“All tragedy is relative, of course. It could be anything from a car or plumbing failure to the death of the only woman in the world who has ever been able togive you a really great haircut. If you’re in any way upset by something – it’s a tragedy. A tragedy demands food, and lots of it. We Queens try to include items from all four major food groups – sweet, salty, fried, and au gratin. Balance is very important to us. You’ll also want to have friends on hand for the tragedy-thwarting feast. Under no circumstances, however, should you invite any of the a**holes who refuse to acknowledge the depths of your misery. They can stay home and fill up on water for all we care.
Chocolate is the main staple of sedative food – the undisputed queen of all the comfort foods. I know this in my deepest heart. I frankly don’t understand how people who are genuinely allergic to chocolate manage to put one foot in frontof the other, day after day; I’d have to throw myself in front of a bus. I thrive on chocolate. My system requires an abundance of it every day, just to function normally.
Chocolate Stuff
The Sweet Potato Queens’ drug of choice is clearly my famous Chocolate Stuff. I got the recipe from my mother, who called it something like ‘fudge pudding.’ None of my friends could remember the name, however; they’d simply beg meto make them ‘some of that chocolate stuff.’ The biggest problem with the recipe is that it doesn’t make very much. I’d recommend that you automatically double the ingredients. Doubled, it will make three pans. This has proven to be just enough. Unfortunately, it has to bake 40 to 50 minutes, which is a helluva long time when you’re suffering. Good news: It’s really just as fine – some factions argue better – eaten raw as fully cooked! We’ve been known to eat entire batches of it right out of the mixing bowl, skipping the baking altogether. Usually we’re content with leaving copious amounts of the precious goo in the bowl and sticking our faces into the bowl while the oven works its magic on the major portion. When you make your personal judgment call, keep in mind that the recipe contains eggs, at this point raw, and you may be risking your very life in pursuit of instant gratification. I’ve reduced the amount of flour by half and cooked it in the microwave for just eight and a half minutes, but you sacrifice texture this way, and I don’t recommend it. One of the most important qualities of Chocolate Stuff is its unique texture: really gooey on the bottom and sort of chewy, crunchy on the top. Nuts are optional. We take our desire for nuts by spells, and this carries over into many aspects of our lives. I’ll tell you how to make my Chocolate Stuff, but your best option is to kiss my ass six ways to Sunday and get ME to make it for you, because it’s always better when I make it myself. I don’t know why, I swear to God. The recipe I will give you does not omit any ingredients or instructions to sabotage your efforts. It just seems to know me, and it performs better in my hands. I even make it better than my mother, and it was her recipe to start with.
Here’s the deal: Beat two eggs with a cup of sugar and 1/2 cup of flour. Add 1/4 teaspoon of salt. In the microwave melt together 1 stick of real butter (I never use unsalted; I think it tastes flat) and 2 fairly heaping tablespoons of Hershey’s cocoa. Get regular Hershey’s in the darkbrown box – anything else is different and will screw it up. Dump thebutter-cocoa mixture into the other things, and stir it up good. Then add a running-over teaspoon of vanilla. I use real vanilla, but the grocery store kind won’t ruin it. Stir that up, too. If you decide to go for nuts, use a whole bunch of pecans, chopped up fine.Pour the Stuff into a greased loaf pan, set the loaf pan in a pan of water,and stick the whole business in the oven set at about 300 degrees [F.] Depending on how your oven cooks, it needs to stay in there for 40 to50 minutes. You can reach in there and tap on the top of it at 40 minutes. If it seems crunchy, I’d take it out. You can’t really undercook it, since it’s good raw, but you don’t want to overcook it and lose the gooey bottom so crucial to the whole texture experience.
Trust me. This will be the best thing that has happened to you in a very long time, possibly ever. From now on, for as long as you live, just the simple act of getting out the bowl to make Chocolate Stuff will have an incredibly assuaging effect on your psyche. I can say, without fear of contradiction, there is virtually nothing, not one situation, that can’t be faced with calm and grace and serenity if you have Chocolate Stuff. You can eat it and feel better fast, and when it wears off, you can just make another batch. Believe me, in no time at all, you’ll be grinning like a mule eating briars.”
(recipe contributed by Dione)
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