I’m walking down 82nd Street past the police precinct. It’s almost 6 PM; I’ve spent the past hour in Central Park, doing the wide loop around the reservoir as is my evening routine. I’m cold and so eager for a hot shower and pajamas and dinner that I can barely let myself think of the comfort ahead. I walk briskly, picturing each block ahead, only vaguely noticing the surroundings, aware of them only in my peripheral vision: parked police cars, a father holding open the glass door to a restaurant and helping his toddler step carefully down the stoop, a nice-looking yet wearied man walking his golden retriever.
But then, without meaning to, I’m pulled into the present moment by scent. The rush of warm air from the open hibachi restaurant door brings the smell of hot cooking oil, ginger, garlic, and something sweet I can’t quite place. Citrus, perhaps, or tamarind? A few steps later, just outside of the door of the 20th Precinct, I’m overwhelmed by the smell of gasoline. At least, I assume that’s what it is: sharp and plastic-y and not entirely unpleasant, but specific.
In an instant, the smell transports me to a campground. I’m in a small clearing, sitting on an overturned log that serves as a makeshift bench. The top of the log is slightly damp from the recent rainfall and it’s cool against my skin. At the center of the clearing is a simple fire pit — a few ash-covered logs piled between flat stones. Above me, bright sunlight filters down dimly through the leafy canopy of trees.
In this particular memory, I’m in college and I’m on a six-day hiking trip on the Long Trail in Vermont, leading a group of ten students. We spend the next few hours prepping for the night. We string up ropes to hold the huge tarp that serves as our communal tent, and secure the edges. We roll out our sleeping bags, which already smell musty from the pervasive, persistent damp that’s impossible to shake after a day of rain while backpacking. We kick off our hiking boots, peel off our socks, and pick our way over boulders to get to the river that runs alongside the campsite. We cool our feet in the rushing water, toss pebbles, eat leftover tortillas spread with Nutella, and play the end of our trail game — a name-guessing game that’s a competitive prelude to the heated rounds of Mafia which we start anew each night.
As evening falls and the sky turns a dusky blue, we gather around the campsite in the waning light to make dinner. I’m overseeing the meal prep, and teaching two students how to light the miniature propane camping stove. It’s fussy and temperamental; as we try to get it to ignite, the smell of camping stove gas stings my nose. The smell reminds me of everything we cook on those stoves: gooey, gluey macaroni — the noodles a technicolor orange from the powdered cheese packets, and instant oatmeal with its sugary deposit of apple cinnamon flavoring in the bottom of the bowl, and rice with soupy black beans.
That smell — of the stove igniting — is so ingrained in my sense memory that even a whiff of the gasoline on West 82nd Street, fifteen years later, can take me right back there. To my blistered feet covered in moleskin squares and the scratchy-soft feeling of the red bandana I wore in my hair when I hiked and the heavy pressure of my 25-pound backpack against my sweaty t-shirt.
It’s funny how this happens. It’s a little disorienting sometimes; time travel isn’t real but the strength of memories can almost make it seem so. I appreciate knowing that with the right trigger, all those experiences and moments and feelings can be pulled to the surface. Knowing they aren’t lost, but just buried somewhere, like we’re all some version of Russian nesting dolls with thousands of ourselves inside: me, at every age, every day, doing all the things I’ve done.
When I get home, I’m a little unmoored by it. If I had to put it into words, I’d say I felt momentarily homesick for that older version of myself that existed in just a fleeting phase of time.
And, well, everyone knows that nothing soothes the jangled nerves quite like chocolate, right?
Not just chocolate though. A bag of M&Ms won’t have the same comforting effect as homemade brownies. I do know this to be true. Don’t fight me on it!
I rummage through the cabinets to assess the chocolate situation. I am, in fact, well-stocked. (Okay, will this make you laugh? I have not one, not two, but five kinds of cocoa powder: Hershey’s classic, raw cacao powder, Dutch-process, black cocoa, and a triple cocoa blend from King Arthur.) A check of the freezer reveals semisweet chunks, half of a bar of unsweetened baking chocolate, and bittersweet chocolate wafers.
If I am to make some brownies, I might as well turn it into a useful investigation for myself. As I’m early into my sourdough journey, I figure I’ll try adding some sourdough discard to the recipe, since I need to feed my starter anyway. It’s not ripe enough to add much leavening power to the batter, so I’ll choose a base recipe that has baking soda.
**Tip: If you want to play around with using your sourdough discard (meaning the part of your sourdough starter that you have to get rid of when you feed it), you can pretty much adapt any recipe to use it. Just take the weight of your discard and subtract that amount of flour/liquid from the recipe. So if you have 100g of sourdough discard, subtract 50g flour and 50g liquid from your recipe.
I also have an open bag of rye flour in my pantry. Rye is an excellent flavor partner for chocolate, and at work, we’ve been talking about interesting ways to bake with rye. I shrug. Let’s do it!
I find a recipe from Epicurious for sourdough rye brownies, but it calls for creating a rye flour-based sourdough starter and using active starter in the recipe. I skip this in favor of using my discard as I explained above, and make a few other tweaks as well, changing the sugar ratio a bit and adding a pinch of espresso powder. I use less solid chocolate and more cocoa powder, and I use black cocoa because I love the intensity of flavor. You can use other cocoa powder too, so don’t be deterred by that.
When I pull them from the oven, they’re perfect. They have an incredibly delicate crust that shatters when I cut into them. They’re extremely fudgy but also lighter than I would expect, as fudgy usually means dense. I think it’s the addition of the sourdough that must have contributed that texture. You probably would never taste the rye if you didn’t know it was there, but they are richer and more flavorful than most brownies.
So the next time you need a bit of comfort, or something to right your ship — so to speak — I’d go this route.
Sourdough Rye Brownies
Adapted from Epicurious; makes one 9” x 13” pan
125g unfed sourdough starter (discard)
2 cups (206g) rye flour
5 eggs
1 cup (198g) granulated sugar, divided
¾ cup (12 tablespoons, 170g) unsalted butter
2 ½ cups (425g) bittersweet or semisweet chocolate (chopped or chips)
1 cup (213g) brown sugar
½ teaspoon vanilla extract
¾ cup (63g) cocoa powder (I used black cocoa)
½ teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon espresso powder, optional
flaky sea salt, for sprinkling
In a large bowl, whisk together the starter, rye flour, eggs, and 1/2 cup of the granulated sugar. Cover and let sit in a warm-is place for 1 to 2 hours. (You can skip this step, but it contributes to the wonderful texture of the brownies: at once light and fudgy.)
When you’re about ready to move onto the next step, melt the butter with the chocolate in the microwave or a double boiler, stirring until smooth. Set aside to cool slightly.
Preheat the oven to 325 degrees F and line a 9” x 13” pan with parchment (or grease the pan well).
Uncover the bowl of the rye flour mixture and add the remaining ingredients (except for the flaky salt), along with the melted butter and chocolate mixture. Stir until the batter is smooth and well-combined.
Pour the batter into your prepared pan and bake for 30 to 40 minutes, until the top and sides are set. Don’t overbake!
Remove from the oven and let cool completely before cutting. I know it’s tempting! But the brownies will be a bit crumbly at first, and once they’re fully cooled (in fact, I like to chill them overnight), they’ll be fudgier and easier to cut and will hold together perfectly.