More Muffins, promise, potential, and mistakes

by Amy

 “The next morning dawned bright and fresh. There was some warmth in the sun again and Gamache soon took off his sweater as he walked around the village green before breakfast. A few children, up before parents and grandparents, did some last-minute frog hunting in the pond. They ignored him and he was happy to watch them from a distance then continue his solitary and peaceful stroll. He waved at Myrna, cresting the hill on her own solitary walk.

This was the last day of summer vacation, and while it had been decades since he’d gone to school, he still felt the tug. The mix of sadness at the end of summer, and excitement to see his chums again. The new clothes, bought after a summer’s growth. The new pencils, sharpened over and over, and the smell of the shavings. And the new notebooks. Always strangely thrilling. Unmarred. No mistakes yet. All they held was promise and potential.”

This paragraph from the Three Pines books is reminiscent of Anne of Green Gables and her conversation with her beloved teacher when they say that tomorrow is always fresh, with no mistakes in it – yet.

Do you feel it, too? The tug when it’s the time for a new school year? Or is it New Year’s Day that makes you feel like it’s time to start anew? Or spring? Or maybe it’s birthdays? Or Mondays? Or a new book? Are there other things that mark beginnings for you?

I love the idea of promise and potential. And the fact that there are no mistakes yet.

“A new murder investigation felt much the same. Had they marred their books yet? Made any mistakes?”

Isn’t that true for so many other things?

We begin – a year, a month, a class, an exercise program, a diet, a schedule, a course, a marriage, a family… - with the best of intentions. We have promise and potential. We aim for perfection. No mistakes have been made and we’re still looking at a blank page. Unmarred. No mistakes. Yet.

We make mistakes.

Many mistakes are catalysts for learning. Any good teacher will tell you that. It isn’t the kids who get all the answers right that learn the most. It’s usually the ones who know how to ask the right questions. It’s the ones who wonder at the mistakes and question the accuracy of any answer. (Sometimes, in an educational setting, that means they seem to be asking the “wrong” questions and not answering much of anything). Sometimes we need the mistakes to better grasp the process.

Promise and potential are wonderful things.

Accomplishment and achievement are even better.

Promise and potential are like blank new notebooks. I love new notebooks. They’re so pretty and clean and unscribbled on. They smell nice. They’re neat. A just bought a new one online – my cousin is an artist and some of her work is being marketed on T-shirts and sketchbooks. It’s gorgeous. 

Absolutely unneeded, but I succumbed to temptation.

I always have a notebook in my bag. I take notes, scribble information, add “to do” lists, copy out quotes, make more lists, and keep little summaries of important information. At least it seems important at the time. It isn’t always important later. By the time a couple of pages have been filled in, I’ve already forgotten to use my best handwriting (all first pages of notebooks merit best handwriting).

Old notebooks are evidence of accomplishment and achievement. They rarely look pretty once they’ve really been used. I’m sure some people manage to keep things neat all the way through, but my own notebooks – and planners – are usually full of doodles and little hearts and crossed out items on to do lists. I have sketches by my son (done in moments of boredom when we’re in places that lack entertainment), grocery lists (that seem to always have the same items on them), and reminders and phone numbers and one word reminders that make no sense a few weeks (or days) after being jotted down.

I will always love new notebooks. I recognize that used ones, while less pleasing to the eye, actually have better stories to tell.

Some mistakes should be fixed.

Some mistakes are opportunities.

Some mistakes are serendipity.

Some mistakes are charged with regret.

Some are inevitable.

Some are growing pains.

Some are relative – depending on who you ask, they’re not even mistakes at all.

 “As he slowly circled the village green, his hands clasped behind his back and his gaze far off, he thought about that. After a few leisurely circuits he went inside to breakfast.

Beauvoir and Lacoste were already down, with frothy café au lait in front of them. They stood up as he entered the room, and he motioned them down. The aroma of maple-cured back bacon and eggs and coffee came from the kitchen. He’d barely sat down when Gabri swept out of the kitchen with plates of eggs Benedict, fruit and muffins.”

Gabri once ate his sorrow in muffins (this post: eating my pain). Lacoste is contemplating the power of muffins to fill emotional gaps in this scene. I wonder if anyone else considers muffins to be a sort of comfort food.

“Muffin?”

“S’il vous plait,” said Isabelle Lacoste, taking one. They looked like nuclear explosions. Isabelle Lacoste missed her children and her husband. But it amazed her how this small village seemed able to heal even that hole. Of course, if you stuff in enough muffins even the largest hole is healed, for a while. She was willing to try.”

I rarely make muffins in my home. I love them. I like muffins that are fresh out of the oven and smoking hot. My favorite is a recipe of apple muffins that I first ate in Sweden. The Swedish friend who gave me that recipe called it “apple bread” (although that’s the translation, I don’t know what she called it in Swedish). Maybe it’s because muffins are kind of like bread. Right?

Maybe the only reason they’re my favorite is because it was such a fun and friendly meal. My friend and I talked and baked and then sat down and enjoyed an ENTIRE batch of muffins before going out sightseeing. I was in my late teens, on a “gap semester” and having some time alone, away from home and family and the boyfriend (who I eventually married) and listening to my own heart and mind for a couple of months. Apple muffins remind me of that time.

My son won’t touch them. The little slivers of apple are too gooey for him. My husband tolerates them. Or, I should say, he used to tolerate them. At this point in our lives he quite freely grimaces and says, “Isn’t there anything else to eat?”

I am no longer in my late teens, but I would happily eat an entire batch of apple muffins all by myself. So I don’t really make them. Why risk it?

Since the pistachio muffins were a hit when I made them for the earlier post, I decided to try some chocolate muffins and call them brownies to see if my son would eat them. It almost worked. He ate one. After that, he looked at the muffin plate and said, “Can I have an apple next?”. My husband ate half of one and started rummaging in the refrigerator. Yet another muffin recipe that was not approved by the males in the house.

Me? I ate the entire rest of the batch. I thought they were yummy. Sigh. I really shouldn’t make muffins. The good news is I had no emotional holes or homesickness or regretted mistakes to fill up with muffins, so I managed to make them last enough that I don’t feel guilty. They freeze really well and worked great as a snack to bake, freeze, and pull out one at a time to enjoy with coffee or cappuccino or tea. The best part (my son disagrees) was having hazelnuts in them.

Recipe:

Ingredients:

·         1 cup of sugar (I used white sugar, but since I was the only one who ate it anyway, I’ll use brown next time)

·         ½ cup of vegetable oil

·         3 eggs – I beat them slightly before adding them

Mix these three ingredients until you have a creamy blend.

·         1 ½ cups flour

·         1 teaspoon baking powder

·         1 teaspoon baking soda

·         1 pinch of salt

      Mix these in, but not too smooth. Unbaked muffin batter is supposed to be a bit lumpy, right? Just mix the dry and wet ingredients enough.

·         ½ cup of chopped hazelnuts

·         ½ cup of cacao powder or unsweetened chocolate powder

·         1 pinch of salt

·         100g of semi-sweet chocolate chips

Add those last ingredients, then spoon about two spoonfuls into each muffin tin. Bake for about 20 minutes.

All quotes – unless stated otherwise – are from The Brutal Telling: page 69 and 70 in the paperback edition.