My Mom's Special Brownies

Summertime is a great time for getting together with family and friends and having a good old-fashioned cookout. Well, a couple of weeks ago that is exactly what my family did. Everyone went over to my mom and dad’s house to eat and hang out. My older brother, Christopher, and his wife Jacqueline were there. My younger brother, Devin, and his wife, Abby, were there with their almost six month old daughter, Olive. My grandparents, who we call Grams and Pops, were there. And, of course, my parents. Oh, and, yeah, me. Mom and Dad made a bunch of food, including crab legs for those who would eat them, and black bean burgers for me. And a bunch of vegetarian-friendly foods.

There seems to be an epidemic of vegetarianism in my family. Devin, Christopher, Jacqueline, and I are vegetarians, even though Devin, Christopher, and Jacqueline all eat fish and other sea creatures. I don’t eat anything made of meat. My rule is that if it had a face, I’m not going to eat it. Although, on the topic of vegetarianism, I must say that I try very hard to be a non-annoying vegetarian so that people don’t want to kill me. I don’t want to be someone who people dread going out to eat with because they will know they will not be able to go to Outback Steakhouse, but instead, will have to go to an all health food restaurant that serves tomato juice and kale smoothies. Nope. I can find something to eat pretty much anywhere.

I have accepted things like the fact that when I go to Willy’s Mexicana Grill, the tofu for my burrito bowl is pretty much cooked right next to, if not on top of the steak. As long as I don’t find steak in my food, I’m fine. Well, actually, because I enjoy getting things done quickly and I enjoy convenience, there have been a few times I have found a piece of steak in my burrito bowl. I have, however, simply removed it and gone to my happy place, pretending it wasn’t there. Because, if I were being a really good vegetarian, I would have them remake it. But I am hungry when I go to Willy’s, and I don’t want to wait on a second burrito bowl. And, also, I go there a lot, and I don’t want to make the staff hate me and want to spit in my food. (In the spirit of full disclosure, I must also confess that I know there are non vegetarian-friendly ingredients in Lay's Barbecue Baked Potato Chips, but I pretend that I don’t, because they are so good and I don’t want to give up eating them.)

So, anyway, getting back to my story, we were all over at Mom and Dad’s house that day. I got there before everyone else did, and my mom showed me the new awesome dessert she had made—black bean brownies. “Ewwww,” I thought. “That doesn’t sound good at all.” My mom was excited, though. She had gotten the recipe from her new Rocco Dispirito cookbook that Devin and Abby had given her for her birthday, and was itching to try it out. Now, before I tell you what happened when I tasted the brownies, I have to give you a little background on my mom.

My mom and her identical twin sister, Lynn had to start cooking dinner for their family when they were around 12 years old. Their parents both worked, so, for their entire adolescence, they came home from school and prepared dinner for themselves, their brother, and their parents. Then, after my mom married my dad, she cooked for my dad and my brothers and I and our ungrateful asses.  (My brothers and I, and not my dad are the ones with the ungrateful asses.) Whatever she made, I am pretty sure we complained and said we didn’t like it, as kids tend to do.

Anyway, my mom has been cooking for, like the last millennium, and the woman is tired. Well, she didn’t say this, but I know I would be tired if I’d been having to cook food for ungrateful people for the past 200,000 years. If it were me, when currently tasked with preparing food for someone, I would put an Oreo cookie on a plate, and dump an entire jar of marinara sauce on top, and I would hand it to them, and by God, they’d like it! (As of late my cooking skills don’t go much beyond opening a jar.)

Well, I tasted the brownies, and they tasted like I imagine the first meal Satan might serve you in hell would taste. I tried to act nonchalant, but quickly grabbed a soft drink out of the refrigerator and downed a huge gulp to rid my mouth of the taste. All evening, before we even ate, my mom was asking everyone to try the brownies. My theory is that she had tried them and didn't like them either, and was anxious about this fact. All evening, other people tried them and, though they put on gallant faces, they had to run to the trash can and quickly spit out the mouthful of brownie, then immediately find another food or drink item to remove the taste. By the time we were ready for dessert, my mom had started jokingly proffering the brownies to everyone, threatening to make us eat them.

Then Pops tried the brownies, and claimed to like them. Jacqueline believes that he was just trying to be nice, but I think he might actually have enjoyed them. After all, Pops has diabetes, and doesn’t often get to eat sugary or tasty desserts, so he might have thought they were, like, the best thing he ever tasted or something. At the end of the evening, we asked my mom what had been in the brownies, and she explained that, in addition to the black beans, she had used Splenda, espresso, and sugar free Hershey’s syrup, for the chocolate flavor. My mom stated that, although Rocco Dispirito had appeared on Good Morning America and made the brownies, and although Rocco and the entire cast were going on and on about how absolutely delicious they were, that clearly, they had all lied. I thought their less than stellar taste might have come from the use of Splenda and sugar free syrup, but my sweet mom was trying to make a dessert I could eat on Weight Watchers, so I didn’t say anything.

A couple of days later, we found out the real reason the brownies sucked. Jacqueline, Christopher, and I were sitting with my mom and dad at a breakfast place in Decatur when my mom declared that she thought she knew why the brownies had been so gross. “Now that I think about it,” she said, “I really think I might have used the can of seasoned black beans.”

Mystery solved!