Last weekend I scored some Brazil nuts (for reasons completely unrelated to the World Cup..) and decided to bake some brownies. My starting point for recipes tends to be either Nigella or Delia and I found this one which looked suitably low faff. Husband John had sternly barred me from making any modifications and since he is the Kitchen God in these parts I momentarily put down the Wife is Always Right banner, but unfortunately I didn’t realise it was an American recipe. Allow me to explain: I tend to find American recipes run a little sweet for me and typically reduce the amount of sugar by 20-30%. It should have twigged when I was weighing out the sugar (275gs?!) but oh well.

After some internal debate on how roughly chopped the nuts should be (slivers battled with chunks and chunks won), I began attacking them with the good knife. Halfway through I had a change of heart and switched to our smaller Ikea ones, although to be honest I wasn’t sure if it would really do the blade that much harm. Shamefully we have yet to find a decent knife block that doesn’t cost more than all our knives or come with knives, and hence our sharp implements reside in a kitchen drawer in a tangle of tools. I was thinking of getting this Bodum one or perhaps a more affordable alternative, but then started wondering if geckos or other less salubrious denizens that I share this tropical island with might crawl in between the sticks and make themselves a nest. And this is why our knives live in a drawer together with the spatulas and toothpicks.

But I digress. The chopped nuts really looked like bits of garlic which made me giggle more than it probably should as I contemplated the possibility of stir fry brownies, with added chilli. In any case, finding myself lacking in the Silverwood tin department I used a bun tray instead which meant we got more crispy bits. The brownies were very tasty, but a bit too sweet. I think I will make another batch with some modifications this week.

My brownies clearly had some lucky Project 13 power – I spoke to the studio yesterday and someone expressed an interest in buying Molly! I’m not sure if I will sell her, but it was so exciting and such a boost to know that someone who is not related to me would be willing to part with hard-earned cash for something I created. In a strange turn of events, I had just been talking to one of the artists at the studio about the path to becoming a professional, or at least a part-time artist instead of just someone who paints on weekends. He was encouraging and then this happened