I like cooking and baking, I like movies, and I like history. When those three topics intersect I’m so excited I can barely stand it. And when Katharine Hepburn is involved I expect nothing short of pure awesomeness.According to IMDB, Hepburn was in 52 films, 43 of which were made before I was born. The result of this unfortunate timing of history is that most people my age (38) and younger have no idea what a badass Katharine Hepburn was.I wasn’t familiar with her until a handful of years ago when I saw her in Bringing Up Baby, which is a screwball comedy in which she is hilarious. After that I saw her in The African Queen, The Philadelphia Story, and On Golden Pond. Those four films almost cover the entire expanse of her career, and show her range.But not until I saw a Dick Cavett interview with her from 1973 did I really appreciate how awesome she was. The interview lasts almost two hours, and every single second is worth watching. Cavett didn’t intend to interview her that day.She’d come to the studio to prepare to be interviewed the following day, but instead she suggested they do it right then. She’s very casual, with her feet on the table, her hair a bit of a mess, and not dressed up at all. But she had something incredibly insightful or provocative to say on just about every topic that Cavett brought up. Those two hours are better than anything on television today.I go back to Hepburn from time-to-time. There are various interviews with her on YouTube, and a few interesting print interviews as well. I could easily spend an entire day listening to, and reading her thoughts, to say nothing of the other 48 movies that I have to see.The other day I was scrolling through Facebook and the New York Times posted an article that mentioned Katharine Hepburn and brownies. Of course it piqued my interest, so I clicked on it and read.You can read the article here, but I’ll summarize.It’s written by a woman who twenty years earlier was about to quit during her senior year at Bryn Mawr, which is Hepburn’s alma mater. She told her dad she was going to quit, and her dad, who lived in the same neighborhood as Hepburn, decided to write a letter to the actress and ask her to talk her out of quitting Bryn Mawr. So he wrote the letter and dropped it in her mailbox.Hepburn called the young woman, told her not to quit, and asked her and her dad to come see her. Of course they did so, and they had a nice visit, and that began a bit of a friendship between this woman’s father and Hepburn.A few years later Hepburn was recovering from a car accident, so the father made brownies and dropped them off at her house. She tried one, protested that they had too much flour, and then rattled off her own brownie recipe.He quickly wrote it down, and passed it on to his daughter. And that recipe is the one that The Times published.So of course I had to try the recipe. My last name is Baker, after all.It’s a simple recipe, and, as Hepburn admonished, it’s light on the flour. I won’t reproduce the entire recipe here. You can find it in the original Times article, and it’ll only take about 10 minutes of prep time.And it’s worth every minute. The brownies are delicious.America’s Test Kitchen did a segment a few years ago where they made brownies from scratch and had people taste test them against boxed brownies, and most people preferred boxed brownies.No one would have preferred boxed brownies to Katharine Hepburn’s brownies. The brownies are supposed to be gooey, and it’s stressed in the recipe to keep them in the oven for forty minutes and not to bake them too long. I baked them for thirty-eight minutes, and that was too long (Modern, efficient ovens, I suspect). I wish I would have taken them out five minutes earlier so they were a bit gooier.But they had incredible chocolate taste, perfect texture, and are instantly addictive. I’ve eaten a third of the pan, and I’m about to pawn some off on my kids so I don’t eat the rest of them.So try Katharine Hepburn’s brownie recipe. You’ll be glad you did.Then, after that, watch her interview with Dick Cavett, followed by one of her films.You’ll be glad you did that, too.Wasn't that well-written and fun to read? You should subscribe to my blog and we'll send you an e-mail every time I write a new one. Type your email address in the box and click the "create subscription" button. My list is completely spam free, and you can opt out at any time.
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