Experimental brownies

One summer, aged eighteen, I worked for the NAS International Biological Program, counting tardigrades and copepods in tundra soil samples. Most everyone else was a graduate student earning money during the vacation and the Arctic biome around Barrow/Utqiaġvik was a very long way from home. Mothers and girlfriends would send cardboard boxes of brownies, wrapped carefully in waxed paper, and we would await these despatches eagerly. The recipient would offer the box around before taking the letter and remains back to their Quonset hut bunk.