Instant Brownies & Yester Bosnian Vartanian: From Aintab, Ottoman Empire, to Newtonville, Massachusetts

Yes, sometime in the mid-forties my mother's mother scolded my mother for baking everything from scratch.  Now it should be known that my mother was an incredible cook, both for good nutritious meals as well as delicious fattening desserts.  And she always prepared everything from the freshest of ingredients (except for the artificially colored and flavored Jello and Kool-Aid which make me cringe when I think of them now!)

In the summer of 1950, my grandmother (an Armenian woman born in 19th Century Aintab, Ottoman Empire, who immigrated to the United States in 1905), came to visit us in Newtonville, and all I remember from her visit is her scolding my mother, who now had three children and very little extra time. Yes, she was scolding my mother for baking with the freshest of ingredients.  After all, she admonished, cake mixes are for the modern housewife; if she, my grandmother, could use them, certainly my mother should.  Well, thank the Lord, my mother never heeded her mother's advice and continued to bake the most delicious banana cakes, apple pies, chocolate cakes with chocolate icing, lemon meringue pies, sponge cakes, marble cakes, jelly rolls, hermits, brownies  . . .

Fast forward many years: 

It was Monika's birthday and no time to bake a birthday cake.  Then I remembered -- I had picked up that gourmet all natural brownie mix that was on sale last week, just in case I ever had a last minute emergency (and yes, I did so furtively, ashamed, but remembering my grandmother's words). My excuse: Monika LOVES chocolate.  Pure chocolate. Unadulterated with orange flavoring!  This mix was just the ticket.  Oh, would my Grandmother Yester Bosnian Vartanian be proud of me!  But don't tell Monika.  She loved the birthday brownies; she thinks I made them from scratch.

N.B. By the way, the secret for baking delicious chewy brownies, either from scratch or from a mix, is UNDERBAKING them!  Counterintuitive as it may seem, taking the brownies out of the oven before they seem cooked is the sure way to perfectly baked brownies!  My mother made the best. And yes, always from scratch.