Interfaith, the Dalai Lama and Brownies

 

The month of Ramadan begins tomorrow. Last night Sister Lambson and I were invited to attend a community event called "The Meaning of Ramadan". We attended with our interfaith group called INSAF, pictured on the right. People from many the cultures and religions of Malaysia were in attendance to learn more about Ramadan and to share their views. You can't see them here, but they had set up little booths all around the perimiter of the hall that served many local foods so we also enjoyed a delicious dinner of a variety Malaysian foods. The brother in the center of our group photo is Dr. Amir. I will mention him later in connection with the Dalai Lama. 

A wealthy man in the community commissioned the scroll seen here. It is the longest scroll of the Holy Koran in the world. This is the first time it was unveiled. It is 208 meters long (not all of it is shown here because the hall was not long enough). It took 70 artisans 3 years to complete. The letters are cut in black paper backed by gold paper creating a truly beautiful effect. It is mounted on chinese scroll paper. 

Dr. Amir, of our interfaith group had just returned from a trip with a Muslim delagation from Malaysia that traveled to Dharamashala India where they visited the 14th Dalai Lama. He told us of a wonderful one hour audience the group had with the Dalai Lama. They gave him a Muslim hat and he wore it as you can see in the picture. The Dalai Lama is now 87 years old.

I have finally finished tweaking my brownie recipe which I will now share with you. My only hesitation is, I just have a little convection oven here so you may need to provide some feed back to me on the right baking time in our big american conventional ovens. But first a review from a nursery rhyme character. What did Little Miss Muffet say when she tasted one of Chuck's brownies? "That's whey better than curds!"

OK here goes:

• Set your oven to 325 degrees farenheit. If you need to convert to centigrade you may be in a foriegn country.
• In a small mixing bowl, whisk together 1/2 cup of cocoa powder with 1/2 cup of all purpose flour.
• In another small mixing bowl melt one stick of salted butter because nobody buys unsalted butter, but if you bought it by mistake you can add a little salt to make up for it. 
• Add 1 and 1/8 cup granulated sugar to the melted butter. In other words, add a heaping cup of sugar.
• Add two tablespoons of distilled water. Just kidding, you can use plain old tap water.
• Add two teaspoons of vanilla flavoring.
• Add one chicken egg, crack it first. If you don't have a chicken egg you can substitute 1/24th of an ostrich egg.
• Now whisk the butter bowl ingredients together. Then pour in the brown powdery stuff from the other bowl and whisk it all together until it is smooth.
• Grease your brownie pan with a little butter so they don't stick.
• Use a rubbery spatula to dump the brownie batter into the pan because a spatula is easier to lick than a whisk. If nobody is around you can also lick the bowl.
• Bake in the pre-heated oven for approximately 30 minutes. This is the part I'm not sure about so you may wish to start doing the toothpick test after 20 minutes to see when it comes out clean. Don't forget to email me the best baking time in a regular oven.
• If you want to make a bigger batch to "share" then use a 9x13 pan. Be sure to double the recipe, unless of course you like your brownies thin-n-crispy.