By Mid-January. The taper has begun. The first reduction: from 20mg to 15mg. The 5mg reduction is small, a fraction of a pill, a sliver of chemistry removed from the daily routine. The body notices. Not dramatically — not a crisis, not a panic — but a subtle shift, the way you notice a chair has been moved three inches when you walk into a familiar room. Something is different. The something is the 5mg. The 5mg was a small thing that was doing a large amount of invisible work, the way kombu in cold water does invisible work: nothing appears to be happening, but everything is changing.
I made hot pot — nabe, the communal dish — for Miya and me on a rainy Wednesday, the kind of midweek meal that requires nothing but a pot and broth and whatever vegetables are in the refrigerator. The nabe was simple and warm and the simplicity was the comfort and the comfort was the response to the subtle shift, the body saying: something has changed, and the food saying: something has not. The food is the constant. The 5mg may have changed. The dashi has not.
The first week off 5mg was: fine. Fine in the honest sense, not the Nakamura sense. Actually fine. The anxiety was present (it is always present, the refrigerator hum) but not louder than usual. The yoga held. The writing held. The cooking held. The three pillars stood. The fourth pillar (the pill) had been reduced by a quarter and the building did not wobble. The not-wobbling was encouraging. The encouraging was cautious. The cautious was the therapist saying: "Good. But it's week one. The brain adjusts slowly. Be patient." Be patient. The patience of the dashi. The patience of the miso in the dark. The patience of a woman learning, at thirty-nine, to live inside her own chemistry without assistance.
The nabe was Wednesday. The brownies were Friday, when I needed something even simpler — something that required a bowl and a spoon and no patience for technique or timing or anything that could go wrong. Speedy brownies are my fallback, the recipe I come back to when the chemistry is uncertain and the comfort requirement is high: chocolate is blunt and honest, and that week, blunt and honest was what I needed. They are not elegant. They are the constant.
Speedy Brownies
Prep Time: 10 min | Cook Time: 22 min | Total Time: 32 min | Servings: 16
Ingredients
- 1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, melted and slightly cooled
- 1 cup granulated sugar
- 2 large eggs
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
- 1/2 cup all-purpose flour
- 1/4 tsp salt
- 1/4 tsp baking powder
Instructions
- Preheat and prep. Heat oven to 350°F. Lightly grease an 8x8-inch baking pan or line with parchment paper.
- Combine wet ingredients. In a medium bowl, stir together the melted butter and sugar until combined. Add eggs one at a time, stirring well after each. Stir in vanilla.
- Add dry ingredients. Sift in cocoa powder, flour, salt, and baking powder. Stir until just combined — do not overmix. The batter will be thick.
- Bake. Spread batter evenly into the prepared pan. Bake for 20–22 minutes, until the top is set and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out with moist crumbs (not wet batter). Do not overbake.
- Cool and cut. Let cool in the pan for at least 15 minutes before cutting into 16 squares. They firm up as they cool.
Nutrition (per serving)
Calories: 138 | Protein: 2g | Fat: 7g | Carbs: 19g | Fiber: 1g | Sodium: 52mg