Gluten-Free Chocolate Chip Zucchini Brownies

Zucchini adds moisture to these fudgy gluten-free brownies.

Baking Therapy

In the thick of joy and the slow drain of heartache, I bake. I've mentioned this before. Baking is my way. I tie on my apron and rustle up my inner domestic goddess and cope with the world. Because joy tastes sweeter shared with those you love, gathered around a clatter of plates and clinking glasses and spoons licked clean. And heartache...

Well, heartache may not be soothed or tamed by a cookie or slice of cake.

But it doesn't hurt to try.

As for me, I've been reading several (new to me) books this summer. And I suppose, if you were to analyze the connecting themes, you might discern a search not only for meaning in a sticky, complicated post 9/11 world, but also for release. Release from the grip of societal expectations, collective assumptions, and the yoke of consumerism (I am, after all, post estrogen dependence; priorities do not include miracle-push-up bras, nail polish decals, waxed nether regions or upper lip injections).

I am more interested in keeping my mind agile than my thighs firm.

Hence the books I'm reading. Newest (to me) is Buddha's Brain. I'm learning about the amazing plasticity of the mind, and the neuro-scientific practice of creating new "wiring" (especially as we age) by gently training our mind to release ancient, habitual (so often, negative and critical) thought patterns (what the PhDs call neural pathways but what I like to refer to as my teeth-grinding mental squirrel in a cage wearing my grandmother's wig) and cultivate more self compassion. Which in turn makes everyone happier, apparently.

I guess if you're feeling at peace with the energy ebb and sometimes tumultuous flow of your days and nights, and baking brownies with those surplus zucchinis, and watching the magical late afternoon sunlight dappling the backs of a pair of wild turkeys guiding their brood of nine into the blackberries below the kitchen window, you can feel pretty blissed out.

Or maybe it's the chocolate talking.


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