Thank you to everyone who read, commented or wrote to me about my recent opinion piece. I was concerned about mixing food and politics but all of you put my concerns to rest. During the past week I’ve received an overwhelming amount of support and encouragement. But I was most touched by those of you who shared your personal stories with me.
Please continue to share your stories and speak out about how our governor’s policies are affecting Mainers. We have got to make sure we are heard and not just swept under the carpet. LePage has to be held accountable for his actions and constantly reminded that he also represents the 61% of us that didn’t vote for him.
Now to truly thank all of you I’ve decided to share my beloved Chocolate Espresso Cheesecake Brownie recipe. This recipe has been perfected after several different tests and now I can say with confidence that these are the best darn brownies I’ve ever had. Seriously. I was hoping to take some gorgeous shots of the finished brownies but then my hungry family devoured them in no time at all and is now demanding a second batch!
(Also for those of our who have been asking about the apple pie recipe, it will be posted next.)
Chocolate Espresso Cheesecake Brownies
Brownie Ingredients:
2 1/2 tablespoons fresh brewed espresso (brewed coffee will also work but make sure it isn’t flavored)
1/3 cup cocoa (preferably Dutch-processed)
1/2 cup of boiling water
2 ounces unsweetened chocolate, finely chopped
4 tablespoons melted unsalted butter
1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons vegetable oil
2 large eggs
2 large egg yolks
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 cups sugar
1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 teaspoon table salt
6 ounces Callebaut Espresso chunks (if not available use any other bittersweet espresso chocolate. I recommend Ghirardelli Espresso Escape Intense Dark Chocolate Bar. If using the bar break it up into 1/2 inch chunks)
Cheesecake Ingredients:
8 ounces of cream cheese, at room temperature
1 large egg yolk
5 tablespoons sugar
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1) Place over rack at lowest position and pre-heat oven to 350 degrees.
2) Line a 13 x 9-inch baking pan with a foil sling. Then spray with cooking spray.
3) Whisk cocoa, fresh espresso and boiling water in a large bowl. Then add the finiely chopped unsweetened chocolate and whisk until melted. Whisk in the melted butter and oil. Next add eggs, yolks, and vanilla and continue to whisk until smooth. Whisk in sugar until fully combined. Next fold in the four and salt. Finally, fold in the espresso chocolate chunks.
4) Pour batter into prepared pan and set aside.
5) Mix together the cream cheese, egg yolk, sugar and vanilla. Stir until smooth and incorporated.
6) Distribute the cream cheese in dollops on top of the brownie batter. Then with a knife swirl the mixture throughout the brownies.
7) Bake brownies for 30 to 35 minutes until a toothpick inserted between the edge and center comes out with just a few moist crumbs. Make sure not to over bake! Transfer the pan to a wire rack and let cool for 45 minutes. Then remove the brownies from the pan and allow to cool fully on wire rack. Enjoy!
(Note: All hyperlinks are to source articles. Please read them if you have the time.)
Originally, I thought I would limit this blog strictly to all matters food — and leave politics to my twitter feed and everyday life. Just one little problem: I really cannot keep them separate. I am passionate on both topics and both have been a vital part of my life for as long as I can remember. Hell, politics and food often go hand in hand! Michael Pollan, Mark Bittman and Barbara Kingsolver have been mixing the two for years! Even my heroine, Julia Child, was politically active.
Julia was raised in a strict Republican Presbyterian family in California. Her father helped to finance Richard M. Nixon’s first campaign. But the young Julia found her ideas challenged after graduating from Smith College:
I was a Republican until I got to New York and had to live on $18 a week. It was then that I became a Democrat. – Julia Child
From that point on she was a staunch Democrat who crusaded for women’s rights, Planned Parenthood, and helped support politicians such as Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton. In fact she was such an ardent liberal that many of her friends feared she would turn down the Presidential Medal of Freedom when President Bush awarded it to her in 2003. She accepted the medal but stated this about W:
I’ve nothing to say about him except that I am appalled that he was chosen by our people to be president. – Julia Child
So there you have it. I am using Julia as excuse to launch into a political tirade here on www.growingupjulia.com.
So what’s got me in such a tizzy? Our darn Governor of Maine, Paul LePage and his latest blunder! Since taking office on January 5, 2011, Governor LePage has insulted and bullied the people of Maine again and again. With his constant blustering blunders, he has proven himself to be out of touch with both the populace of our state and with reality.
Governor LePage and his cronies have attempted to disenfranchise citizens, loosen child labor laws, threatened the Department of Environmental Protection, ridiculed our unemployed, suggested that welfare recipients are lazy and should take drug tests and told the NAACP to “kiss my butt”! His idiocy and anger knows no bounds. He has lost his cool and physically threatened reporters and desecrated murals honoring Maine’s proud labor tradition. AND he manages to do all of this with a certain je ne sais quoi that only he can muster: a certain blend of pompous arrogance, naivety, condescension, confusion, bullying and rage. He always seems so angry. What’s wrong LePage? Did you not realize that being the Governor is much harder than managing Mardens?!? It seems every time he is in public he manages to stick his foot in his mouth all while claiming he speaks for the common men and women of Maine (the same ones he wants to submit to drug tests and disenfranchise)!
LePage has been running town hall meetings throughout the state and on November 10, 2011 he conducted one at the Ellsworth Middle School. During this meeting he huffed and puffed and managed to insult Medicaid, welfare, teachers and a plethora of other topics. In regards to his desire to “reform welfare” and fix the budget he threatened to hold the state’s education funding hostage until his demands are met:
Eighty percent of the budget is Medicaid and welfare and education. If the Legislature has the political will to fix the problem [cutting welfare], education will keep the additional $63 million we gave it.
Then he alluded that Maine’s welfare benefits are SO generous that we are attracting a benefit leeching underclass from all over the country. Because yes, folks, LePage thinks that everyone on welfare LOVES being on welfare and just wants to keep riding that fat gravy train:
People that don’t qualify in New Hampshire come to Maine; people that don’t qualify in Massachusetts come to Maine. And my feeling is I would much rather help Maine people before I help the rest of the country. – Governor LePage
Then LePage got onto the topic of healthcare. When asked by an audience member about whether he supported universal healthcare:
Yes. Now, would I support a plan that covers everybody and the taxpayer pays for it? No. – Governor LePage
Mr. Governor, clearly you do not understand the concept of universal healthcare. Sigh… Whatever happened to those Christian principles of caring about those around you? Whatever happened to helping out the needy, the sick and the poor? LePage wants a scapegoat for every problem this state is facing. He points fingers and furiously blames it on someone else. What we need in this period of economic strife is a leader who will bring us together, not someone who wants you to believe your neighbor is a greedy welfare-loving, drug taking, and unemployed villain from New Hampshire!
Now this is all stuff that has become de rigueur with our Governor. But then LePage offered up one last nugget of crazy that sent me spiraling into this rage. He implied that young people should get rid of their Blackberries, iPhones and iPads and instead buy health insurance with that money.
Because yes, Paul LePage, the youth of Maine cannot afford healthcare because we have spent all our money on smartphones! I am so glad you’ve discovered the problem. Tomorrow morning I’m going to stroll right in to ATT, cancel my iPhone and then use the $70 I’m saving a month to buy health insurance. Oh wait! What’s this you say, Anthem? I can’t buy health coverage for $70!? Wait, you want a minimum of $325 a month for a catastrophic plan with a $5,000 deductible? No way! Governor LePage made it quite clear that if I stopped paying for my high tech gadgets I’d be able to afford health insurance on my yearly salary of $16,000. WRONG!!
I am horrified that LePage alluded that the youth of Maine could afford healthcare if they would simply stop spending their money on gadgets. It truly shows how out of touch he is with my age group. My phone is a necessity, not a luxury. How could I find or keep a job in this economy without a phone. And compared to health insurance, a smartphone is a bargain.
I am thrilled to be back in my home state after college. But the job market is rough and I am considered underemployed. For over a year I went without health insurance. I have an autoimmune disorder and I could not purchase a plan on my own. When I approached Anthem, I was quoted around $500 a month for a catastrophic plan! And I still have to cover all my medical bills and tests, because the deductible is so high. So, in essence, I would be double paying. Catastrophic health insurance is really asset protection. I simply cannot afford it on my income, not with living expenses and college loans. It is not that I was wasting money on my iPhone; it is that even with an extra $70 a month I cannot even begin to afford coverage. I actively lived in fear of every cough, pain and twitch until the miracle of President Obama’s health care reform occurred. Now I am covered until age 26 by my parent’s insurance. This is the biggest relief I have seen since being handed my diploma. But I am scared about what happens when I turn 26. Will there be an affordable health care plan for me then? Or will I return to living in fear of my own health? I cannot afford to pay almost half my income on insurance. With Governor LePage in charge, I doubt there will be a viable option for me when I reach 26. His statement is out of touch with the financial reality of being under 30 in Maine.
So, Mr. Governor, I am begging you. Please stop your angry pattern of bullying and blaming. Stop threatening to hold various branches of government funding hostage to your desires and pitting one program or group against another. Stop cultivating a climate of fear and hate with your hurtful rhetoric. Instead, Sir, please get a grip on reality. Being elected with just 39% of the votes does not give you a mandate to radically destroy our great state. This past election Mainers spoke loud and clear. We told you we do not want our same-day voting registration taken away. We told you we do not want outside money and businesses coming in to set up casinos. We stood together, across party lines, and said we are sick of the current political climate. So, Mr. Governor, please, get a grip!
In the meantime I am going to go fuel my anger into something productive, such as a delightful apple pie recipe. Maybe, all LePage needs is an outlet for his anger. May I recommend tennis or hockey? Or perhaps, you could take up bread baking. Kneading bread is a great release for your anger. Or maybe, Sir, you should purchase a Smartphone and start limiting your rage to twitter or perhaps Angry Birds! I hear your healthcare is taken care of so that should free up about $70 for a fancy new iPhone!
She has survived diseases and injuries that would have killed (and did kill!) other chickens. I had written her off as dead so many times but every time she pulls through. Aliena is a wonder chicken. Just writing about her gets me choked up. Yeah, I’m that kind of chicken owner! But she isn’t even my hen, she is Benjamin’s baby and I think it is their bond that gets me so emotional. Aliena and Benjamin have been through incredible physical distress (Ben has had four knee surgeries) and both of them have emerged from hardship stronger than before. They give me the optimism that you really can survive anything with the right attitude.
Aliena was hatched right here at home. Her mom was Jenny; the previous chicken of the week. Jenny was a crazy mother hen. She would mistakenly sit on her chicks, push them out of the way when there was food and sometimes step on them. Then she almost killed Aliena!
Jenny Keeping the Chicks Warm!
It was summer and we had put Jenny and the two-week-old chicks outside in a fenced pen. A neighbor’s dog came into the yard and Jenny went NUTS. She started attacking everything around her and Aliena got caught in the crossfire. Ben, Dad and I ran out to help and there was poor little Aliena in a pool of blood. Her neck was perfectly split open, but her arteries were intact. Only her skin was sliced but she was loosing too much blood. Jenny still hadn’t noticed and was running around like a crazed fan at a Justin Bieber concert.
Ben and I scooped her up and rushed her inside. I told him we would do what we could but that she would probably die. Naturally at this point she started peeping in pain. I could see Ben’s heart breaking. Having not grown up with chickens, and a plethora of animals, he had never seen a creature injured in such a violent manner. “We’ve got to do something!” he quivered. I rinsed her wound and treated it with an antiseptic. I considered stitching her up but the wound was too big and she was far too young. I put cornstarch and pressure on the wound but the blood kept coming. I passed her back to Ben and told him I had done everything I could. He stood there with this dying chick in his hands peeping away and just looked down with tears swelling in his eyes. Then I went outside to clean up the chaos with Jenny.
When I came back in Ben and Aliena were nowhere to be seen. I walked around until I heard a noise coming from the basement. “We’re down here” called Ben. I ran down to join them. Ben had placed Aliena into a box with a heat lamp, food, water and a bundle of soft towels against which she was nestled. “See I created an artificial broody hen for her to snuggle against!” Aliena still looked like she was on her way out of this world. Her eyes were closed and her little feathered body was barely moving. “Don’t get to attached Ben. She won’t make it overnight.”
The next morning Ben ran down to check on Aliena. “Mattie! Mattie!” I followed him into the basement. Aliena was still snuggled against the towels but she was alert and peeping. “She lived! She made it through the night!” Ben was glowing. I was dumbfounded but noticed she hadn’t eaten or drunk anything. I kept my mouth shut. Ben stayed down with her for an hour.
Then that afternoon we lost power. Aliena’s heat lamp was gone! I went down to talk to Ben. “Ben, Aliena needs heat at this age. If we don’t get power back she won’t survive.” “Already taken care of!” Ben had taken the towels and stuffed them with a bunch of my hand warmers. Aliena was snuggled even closer to the towels.
Aliena made it through that night too. The next day she ate and Ben was there to keep watch. The two bonded very strong. Soon she was hopping out of the pen to sit on his lap. When she got old enough she started hopping on his shoulder and roosting. He could walk around with her fast asleep on his shoulder. They had both proven me wrong. I’m still dumbfounded that she lived through such a gruesome injury. (Video below of Aliena sitting on Ben)
Soon she was big enough to rejoin her siblings and Ben put her out in the baby coop. Then tragedy struck again! Two of the chicks, including Aliena, came down with coccidiosis. The disease killed the other pullet but Aliena pulled through!
Since then she has survived two other diseases and has lived through having an impacted crop. Each brush with death has left her a little more tattered looking but she is still living and laying!
To this day she still runs to Benjamin. If the other hens are chasing her she will jump into his arms or onto his shoulder. Then Ben will chase off the offending hen while yelling at them about manners. They are quite the pair!
Growing Up Julia 