In case of an Emergency

Courtney by John Burningham

Courtney is one of my favorite children books ever. John Burningham is the author of many great children books, including The Magic Bed, Avocado Baby and Aldo. I think that Courtney is the best one of the bunch. It is just as amusing as Avocado Baby (which is about a little baby who eats avocados and becomes really strong and scares away some robbers) but more thoughtful. At the opening of the book, the children of the family want a dog. Their parents tell them to make sure and pick a "pedigreed dog." The children then take the dog that noone wants, Courtney. Their parents are very mad until Courtney opens his large traveling case and cooks dinner, waits on the family in a white waiter's suit, plays the violin while they eat and juggles for the baby (my favorite part).

He spends all of his time with the family and even saves the baby from a fire, but when he leaves, the parents immediately forget all of his virtues and insist that they knew he would leave all along because he had no pedigree. Then, the children are at the beach floating in a dinghy that gets lost at sea, and mysteriously they make it back to shore, after their parents first becoming frantic.

Whenever I think about this book, I think about how Burningham has made Courtney into a Christ figure. The only people who believe in him are the children, but then he ends up being this amazing individual, making them happy--literally saving their lives. Then, as soon as he appears he disappears--again paralleling Jesus' death and resurrection--cuz the kids at the end are saved by a mysterious something that the reader just knows is Courtney.

John Burningham always tells a story from a slightly odd view. Aldo, for example is, I find a sad and sort of menacing book. And The Magic Bed is similarly odd. The parents are always, in one way or another the enemy, which is definitely a common children's book technique (consider any Roald Dahl plot) but unlike Roald Dahl there is never any humor associated with their shortcomings or villainy, which is sort of odd considering their audience.

Anyway, I appreciate the fact that Burningham has made a ratty old pound dog into a Christ figure. I also like how Courtney first impresses the family with his range of tricks--violin playing, juggling etc. He really is humble in appearance only. And here, Burningham has really managed to pack alot into a little book.

READ THIS

Here is an article about the demise of the entree. I am a wholehearted advocate of eliminating the entree at restaurants myself--at least the humongous portions that are typical of American entrees.

Another Piece of Outsider Art

By Georgia Henkel

Supernatural Brownies

The NYTimes recipe for supernatural brownies is the best brownie recipe I have ever tried. They remind me of a cakier, less dense miles of chocolate. They really are better the day after you bake them, and there are so few ingredients that the quality of your ingredients makes a significant difference.  Click here to go to the recipe.

I was recently reading somewhere, I believe in America's Test Kitchen cookbook that Jacques Pepin claimed that chocolate tastes better when it is not heated to as high of a temperature when it is cooked. And, America's Test Kitchen did some research, and he is right. This seems fairly obvious if you eat one of these brownies right out of the oven. 

I was surprised to find something that really does taste better if it cools--usually I gobble up everything when it is still so hot that I have to leave my mouth open and breathe for the first thirty seconds. The chocolate loses its flavor when it is really hot but when it cools, the brownies sink slightly and the chocolate flavor intensifies. This makes me really worried about chocolate souffles. I love chocolate souffles, but there is no way to serve them any way except for very hot. Have I, all this time, loved a sub-par chocolate dessert? I have been worried that I have just been romanticizing them--there is something so nice about eating a nice puffed up chocolate souffle full of creme anglaise. 

Clancy and I used to make them every Sunday when Margaret was a baby and we lived in Lawrence. I would make the souffles, and he would make the creme anglaise. And then we would sit at our kitchen table and hold the baby and look at how cold it was outside and eat them (two each).

Anyway, back to the brownies--I made them twice in one week. The first time I used good quality, but not excellent semi sweet chocolate along with nestle semi sweet chocolate chips and regular light brown sugar. Yesterday, I used Scharffen Berger chocolate and muscovado sugar, as recommended by the NYT, and they were better (I didn't think they could get any better, but seriously they did).

And, please do cover them, I was too lazy to return to the kitchen last night and cover them, and they got slightly stale at the edges, although they retained their moist dense centers.

P.S. You can just cut them in the pan right after you bake them, you need not follow the slightly odd saran wrap-cutting board instructions.