The recipe for brownie stew

My favorite body cream is a thick, luxurious Brazil Nut number. I am not at all confident that I could identify a Brazil Nut– under duress or otherwise–but I do know that the lotion made from it smells distinctly of chocolate. And, as an embattled working mother of four, I have concluded that the post-shower ritual of cocoa-scented moisturizing rates a close second to consuming actual chocolate (OK, not that close a second, but still soothing and definitely lower in calories). My daughter, now 9, loves my favored lotion as well–partly because of the soul-satisfying aroma of chocolate, but mostly, I think, because it smells like Mama.

She wandered into our room one day a few summers ago as I was applying lotion to my legs and took a great deep breath in through her nose down to the bottom of her lungs. “Mmmm,” she exhaled appreciatively, “you smell like brownies!” “Would you like to smell like brownies, too?” I offered. Her eyes grew very large and dreamy. “Brownie stew?! What’s that?” she asked, thoroughly charmed and intrigued by the prospect.

I laughed and explained that she had misunderstood me; brownie stew did not exist. “But you just said it, Mama, so it is a thing!” she laughed back at me, fully confident at 6 that I was the mistaken one. We speculated at some length about what exactly brownie stew consists of, settling ultimately on those warm little fudgy chunks swimming in a pool of POV (household shorthand for “plain old vanilla” ice cream).

I have the power to speak things into being–to write things into being–and I need reminders like this of that. So I am starting by documenting the recipe for brownie stew.