Meals make occasions. And I’m not just talking Christmas dinner. An ordinary Friday night might not mean anything special to most, but perhaps that’s the day every week that you and your best friend order Chinese. When I was younger, every Tuesday night my mom made dinner (instead of my dad) and every Tuesday night we had spaghetti in Classico tomato sauce. Or what about ice cream after baseball practice every Thursday?
Monica Scott, a career outreach consultant at the Career Centre, shares not one but two recipes this week, to make an occasion of milestones in job-searching—something you might not otherwise consider celebrating. Her first is a very easy-to-make and healthy “Interview Day Smoothie”, which she suggests is a “great way to start the day, especially on the day of an important job interview”. Scott makes it with a good handful of baby spinach, kale, and chard, adding in half a banana, half a cup each of mango, pineapple, and apple, and finishing it with water, juice, or coconut water before blending.
But how do we celebrate the occasion when we actually land the job (or commiserate if we don’t)? Scott suggests a family favourite among three generations of bakers in her family, still known to her elementary and high school friends as “Mrs. Scott’s Brownies”, she says.
“Brownies are a tradition in my family; my mom always had—and still does—a pan of brownies ready most days to enjoy over a glass of milk or a cup of tea or coffee and good company,” she says.
Scott’s favourite variation is a top layer of warm, gooey melted marshmallows and chocolate icing.
If it means a smoothie and a brownie every time, job interviews don’t sound so awful.
Mrs. Scott’s Brownies
MAKES 1 PAN OF BROWNIES
INGREDIENTS
- ½ cup butter or margarine
- 4 tbsp cocoa
- ½ cup flour
- 1 cup white sugar
- 1 tsp vanilla
- pinch of salt
- ¼ tsp salt
- 2 eggs
- 12 large marshmallows
- chocolate butter icing, to decorate
METHOD
- Put cocoa and butter/margarine in a saucepan. Melt together on stovetop on medium heat.
- Remove from heat and mix in flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt. Then stir in the eggs and vanilla.
- Pour into a greased 9” by 9” pan. Bake at 350 F (preheated) for 30 min.
- In the last five min of baking, remove. Add marshmallows on top of the brownies and return them to the oven.
- Remove when marshmallows are soft and squash with a wet knife. Let cool. Ice with chocolate butter icing.
