by Judyth Hill

 
Isak Dinesen had a farm in Africa, but I had a bakery in Santa Fe.

The Chocolate Maven became the home of the over-two-million-sold fudge espresso brownie.

I began the Maven, then we parted, exquisitely fittingly, on the Avenue of the Holy Mother: Guadalupe Street.

She went on to remain Santa Fe's favorite bakery, so voted year after year – you can visit her and sample her glories – and I went on to become what I had always wanted to be when I grew up: a poet.

And secretly – I bake.

My hands know dough. And my body knows do. Always did. Still does.

And my heart? Ahh, that's the story of the Chocolate Maven's origins…and the Maven I am secretly still. Nowadays, I bake only for love, though thinking back on the Maven, that was clearly our Secret Agenda anyway. When I sold the Maven, I wanted to be sure I would never start hearing that familiar voice inside my head, "If you just multiply the recipe times 100, you can make so much more at the same time..."
So, now I am a recovering baker: Hello, My name is Judyth and today I only baked a blueberry pie, and a couple loaves of brioche, well, maybe some coffee cakes, three pans of brownies, but tomorrow is another day, right?
For many of us lifers this is where it starts: our sleeves rolled up by Mom, or Somebody Bigger, hair tied back, hands washed for us, the slippery soap rubbed between and around small fingers by larger ones, then, the cookbook opened, or the card taken from its box, and the words, "First, you....."

Indeed, I was born with a caul.

No, I mean a Call. 1-800-How Do You Make That?

I knew I could bake, seriously, when each time I baked something whoever tasted it swooned. That was it. The ability to thrum the heart/head/body strings all at once.

You know how that goes, right? You are so good at baking, and everyone loves your stuff, and your friends and your mother and even perfect strangers tell you, Wow, you're incredible, you should open a bakery...

So I did.

And then.... I made Something. I was practicing with chocolate, one of the most dynamic and complicated substances in the periodic table. I was using the recipe mandala mode my mother had taught me: open every cookbook you have to a recipe for the thing you're seeking to make. And this is the golden moment to assemble all those clippings from the backs of box, the one's you've soaked off jars, and the ones you quietly tore out of 'zines in the various waiting rooms of your life. Then, take the best ideas from each, while creating a composite sub-structure of the wet/dry world, the flour to leavening ratio, the shortening/sugar story, etc.

So I was doing just this, while listening to music, so my brain doesn't forget to take my heart along for the ride, when I wrote the recipe that put the Fudge Espresso Brownie on SF's culinary map. I thought my way into it, did inner tasting.
Oy, I admit it, I developed my Inner Brownie.
The fudge espresso brownie became positively the last word in chocolate for years in Santa Fe. Our process was to start each day at the bakery with a double batch—those twelve 9x13 pans of Fudge Espresso set the tone and pace for the day.
Inevitably, this obsession, like all my obsessions, turned into a poem. A poem published in my very first, post-bakery collection of poems, Hardwired for Love.
For years, every poetry reading I ever gave—I always opened with my sure-fire opener: Brownies.
May you find the poem delicious....
 

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Brownies

I got famous for them, brownies,
adding nuts and all my attention,
nine years of my life, to the batter.

The recipe reads:
Stir with all your desire to be a poet.
Break twenty-seven thoughts about God, children,
and post-graduate degrees.
Beat 'til thick with ambition.
Fold in longing and chocolate, hot as the tar roof
on 101st and West End.

Mix just 'til you remember all the words to Mac the Knife,

Add nuts and the words Jonathan wrote on the boxing gloves
I got for Christmas:
Words from Catullus, Odi et Amo:
I hate and I love.
You ask how that can be.
I know not, but I feel the agony.

He gave me sporting equipment a lot, though I don't do sports.
He always remembered to add the words.
I do words.
I do brownies.
I do variations on brownies, cantatas of brownies,
Sonatas of brownies, quintets of fudge
And short compositions featuring chocolate as if it were a bassoon.

Perhaps I am the Picasso of brownies.
My blue period, the year I cried over every batch.
The way the one-eyed woman can eat a brownie
and still be in my painting—a trick I discovered
and it became a genre.
Perhaps I am the Seurat of brownies, dots of primary flavor
deep, sweet, salt, an illusion adding up to the spectrum of dessert.

I am the Einstein of brownies,
discovering how the more chocolate you eat, the later it gets.
Discovering how Poem x the Speed of Light² = Brownies.
Discovering that mass, brownies, and time are infinite.
Discovering that the energy of the universe will go into each pan,
and it's still just brownies.

Maybe I'm the Martin Buber of brownies.
Climbing ten chocolate rungs to grace.
Or the Albert Schweitzer of brownies,
giving brownies to everyone,
whether they need them or not.

What if I'm the Donald Trump of brownies,
building a cocoa empire.
Blocks of fudge, whole towers of semi-sweet,
bittersweet and Swiss, bullions of brownies,
chips of profit and loss. Or Lenny Bruce,
hilarious and obscenely chocolate.
Chocolate so good it's dirty,
and we can't talk about it here.

Perhaps I am the Chanel of brownies,
designing a browning for every outfit
accessorizing brownies with shoes and bags,
the suit, a rich dark color that goes with everything.

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Judyth Hill, poet, maestra, and editor, is the author of the internationally acclaimed poem "Wage Peace," which has been set to music, performed, and recorded by choirs and orchestras.

She is the author of nine poetry collections, including Dazzling Wobble, Hardwired for Love, and Men Need Space.

Hill is the President Emerita of San Miguel PEN, co-creator/director of Poetry Mesa, a global organization serving poets and poetry, Editor-in-Chief of the hybrid publishing company, Wild Rising Press, and an Anusara Yoga Special Subjects instructor.

Hill conducts workshops at conferences world-round and on Zoom and leads Muse on the Move Adventures in Ireland, Taos, and Mexico.

She was described by the St. Helena Examiner as "Energy with skin" and by the Denver Post as "A tigress with a pen."

Her brand new collection of poems, Writing Down the Moon, is available here here.

www.judythhill.com

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