“Only Hope remained there in an unbreakable home within, under the rim of the great jar.” – Hesiod
(After all the darkness, this piece is really about hope: As Homer wrote, “Be strong, saith my heart; I have seen worse sights than this.” )
I’ve been in shock this week. I think most of us have. Another politically based killing, a mere three months after the last (amid several other attempts), has opened up a wound in our nation and all the darkness has come spilling out. The division in our country has long been apparent, but never more so than this past week, and it is only growing. The Pandora’s Box (or, as Hesiod wrote in 700 BCE, a great jar) has been opened, and all our demons, envy, scorn, ignorance, hatred, and division have been released.
Hesiod, the teller of myths, also recounts the tale of Prometheus, he who offered mortals the gift of fire. The ability to start fire allowed mortals to protect themselves and use heat to create objects, arts, handicrafts, and technology—and eventually food. Zeus, who had withheld this special force, knew that it also had the potential to destroy humankind.
To mix metaphors, we Americans have opened our own Pandora’s box, and we are playing with fire. The tools meant to safeguard democracy and connect and unite us— politics, media, technology—are now the very instruments used to tear us apart. The forces have been unleashed, and we need to learn to contain them before they overtake us completely.
But here’s the thing: I don’t want to write this. A good friend told me the last thing anyone needed was another post about despair, another lament over the state of our country (and, frankly, the world). She suggested I focus on something more positive, lighter. And she’s right. I have already pulled back from politics on my social media accounts, instead trying to focus on food—something grounding, something that brings a measure of joy, if only briefly. The only way I’ve gotten through these past 10 days has been by losing myself in my everyday tasks: making jam, reading, exercising, cooking. Maybe my role right now isn’t to add to the grief, but to offer a diversion, a plate of comfort to others who feel as shaken as I do by the endless turmoil.
Like so many myths, Hesiod’s stories remind us that every gift carries a shadow. What was meant to sustain us can just as easily unravel us; what should have united us has instead become a source of division. And yet, if we learn anything at all, it’s that what we do with these gifts is up to us. If hope is all that remains in the jar, then let it be the tool by which we take back what’s been twisted and restore it to what it was meant to be. If fire can consume, then let me reclaim it for my own use to create, to feed, to make someone happy.
Fall has arrived, a bit earlier than usual—the grape harvest in my French wine town, the local harbinger of Autumn—has arrived one whole month early this year. We have a large ukulele group staying at the hotel this week, and their cheerful music floats up and through my apartment every morning and afternoon as they play. Plums and peaches fill my kitchen as I turn them into jar upon jar of jam, to be replaced before long by green tomatoes, pears, and quince. I made my first pot of couscous of the season and am already dreaming of harira and Marengo.
Today, I just want to offer you a simple recipe for something that will absolutely soothe your soul, a recipe uniting one of my favorite combinations, peanut butter and chocolate. Sweet, smooth, dark, a little salty, and perfect to share with others.
Peanut Butter Chocolate Swirl Brownies
The chocolate must be bittersweet, not semisweet, which is too sweet. The salted peanuts add that great salty touch to the brownies along with crunch.
4 ½ ounces (130 grams) dark bittersweet chocolate
1 ⅓ cups (180 grams) flour
¾ teaspoon baking powder
¼ teaspoon salt
8 tablespoons (115 grams) unsalted butter, softened to room temperature
1 ½ cups (300 grams) sugar
3 large eggs
1 ½ teaspoons vanilla extract
2 tablespoons milk
3 level tablespoons smooth/creamy peanut butter
2 to 3 tablespoons salted peanuts, coarsely chopped
Preheat the oven to 325°F (160°C). Butter a 9 x 9-inch (23 x 23 cm) square brownie or cake pan.
Break up the chocolate into pieces and place in a small saucepan or heatproof bowl. Slowly melt the chocolate in the pan over very low heat or in the bowl in the microwave or over a pot with an inch of gently simmering water; remove from the heat when the chocolate is almost but not quite completely melted and stir away the heat until all the chocolate is melted. Set aside to cool to at least tepid.
Stir the flour, baking powder, and salt together in a small bowl.
Put the softened butter with the sugar in a large mixing bowl and beat until well-blended—start with your electric hand mixer on low or medium-low speed to avoid bits of butter flying, increasing mixer speed once blended until creamy.
Beat in the eggs one at a time, beating in the vanilla with the first egg and the milk with the last, beating well after each addition. Add the flour and beat on low just until blended; scrape down the sides of the bowl and beat again until creamy.
Transfer ⅓ of the batter to a smaller bowl—I calculate this by weighing bowl + batter – weight of empty bowl (weighed before beginning) = weight of batter ÷ 3 = weight of batter transferred to smaller bowl. But you can eyeball it.
Beat the peanut butter into this smaller third portion of batter. Beat the melted chocolate into the larger ⅔ portion of batter.
Spoon the two batters into the prepared brownie pan, then, using the long blade of a knife, swirl the two batters together to marble, evening out the top and spreading evenly to the edges and into the corners.
Sprinkle the coarsely chopped peanuts across the top of the batter. Don’t even think of topping this brownie with Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups, as some suggest—it’s sacrilege and too cloyingly sweet. The salted peanuts add a necessary and excellent touch of salt and a satisfying crunch.
Bake in the preheated oven for 35-45 minutes, depending both on your oven and how gooey or cake-like you like your brownies. The top should no longer be shiny, the edges just barely beginning to pull away from the pan, and the center set—less or more, as you like it.
Jamie Schler is an American food and culture writer, primarily immersed in French culinary history, living in France where she owns a hotel and writes the Substack Life’s a Feast.
Dining and Cooking