I signed up for MIT's free class on circuits and electronics. It was free. And it was from MIT. The prerequisites for the class are AP Physics, Calculus, and Linear Algebra. I have taken all of those classes. Yes, that was 30 years ago, but I took them.
And, because it is in my nature to do my very best against the odds, I have been struggling through the class. I don't understand any of it. I have to listen to lectures 2-3 times, watch all the tutorials over and over, and read the discussion boards to find out why my answers are wrong. Which they almost always are. I just turned in my first homework assignment (today is 3/22--the assignment was due 3/18), and I only got about half of the answers right. I had spent about 6 hours on it. As Sharmyn said, I will be failing this class spectacularly.
But I have become obsessed with it, which means that all of my spare time (ha!) has been consumed with circuit analysis and KVLs and KCLs and node analysis and things of this nature. I have had very little time to cook (or workout or clean or do laundry).
So Monday night, I came home and told the girls we were going to get the potatoes and the brownies done. I put Cassandra on the brownies, blatantly copying Maria. I rubbed the potatoes with salt, shoved them in the oven, and then worked on my circuits (getting all the signs wrong and a lot of the math wrong) while Cassandra made the brownie batter. I paid very little attention to her. She did complain about having the chop the chocolate, exclaimed about the fact that she was using cocoa and chocolate, and commented on the fact that my eggs had green shells. The only thing she had me help with was scraping the batter out of the bowl. I was stunned at how thick and sticky the batter was. I have made a lot of brownies in my life, but none with the kind of black, thick, sticky batter that Kate's Impossibly Fudgy Brownies have. Yum.
The potatoes were finally baked, and I played a game of hot potato scraping the contents out into the bowl, mixing it with butter, dill, salt and pepper, and scooping that mixture back into the potatoes. I forgot the corned beef. Forgot. Really. The recipe didn't say to put the tops back on the potatoes, but I did. Oh, and I sliced up a purple cabbage I had received in my CSA bag and threw that it in the oven too.
We all loved the potatoes. The crispy salty skins were delicious with Habanero Ketchup! We loved the dill flavor. The cabbage was a bit too crispy, but still yummy.
The brownies--what can I say? These were truly delicious brownies. I think I might agree with Claire that they are my favorite brownies ever. After reading Claire's interview, we doubled the cayenne. That meant that the brownies had a spiciness that snuck up on you. The sweet, chocolaty flavor contrasted with the salt and the spice very nicely. And I loved the texture--like thick nutella or chocolate sauce. Yummm. We all loved them. Cassandra took them to school and her friends all loved them too. Except they thought the cayenne should have been left out. I disagree.
I tried to interview Cassandra about the brownies, but she was not an interesting interview subject. "Did you learn anything when you made these?" "No." "Were you surprised by anything?" "No." "Is this your favorite brownie recipe?" "I don't know." I told her that she needed to be more interested when she is interviewed.
Phew. I'm done with this blog post. I can get back to my node analysis.
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