A Hershey's Memory

In college, I once watched my sprightly roommate make a walnut-crust chocolate pie from scratch. She had a Hershey’s cookbook and every few months (or weeks or days, depending on our moods which were often synchronized to an Indigo Girls song) we’d try something out. She baked and I watched. Eventually I caught the baking bug and made the most exquisite cookies with pineapple pieces and macadamia nuts. Best cookie of my life.

This friend recently reminded me of all the veggie burgers flavored with lighter fluid we consumed in the fall of 1999. One autumn afternoon we decided to grill peppers and veggie patties and our neighbors joined us. We continued this for eight (crazy) nights.

We often ate strange things together: Egg white and spinach omelets in a daunting shade of green, homemade soup from whatever we had in the house: water and noodles, rice, canned corn, any odd vegetable lying around, lots of salt and pepper. It was horrible.

I used to borrow my roommate’s hot pink lipstick and wear her knit tank top. I just wish I had lifted that Hershey’s cookbook when I had the chance:) I haven’t seen anything like it since. Instead I will Google Hershey’s brownies and wind up baking something like this:

½ c margarine
1 c sugar
1 t vanilla
2 eggs
½ c flour
½ Hershey’s cocoa
¼ t baking powder
¼ t salt
½ cup chopped nuts (I used almonds)
frosting (I use the recipe on the back of the Hershey’s cocoa)



You know the drill: mix the wets and dry items separately and then slowly add the flour mixture into the wet mixture. Add nuts and pour into a slightly greased pan. Bake for 350 for 25 minutes. Cool then frost. Tell your cats that brownies are not for gatos.