memory is a strange thing. it doesn’t work like i thought it did.
or at least that’s how i remember the opening lines from the movie “arrival”.
do i remember standing on a chair in the kitchen helping my dad make blueberry muffins when i was a little girl, or do i just remember my mom telling me it happened?
there was one time when my sister and i helped my mom write and record a song about how much we love our dad. a father’s day present. or maybe for a birthday. (my daddy / he picks me up when i fall / my daddy / he’s the best daddy of all / etc. etc.) and there’s a verse that begins:
when i grow up and go out into the world
although i’ll be a woman, and not a little girl
etc.
being maybe 6 years old at the time and outer space obsessed, i equated this not with going off on my own, but with going “out of the world” where i, famous space astronaut and part-time pop star probably, would, between bites of freeze dried ice cream (the primary reason for my interest in space travel, i think), gaze down upon the earth and see my dad there, doing his thing, living his happy little life.
or at least that’s how i remember it.
now, from so great a height, i would be able to zero in on northern virgina and there, between the mountains, would be my dad, doing his thing, with my mom and the cows and the birds. i think 6-year-old me would be pleased.
and then i’d close my eyes a minute and be back in a new jersey kitchen, helping my dad with the muffins. or maybe just back somewhere a few years after that, hearing my mom tell me about it.
if i could put on my pinterest voice for a moment, these are the BEST EVER blueberry muffins. not too sweet and not too fussy. basically just as good with a bag of frozen blueberries thrown in in the dead of winter (or in the middle of a foot-and-a-half-of-snow-in-april snowstorm) as with fresh berries in the heat of summer. make them with a loved one and create not only some half-formed memories to last a lifetime, but a little something warm and delicious to help you start your day
-kara
- 1 egg
- ¾ cup milk
- ⅓ cup canola oil
- 2 cups flour
- ⅓ cup sugar
- 1 tbsp baking powder
- 1 cup fresh or frozen blueberries
- preheat oven to 400 degrees F. mix the egg, milk and oil. stir in flour, sugar, and baking powder until just moist, being careful not to over mix. then gently stir in the berries.
- fill greased or paper-lined muffin tins until ⅔ full. bake 20 minutes, loosen immediately, and serve warm.
soundtrack:
One of the things that makes my happy little life as happy as it is is having a sweet, sweet daughter like you!
You are a woman and not a little girl, and you are a food blogger and not an astronaut, and you are AMAZING!