the best recipe for this type of cookie that I’ve found.

Butches

Makes ~2½ dozen cookies

3 cups bleached, all-purpose
1 teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon cream of tartar
¼ teaspoon nutmeg

1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature
1⅓ cups sugar
1½ teaspoons vanilla
2 large eggs

¼ cup sugar
¾ teaspoon ground cinnamon

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees.

In a small bowl, mix together the flour, baking soda, salt, cream of tartar and nutmeg. Set aside. In a medium bowl or the bowl of a stand mixer, cream together the butter, the 1⅓ cups sugar and vanilla until light and fluffy, 1 to 2 minutes. Scrape down the bowl and add the eggs, one at a time, Scrape down the bowl and add the flour mixture. Mix on low speed until thoroughly mixed.

Mix the ¼ cup sugar with the cinnamon in a small bowl. Form tablespoon-sized pieces of the dough into balls and roll them in the cinnamon-sugar to coat. Place each ball 2” apart on a lightly-oiled or parchment-lined half-sheet pan. Bake for 12 to 14 minutes or until the cookies are very lightly browned and firm. Remove the cookies from the pan, cool on a rack and store in an airtight container.

Shiny Happy People

I was recently discussing with a single friend what qualities she looks for in a man and her response was: “an old soul”. I know what she means…

In college, I dated a guy who’d led a very sheltered life. He was born very premature and his family never got out of the habit of protecting him from even the smallest of hardships. He was sweet, he was thoughtful, he was sensitive (it was the only relationship I’ve ever been in where the guy cried more than I did), he was romantic, he was devoted, he was every girl's dream guy. And I found him mind-numbingly dull.

It was not the poor guy’s fault, but we looked at the world from totally different perspectives. He only saw the good and pleasant things, while I could not overlook the negatives and dangers. It was like the thestrals of the Harry Potter books – how only those who have seen death can see them and, to everyone else, they are invisible.

Over the years, I’ve found that the people I am closest to are those who have also gone through some misfortune and heartache in life. They understand how surviving the rough times forces you to use a different scale in defining when things are good (and bad). There is certainly nothing wrong with people who've lived charmed lives, but I simply do not relate well to them.

And what ever happened to that nice guy I dated in college? I dumped him and then dated his roommate. I guess he did finally experience a little bit of tribulation after all.

More Guilt

Okay, this blog has become a total source of guilt for me. I feel bad when I don’t find the time to post things here, but I also feel bad spending all sorts of time writing things to post here.

Bad, bad, bad. But not bad enough to change anything.

It brings to mind my favorite passage from Jane Austen’s “Pride and Prejudice”:

Mr. Bennet: Say nothing of that. Who should suffer but myself? It has been my own doing, and I ought to feel it.

Elizabeth: You must not be too severe on yourself.

Mr. Bennet: You may well warn me against such an evil. Human nature is so prone to fall into it! No, Lizzy, let me once in my life feel how much I have been to blame. I am not afraid of being overpowered by the impression. It will pass away soon enough.

For those who have not already heard my tale of woe, the owners of the house we are renting are returning to the area in August, so we will have to move to a new house. We found a place only about eight blocks away and will take possession on the 29th of June. So for the immediate future, I will probably be too busy moving to even think about my blog and too tired to feel any guilt over it.

Ouch

The Definition of Disheartening: When your writing is apparently so formulaic and unimaginative that your blog host’s automatic spam-detector decides your blog is merely computer-generated spam and makes you enter a garbled word every time you publish something as proof that it has actually been written by a human.

Postscript -- From the Blogger.com management on 5/12:

"Hello,

Your blog has been reviewed, verified, and cleared for regular use so that it will no longer appear as potential spam. If you sign out of Blogger and sign back in again, you should be able to post as normal. Thanks for your patience, and we apologize for any inconvenience this has caused.

Sincerely,
The Blogger Team"

Inconvenience?!? What about the damage to my frail ego?

Bitch

I have a friend who says that it has not been a good week for him until at least one person has called him a “cocksucker”. Well, I don’t think I can go out for a good evening of dancing without having at least one guy think of me as a bitch.

For some reason, ballroom dancing places (“place” is not the best word, but “club” is far too hip to apply, “dancehall” is just too country and “venue” sounds like we are going to Disneyland) have their own strange set of social norms. The biggest one is that it is rude to turn down a dance when asked. I guess this little piece of etiquette is a holdover from the era of Jane Austen, although RWT wonders if it is really a modern “rule” made up by desperate, nerdy, ballroom-dancing guys.

Whatever the origin, if anyone asks you to dance and you are not already on your way to dance with someone else, you are supposed to accept (hmm, a fresh compound fracture or death may also be acceptable reasons to decline a dance, but only in some situations). Well, not me.

I took up ballroom dancing at RWT’s urging as something for us to do together while living around here (good hiking/rock scrambling is just to far away and limited by weather in this area and dancing is slightly safer). In my mind, the main purpose of ballroom dancing is to spend time with my husband. Not dancing with random guys that I don’t know -- I had enough of that to last me a lifetime way back when I was in college. So when we go out dancing, I dance with my husband and no one else.

Most of you know how I hate confrontation, but being bugged for dances by strange men who will not take "no" for an answer instantly throws me into some sort of time warp back to the 80’s when I spent far too much of my free time in meat-market clubs. My polite, appropriate, good-little-military-wife behavior is suddenly replaced by that cold, hard bitch of yesteryear (but without the desire to wear lace anklets with my high heels).

For example, an exchange that happened last Saturday while out dancing:

Guy (who I think is one of the dance instructors at the dance place and appeared to be a very nice man): “Would you like to dance?”

Me (smiling nicely): “No thank you”

Guy: “Ah, come on. You can merengue, it is easy.”

Me (still smiling, but said in tone with more icicles dangling from it than were probably necessary): “I do know how to merengue, but no thank you”.

Guy (thinking to himself as he walks away): Bitch.

Oh well, it was a nice night of dancing with my husband.

Cookie Collection Recipe 7

Okay, I won't lie to you, these cookies are really a bit pissy to make. Are they worth the effort? Yes -- especially if you are feeding them to those who like the flavor combination of chocolate and nuts. These cookies are also deceptively impressive. At first glance, they appear to be a plain chocolate sugar cookie, but break one in half and there is a layer of smooth, nutty filling inside. If you decide to take on this challenge, be sure to allow yourself plenty of time for forming the cookies since working with the dough and filling is definitely a fussy endeavor.

I've only found the patience to make these cookies once and that was for our last holiday cookie-fest. I used macadamia butter in the cookie dough and cashew butter in the filling (hmm, or was it the other way around?). The two things I would do differently the next time I make these cookies would be to make smaller cookies (halving the size of both the balls of dough and filling) and to chill the dough and filling before forming the cookies.

This recipe is based on one from "King Arthur Flour Cookie Companion" -- a very well-written book that is a fantastic resource for American cookies.

Surprise Cookies
Makes twenty-six 3"-wide cookies

Dough:

1½ cups (6¼ ounces) all-purpose flour
½ cup (1½ ounces) unsweetened natural cocoa powder
½ teaspoon baking soda
¼ teaspoon salt
½ cup (3½ ounces) granulated sugar (and extra for dipping)
½ cup (4 ounces) brown sugar
½ cup (1 stick, 4 ounces) unsalted butter
¼ cup (2 and 3/8 ounces) smooth nut butter (peanut, almond, cashew, macadamia, etc.)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 large egg

Filling:

¾ cup (7 and 1/8 ounces) smooth nut butter (peanut, almond, cashew, macadamia, etc.)
¾ cup (3 ounces) confectioners’ sugar

Preheat the oven to 375 F. Line with parchment paper or lightly grease two half sheet pans or cookie sheets.

For the dough: Whisk together the flour, cocoa, baking soda and salt in a bowl. With a mixer, beat together the sugars, butter and the nut butter until light and fluffy. Add the vanilla and the egg, beating to combine, then stir in the dry ingredients, blending well.

For the filling: Stir together the nut butter and confectioners’ sugar until smooth. With floured hands, roll the filling into 26 one-inch balls.

To shape the cookies: Break off a ~1 tablespoon portion of the dough, make an indentation in the center with your finger, and press one of the balls of filling into the indentation. Bring the dough up and over the filling, pressing it closed; roll the cookie in the palms of your hand to smooth it out. Repeat with the remaining dough and filling.

Dip the top of each cookie in granulated sugar and place on the prepared sheet pans ~two inches apart. Grease the bottom of a drinking glass and use it to flatten each cookie to ~½-inch thick. Bake the cookies for 7 to 9 minutes, until they are set. Remove the cookies from the oven and cool on a rack.

Cookie Collection Recipe 6

When we lived in Twentynine Palms, we had a next-door neighbor who loved the cream cheese brownies his mother would make. His wife asked her mother-in-law for the recipe many times, but, somehow the mother-in-law would always forget to get it in the mail to her, or it got lost in the mail, or she was sure she'd sent it... Then, the wife tasted the cream cheese brownies made from this recipe at one of our biennial holiday cookie parties and realized that they we a dead-ringer for those elusive brownies of her husband's childhood.

I gladly gave her the recipe and she immediately made up a batch, wrapped them up and shipped them to her husband (who was on deployment at the time). He was thrilled, she was thrilled, but I suspect the mother-in-law was not very thrilled. So here they are... cream cheese brownies, just like mom makes...

Cream Cheese Brownies
Makes sixteen 2”-square browniesŽŽŽ

⅔ cup bleached, all-purpose flour
¼ teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon baking powder

2 ounces unsweetened chocolate
4 ounces bittersweet or semisweet chocolate
8 tablespoons (1 stick) butter

1 cup sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla
3 large eggs

8 ounces cream cheese, room temperature
¼ cup sugar
½ teaspoon vanilla
1 large egg yolk

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees and lightly grease an 8”-square baking pan and fit an ~8”x16" sheet of aluminum foil in bottom of pan so the foil overhangs both sides of the pan to use as handles to remove the brownies from pan after they are baked (it is really worth the trouble to do this). Spray with non-stick spray or lightly grease the foil.

In a small bowl whisk together the flour, salt and baking powder. Set aside. Melt the chocolate and butter over very low heat on the stovetop, in a double-boiler or in the microwave and stir until smooth. Remove the melted chocolate mixture from the heat, whisk in the 1 cup sugar and 2 teaspoons vanilla, then whisk in the 3 eggs, one at a time, mixing each egg in thoroughly before adding the next and mix until completely smooth. Add the reserved flour mixture and whisk just until incorporated.

In a small bowl, beat the cream cheese with the ¼ cup sugar, ½ teaspoon vanilla, and the egg yolk until mixed well. Pour half the brownie batter into the prepared pan and drop spoonfuls of half of the cream cheese mixture over the batter. Repeat the layering with the remaining brownie batter and cream cheese filling, then use the blade of a table knife or a spoon handle to gently swirl the batter and cream cheese filling together, creating a marbled effect.

Bake the brownies until the edges have puffed slightly, the center feels not quite firm when touched lightly, and a toothpick or cake tester inserted into center comes out with several moist, fudgy crumbs adhering to it, 50 to 60 minutes. Cool the brownies in the pan on a rack for 5 minutes, then, using the foil, lift the brownies from pan. Place the brownies on a rack and allow them to cool to room temperature. If you can stand the wait, refrigerate the brownies until chilled, at least 3 hours, cut into squares and serve.