Ingredients:

4 oz. unsweetened chocolate

1/2 cup margarine or butter

2 cups sugar

2 teaspoons vanilla

4 eggs

1 cup all purpose flour

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 cup chocolate chips

1 cup walnuts, if you insist

Directions:

1. heat oven to 350℉.

2. grease the pan. immediately wash your hands to get the slippery butter wrapper feeling off of them.

3. melt the chocolate and butter in the double boiler, or rather, watch grandma do it for you. 

4. mix the dry ingredients together.

5. mix the eggs, vanilla, and sugar together. add the chocolate mixture. 

6. this is the best part: pour the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients and watch the chocolate ground become covered in powdery flour snow. stir and watch the swirls disappear. ponder impermanence. 

7. add chocolate chips. the recipe says to add walnuts but you don't like them, so you do half with nuts and half without. 

8. pour into the pan. scrape out the bowl, but not too much. 

9. lick the spoon. this is important and grandma-approved. then, when nobody is looking, run your finger along the rim of the bowl and repeat.  

10. listen to your dad or your grandma tell the story of that time uncle scott baked a cake for that family friend you can’t remember the name of but ended up eating so much of the batter that he got sick and there was no cake. don't let this stop you from licking the spoon next time. 

11. bake at 350℉ for 30-48 minutes. 

12. the hardest part: let the brownies cool entirely before cutting and eating. try to ignore the delicious warm brownie smell filling the house. 

13. take turns with your sister cutting up the brownies. calculate psychologically and geometrically how to give yourself the biggest piece without anyone noticing or protesting. 

14. after the third time one of you shrieks “that's not fair!” have grandma cut up the brownies for you. 

15. serve and enjoy!

16. you can't remember the last time you made brownies with her. you grew forward and she grew backward. it was too upsetting to be the one helping her remember what to do.

17. make the brownies anyway, by yourself. try to recall the way it used to be when she was here. you can almost taste it in that first bite.