15/10/2016 - Pumpkin Brownies and a Ceilidh

I was in Sainsburys last Sunday, and was just picking up a big bag of muesli when I heard a voice ask a Sainsburys assistant - 'Do you have pumpkin puree?'

He stopped his stacking momentarily, looked confused (pumpkin puree? what is that american invention?) and said, 'No'

'Lies,' I thought - I'd just picked up a can yesterday. But who was I, a stranger, to talk to another stranger, in a supermarket?

So I walked round to the cans of pumpkin puree at the end of the next aisle, picked one up, and speedily walked back to the girl who had asked for it. 'Here you go,' I said, and gave it to her, and went back to the museli.

Barely a minute later, I heard another voice ask the same Sainsburys assistant - 'Do you have pumpkin puree?'

And received the same answer. I must have not done that first round right, and so I changed my approach for this pumpkin-puree seeker. I went up and actually talked to a stranger - 'I couldn't help overhearing you were looking for pumpkin puree. I know where it is.'

I swear, the other people in the aisle must have thought by then that pumpkin puree was some sort of secret code.

But I brought the seeker to the pumpkin puree and then sped off, before I could be helpful to anyone else.

Anyway. The reason I knew where the pumpkin puree was was because I'd bought some myself. And what did I do with it? I made brownies, of course.

Chocolate Pumpkin-Pie Brownies
adapted from Chocolate Covered Katie

1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1 cup spelt flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
2 salt shaker grinds of salt
1 1/3 cup coconut sugar
1 cup pumpkin puree
6 tbsp almond oil (or vegetable/coconut oil)
4 tbsp almond or other plant milk
A handful of chopped dark chocolate

Whisk the dry ingredients together first, then add in the pumpkin, oil and plantmilk and chopped chocolate and stir till combined.

Bake in a preheated oven at 170 degrees for 23 minutes  for a fudgey brownie, and leave them in longer if you don't want them quite so moist.

Speaking of moist, in practical criticism class we did this poem by Thom Gunn, which brought to mind the word moist - a warm, wetness, with a sense of disgust and uncomfortablenss but also a strange attraction. Here's part of the poem:

You are a mound
of bedclothes, where the cat
in sleep braces
its paws against your
calf through the blankets,
and kneads each paw in turn.

Meanwhile and slowly
I feel a is it
my own warmth surfacing or
the ferment of your whole
body that in darkness beneath
the cover is stealing
bit by bit to break
down that chill.

'The ferment of you whole/body [...] beneath/the cover' I'm not sure if I've heard better words to describe the strange and comforting warm smelliness of a sleeping self.

The brownies where for Neil's 21st Birthday Ceilidh, which was the most wonderful end to the week. Stamping feet, clapping hands, whirling around with a partner and lots and lots of laughter and bumping into people. With my last dance partner, he first bumped the boy beside us with his shoulder and then I bashed into that same poor boy again when we were whirling, but there were no hard feelings - it's impossible to be angry or stressed or tired when you're at a ceilidh.

All the brownies were eaten apart from one little corner piece which my last dance partner had so I didn't have to carry it home - but because not all could fit in my lunch box I actually have 5 more little pieces sitting in my room. Oh my happy days.