Gratitude #66: Muffins
Sonny & Cher, David & Goliath, Denis Rodman & Jean-Claude Van Damme, Double Dragon, Woody Harrelson & Wesley Snipes, McNulty & Bunk, Woody Harrelson & Matthew McConaughey. They just belong together. Woody Harrelson seems incapable of doing anything on his own. Well you can add another dynamic duo to that list: Muffin & Hot Drink.
Apart from sounding like a lowest common denominator drive-time radio duo, Muffin & Hot Drink play off each other’s strengths to create the most perfect partnership this side of the Mississippi. Think of Muffin as the Woody Harrelson of the duo, it doesn’t matter who you pair it with it’s a guaranteed hit. Could be a coffee, a tea, a hot chocolate, chai; everything goes with a muffin. After a while in the muffin game you start to get pretty good at picking the good and bad ones on appearance alone, just ask any Muffhead53. When it comes to muffins the most important thing for cafe owners is to make sure you sell them the same day they’re baked. Everything else is trivial.
Muffins are not only delicious, they’re fun too! Not like those damn cakes with all their pompousness and little forks and such. Muffins are by nature playful. You can bury your hand wrist-deep in a muffin and still keep both eyes on your laptop. You want to break a handful off with your giant ham fists? Hey, go ahead lady! They’re muffins! You want to cut it in half and avail yourself of the treasures within? Here, take my knife! You want to bury your face in the wrapper like an over-eager schoolboy on prom night? Have my muffin, you loveable scamp!
On the other hand, when you order a piece of cake you can feel the monocled eyes of a thousand rich old matrons on you the second that demure little fork hits your table. You feel like you’ve got to treat cake with the utmost respect because of its exalted reputation as the grand old dame of the sweets world. It’s like eating at your rich grandmother’s favourite restaurant, it may be tasty and a classic but a fun experience it ain’t.
The same goes for tarts. A piece of lemon tart is an absolute nightmare to eat in a cafe. When it comes to texture, the soft top and hard bottom are more at odds than those two opposing political parties in that country you’re from! The fork glides effortlessly through the gooey filling until it finds itself at the usually rock hard short crust pastry, then things get ugly.
Sheeeiiiiitttt, I’ve seen pastry fly 5 metres across the table into a war veteran’s face due to some big shot thinking she could fork through short crust pastry like the Bruce Willis of the pastry-eating world. It’s a sad state of affairs when a war hero can’t even flick through Cosmo’s “What he says vs what he really means” at his local cafe without buttery shrapnel zinging past his head. I haven’t even mentioned that a perfectly executed tart-cut will still produce a thundering fork-on-plate collision no one in the room is prepared for. I posit that tarts should be eaten like a slice of pizza, sans cutlery, for everyone’s sake.
Cakes and tarts are like cats and muffins are like dogs. One is exquisite but serious business, and the other’s a ball of fun. There’s room for both in our lives.
