Bits and Bobs

I'm sorry this 'Bits and Bobs' post is a few days late but I only just got back to London after a long weekend in Vienna with assorted family. Epic Vienna posts will be forthcoming...

- Ever wondered what it's like to be in a gang?

- It is commonly assumed that good street lighting lowers crime rates in urban areas. Curious about this assumption, psychologists designed several experiments to study whether darkness really does affect our behaviour.

- A good explanation of why the NSA surveillance scandal matters.

- Check out this article from the BBC looking at the gay community inadvertently created by Mussolini.

- Why are so many wedding dresses strapless when they flatter virtually no one?

- This isn't an interesting article I've read this week; this is one of my favourite blogs. Illustrator James Gulliver Hancock is attempting to draw every building in New York - go check it out!

Shunning Sweet-tooth Shame

I baked Brownies... they were glorious. I had originally meant to take them into work so I could spread good-will and happiness to my co-workers - that did not happen.

I'm a big fan of food and I have an irrepressible sweet-tooth. I have absolutely no concept of 'too rich' or 'too sweet' and can gladly gorge myself on the most intense, sickly sweet food. Unfortunately, while I am perfectly content to partake of any and all chocolatey, gooey culinary masterpieces, insidious forces have decided that this unabashed pleasure has to stop.

It is now apparently mandatory for all recipes for sweet food to be accompanied with words like 'sinful', 'indulgent' or 'wicked'. The worst of these is 'naughty', insinuating that enjoying sweet food makes one deserving of being scolded like a petulant child. These words immediately invoke shame, urging us to believe that under no circumstances should we actually enjoy that double-chocolate, salted-caramel brownie. 

I realise that obesity levels are rising alarmingly all over the world but the inclusion of these shaming words in recipes doesn't promote a healthy lifestlye; it just encourages an adversarial relationship with food.

Well I refuse to be shamed. If I want to bake a tray of brownies intended for my co-workers then eat them all in one night while watching Law & Order, that's my prerogative.

The recipe for these beauties came from my friend Elly's wonderful blog. I didn't have cocoa nibs or pecans to hand so I used candied orange peel to decorate instead. I will definitely be making these dense, chocolatey wonders again.