Muffin Love

We interrupt this examination of dementia, angst, and despair to bring you a moment of whimsy. (I have whimsy issues.)

This morning I decided I wanted delicious homemade muffins for breakfast, which are easy, thanks to – you guessed it – MY MOM! When I was a teenager, she taught me her basic recipe for muffins, pancakes, and waffles. “Memorize this recipe and you will be able to make any breakfast you want,” she said. “All you have to do is vary the proportion of liquid to dry ingredients. Pancakes have the thinnest batter. Waffles are a little thicker. Muffins are thickest. Easy.”

I still use her recipe. I’ve altered the dry ingredients to include cinnamon, nutmeg, and whole wheat flour, but essentially it’s the same. You can add blueberries and take out the spices; you can substitute bananas or applesauce for some of the liquid; whatever. You can’t fail.

Well. I should say, you can’t fail. But I can.

Either I used too much liquid this morning (definitely), or failed to preheat the oven (probably), but my muffins spilled over the sides of the pan as they baked, creating what looked like huge noses. This happens from time to time. It happened to Mom when I was little. I like it; it gives breakfast a bit of personality.

Please note that the two in the middle are kissing. Ah, young love.

But wait. As I wedged them out of the pan onto a cooling rack, inspiration struck. If they have noses, how would they look with eyes? Into a nearby cabinet for a half-empty bag of chocolate chips, and voila!

Oh, God, now they’re talking to me. One wants to look out the window.

Help me, my friends. I do not have small children. I do this because it makes me happy. Me. Crazy, or coping?

You decide . . . .

Our Daily Bread

I came home from rehearsal last night and pounced on the last few slices of homemade bread in the cabinet. Sometimes ya gotta eat.

My mom made all our bread when I was growing up. I remember climbing on a kitchen stool to help her grease the bread pans when I was three or four. I remember telling her, when I was six, that I would gladly eat nothing but homemade bread and butter for the rest of my life.

She insisted on a few vegetables and some protein, but I could tell she understood.

Mom turned out loaf after loaf of delicious bread for church suppers, teacher gifts, and heavenly lunchbox sandwiches. (I made a friend for life in second grade by sharing my ham sandwich with her.) All three of her children learned to bake from her, and my nephew carries on the tradition.

The bread I devoured last night was the end of a batch Mom and I made a few days ago. I inherited her old mixing bowl and bread pans when she moved to assisted living, and as I put them out on my kitchen counter, she greeted them like old friends. “My bowl! My pans! Oh, this feels so good!”

I get it. Making bread is great therapy. It’s tactile. It takes effort. And the results are delicious. All your troubles disappear into the dough you’re kneading, and then burn away in the oven, transforming into an aroma that makes your house a home.

No low-carb diets for me. Man may not live on bread alone, but I can’t live without it.