This happened a few weeks ago, so I don’t remember who it was that broke my heart.

We were at the beach, and it was this other person’s — whoever she was — turn to make dessert. She chose to make brownies, and put a box of brownie mix on the shopping list.

I said, “You know, we could make our own brownies.”

She said, “From scratch?”

I’m pretty sure the thought of making brownies from scratch had never entered her mind, possibly in her entire life.

I mention this because I recently made two batches of brownies from scratch for coffee hour at my wife’s church.

The brownies that came out of the box mix were fine. Nobody complained, nor was there any reason to.

But the brownies from scratch were special. They were actually kind of spectacular.

The brownie recipe came from Lia Holter’s new cookbook, “Made. by Lia: Everyday Craft Baking.” It’s her take on Little Debbie Cosmic Brownies. Coincidentally, Holter was the second baker her age I spoke to last month who makes a version of Little Debbie Cosmic Brownies.

They must be the nostalgic treat for the female mid-30s set.

But I digress. The brownies I made were rich and fudgy. The two batches I made required a total of five sticks of butter and 1¼ cups of cocoa. That may explain why they were so rich and fudgy. And that’s definitely something you never find with two boxes of brownie mix.

While I was making the brownies, I was also cooking dinner. From scratch.

I’m not saying I don’t sometimes use prepared foods. I’m saying when I want something done right, I do it myself.

My wife had bought an eggplant and wanted to make it her favorite way: roasted on a grill (or on the heating element of a stove), split in half and topped with yogurt, honey, olive oil, lemon juice, oregano, fresh tomatoes, garlic powder (raw garlic is too strong) and tahini.

We didn’t use the tahini because this is the only recipe we use tahini for and it just goes bad in the refrigerator. But I did roast it on the grill until it was blackened and soft on all sides.

And because we were going to make this eggplant dish, I decided to use lamb for the entree. It may seem backward to choose the main course because of the side dish, but that’s what we did.

One of my favorite ways to make lamb is called Hunkar Begendi. It’s a Turkish classic, lamb simmered in tomato and spices, and served on a smoky eggplant puree with melted cheese, blended with a bechamel sauce. It’s almost as rich as Lia Holter’s recipe for Cosmic Brownies.

I decided to make a less rich version. After all, the brownies were still in the oven and I didn’t want to give the entire kitchen heart disease.

Because I was already making a smoky eggplant dish, I dropped the eggplant puree part of the recipe entirely, along with its cheese and bechamel sauce. I decided to use rice instead, and cover it with the stewed lamb.

Only I couldn’t get any lamb. My local grocery store had lamb chops, but you wouldn’t want to make a stew out of lamb chops. They also had ground lamb, which is equally undesirable for stew.

When I was growing up, lamb was a thing. At any grocery store, you could get beef, chicken, pork or lamb. Those were the big four, and you could get a wide assortment of cuts of each one. Veal was widely available, too.

Now I can’t find lamb shoulder or leg of lamb when I want it. Costco has leg of lamb for a great price, but this was Labor Day weekend and if I went to Costco on Labor Day weekend I’d still be in line now.

So I did the next best thing. I bought a rump roast, which is beef, and cut it into small pieces. I seared the pieces on my grill, which did not add the smoky flavor I’d hoped it would, and then simmered them with tomatoes, onions, garlic, fresh oregano and cinnamon.

It’s the cinnamon that makes the difference. A common ingredient in both Greek and Turkish cooking, cinnamon gave my stew a warm and hearty flavor that permeated the entire dish.

It was one of the best meals I’d made in a long time. And the brownies (let’s just say they didn’t all make it to the next day’s coffee hour) were just the icing on the brownie.

And every bit of it was made from scratch.

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