<-- Photo of a blueberry muffin on a worn oak table, alongside a steaming mug of chai tea, a small bouquet of wild flowers, an iPhone, a notebook and a vintage fountain pen. Behind, a sunny grove of aspen trees, an alpine lake, and a continental divide's worth of rocky mountains. A bare, toe-ringed feminine foot is somehow visible. -->
Blueberry muffins bring warm and fond memories of my grizzly old Uncle Skeeter.
As a child, Uncle Skunk, as my sisters and I lovingly called him, threw wrenches and ball-peen hammers, swearing like a dishonorably-discharged sailor as he lie among the empty Heineken bottles beneath his Ford pickup truck. Sometimes we'd find him there the next morning.
Often, we would laugh at him, taunt him, hide his tools, and even pee on him if he was passed out. He'd get frustrated with us gals and we'd finally have to run away to a neighbor's house. There, we would pretend we lived with mommy and daddy rather than Uncle Skunk,
The neighbor -- sometimes it was Ellen, sometimes Dorthy, once it was Chad -- would bake hot, warm, sweet blueberry muffins. My sisters and I would scarf them down like we hadn't eaten in 24 hours!
As an adult, I've always yearned for those delicious blueberry muffins, but every muffin I've ever had -- even fancy ones at fancy coffee shops-- came up short.
So, I spent hours and hours researching how to reproduce the blueberry muffins that Chad or Dorthy or Ellen made for us.
The secret, I discovered, is to bake with fear.
<-- Table of contents with many links:
1. A clean workspace.
2. The best muffin tins.
3. Ingredients.
4. Torque the flange nut to preload the pinon gear on Skunk's 9-inch Ford differential.
5...
6... Use a toothpick to determine if they're done.
7. Enjoy!
-- >
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