Marcie Ratliff/Winonan

Eating a raspberry cream cheese brownie at Blooming Grounds last week got me thinking that I have eaten a lot of good brownies in my 20 years on this planet.

(Shout out to Blooming Grounds for the inspiration, and the heavenly brownie).

Gooey ones, burnt ones, peanut butter ones, cream cheese ones, raspberry ones, a la mode ones, the list could go on and on.

They’re just good.

I’ve made my fair share of homemade and box brownies, each with their own advantages and disadvantages. For some reason, homemade brownies don’t taste as good the second day, but box brownies age really well.

Of course, mixing all the ingredients together myself gives me the satisfaction of creation in a way using a mix can’t.

But, dragging my life’s good brownies into the sun, one stands out above the rest.

It was consumed on a sunny day in July in Lanesboro, Minn., somewhere around 2007.

We were a group of seven: my paternal grandparents, my parents, my two brothers, and I. We were dining alfresco, as my grandma put it, out in the open air, with wonderfully green trees above and about us and the roar of the Root River tumbling some hundred feet in the distance.

I can’t remember what I ate for lunch. My older brother ate an elk burger, in the days before YOLO was part of popular parlance.

But after the meal, my fiery little grandma, with her Grecian good looks that shine out of her 80-plus years, suggested we get dessert.

And she had an idea: brownies a la mode.

We went ballistic. I was fourteen at the time, young enough to appreciate the pure simple joy of sugar without considering the existence of calories.

The catch was that we were all reasonably full. Each of us couldn’t really eat a whole brownie, and the brownie was called “brownie for two,” so we assumed that meant at least five hungry people or about seven stuffed people.

Giggling, my grandma told the waitress to bring us a “brownie for two” a la mode with seven spoons.

The thing was magnificent.

Looking back, I have to think the waitress went the extra mile for us, because there were about five scoops of ice cream and five dollops of whipped cream and a brownie for—you guessed it—five and of course a heap of hot fudge making its slow way down over the pile.

And a maraschino cherry, with enough red dye to make the ice cream blush.

We reveled.

We partook.

“We’ll remember this brownie,” my grandma said.

And I, determined sponge of more than brownies, agreed.

I do remember that brownie.

And it’s not just the brownie anymore, delicious as it was, gooey and chocolatey and dripping with milkfat.

It’s more about the sunny deck, my grandma’s twinkling smile and instant charm (hence the waitress’s kindness, for joy is contagious), time together, winding roads, curving river, summer day.

The brownie played a bit part and played it well.

We haven’t been back to Lanesboro, but if I ever go, I’ll look up that restaurant and order one with seven spoons.

Contact Marcie at [email protected]