I’ve made banana bread twice during shelter-in-place the last four months: vegan buckwheat banana bread and sourdough walnut banana bread. The problem, though, is that although we enjoyed both, it was just too much for the two of us. We cannot share with friends, neighbors, or colleagues given everyone is under lockdown, and sharing food may be questionable despite evidence showing that food is not a common way to spread the virus. So we end up having to eat everything, and everything, even the most delicious things, have diminishing marginal utility. The bites just get worse the more you eat them.

So I was intrigued when one of the food blogs I follow posted a recipe for small batch fudge brownies. While brownies are typically baked in an 8 inch-by-8-inch pan, that’s… quite a large number of brownies, and can be quite tiresome to eat between two people. This blogger created a fudge brownie using 80 grams of dark chocolate in a loaf pan, so about half the size as usual. I immediately jumped on the idea, especially after I found exactly 80 grams of 75 percent chocolate in our fridge remaining from our Colombia trip last May. This would be a delicious way to finally use the last Colombian chocolate we brought back from that delicious trip.

The brownies came together quite quickly and baked in just 15 minutes. After allowing them to cool, I admired their shiny, glossy sheen. I took a bite and WOW — this is dark fudgey chocolate brownies at their darkest and fudgiest. I had Chris try one, and he was… a bit blown away by the intensity of the chocolate. I mean, it IS 75 percent cacao from Colombia, and that is all the chocolate that is in there — no fillers, no fluff.

It seems like a cocoa-powder brownie might be better for my chocolate and brownie loving husband — a little less intense but still chocolatey.

I am a total spice junkie. It’s a good thing in that I like to experiment and try out different spices and flavors. It’s a bad thing in that once you have so many spices, you forget about some and then they can get stale. One of the first things I did when we moved into this apartment was install spice liners for my spice drawer in our kitchen. I knew it would not be big enough to hold ALL my spices, so I also designated part of one of the fridge drawers for spices, particularly for ones that may be more likely to go off. It’s gotten quite unwieldy, and it still gets quite messy since I can’t always keep track of what I have in the drawer, so I still need to find a better way to organize it.

While digging in the pantry, though, I stumbled upon the rose bird buds I bought a while back to make a pistachio-almond-cardamom rose birthday cake for Chris’s mom when she was in town one year. I never actually used the rose buds for anything other than that cake, and after smelling them, I realized that they were still quite fragrant. So I made a rose sugar syrup out of them using 1 cup sugar to 1 cup water, and then half a cup of packed rose buds. I boiled the sugar and water, added the rose buds, simmered for ten minutes, then allowed to cool. Then, I strained the rose buds out and emptied the rose syrup into a glass jar. I added about two tablespoons into a cup with two squeezed lemons, a handful of ice, and some sparkling water to make rose lemonade — floraly, refreshing, and delicious. This syrup could easily go well with coffee, tea, cocktails, and other similar beverages.

Spices have a longer shelf life than we think; we just need to implement the smell test on them before using them.

While in the Curry Hill area of Murray Hill this past Saturday, we stopped by an Indian grocery store and picked up some Indian sweets. I inquired about the sign we saw outside the store advertising Indian mangoes, and the shop keeper said he did not have Alphonso mangoes, the most famous Indian mango, but he did have kesar mangoes. We already had quite a number of Ataulfo mangoes at home, so I didn’t really feel compelled to buy the kesar mangoes, which were $4 each. But after our purchase, the shop owner gave us one kesar mango as a gift. I was really excited by this and could not wait to try it out.

I actually filmed the mango tasting today, and it’s quite a peculiar mango: it’s more round in shape than the Ataulfo mango, and this particular one had a more pale yellow skin color. but once you cut it open, it reveals a more orangey color flesh. And THEN, once you cut into it and eat it, the flesh is juicier than the Ataulfo, which is more firm and velvety. The kesar mango bursts with juice, is not even the slightest bit fibrous. And when you bite into it, it’s extremely complex: citrusy, like an orange or tangerine, but then also rich and a little creamy like an Ataulfo, with hints of pineapple and and maybe even peach. Complex and juicy are the most accurate ways I can sum up the kesar mango flavor.

This taste only made me more wistful for travel to South Asia. Sadly enough, today we were originally scheduled to leave for Sri Lanka and Kerala in Southern India, and now all those plans have been cancelled because of COVID-19. This is even more depressing to eat this mango on this day.

On our last family chat, Chris’s mom said that she’s been seeing all my Instagram posts and stories about what I’ve been tinkering around with in the kitchen, and it all looks really exciting. The sad part about that is that while I am enjoying having more time to cook and experiment on recipes I’ve long wanted to test out, I really have nothing else to do other than cook, create videos, read, and listen to podcasts now outside of work. As much as I look forward to trying out a new recipe, such as today’s spinach and avocado theplas, the more I realize that this is all I have to look forward to since we can’t travel anywhere anytime soon. Cooking and food are all I really have right now.