Barbecue brownies

I also think we’re definitely into the silly season when it comes to cookbooks. Archaeologists tens of thousands of years from now will wonder why climate-cooling trees were sacrificed for entire collections of recipes for cinnamon rolls, or for crap cupcakes with crap baked into them. Even so, I also understand why publishers keep committing. I just tried my first recipe from a best-selling legend (legendary best-seller?) and it was positively craptastic — the pan size had to be wrong, the effort was not worth the time/vice versa and the finished cake was a tooth slog with six times as much dough as peaches. Yet friends and others I trust are constantly raving about the titular creator’s comforting recipes. Now I’m wondering how many have actually taken them to the stove as opposed to bed. Can there be 50 shades of vicarious eating?