The Code (of Baking)

Minnesota Stay-At-Home Day 6

Baked cherry muffins this morning. My fumbles in the kitchen reminded me of Captain Barbossa from The Pirates of the Caribbean: “The code is more what you’d call guidelines...”

Didn’t have plain yogurt in the house, so I substituted vanilla. Beat in 1 egg instead of 2 egg whites before I read that step in the recipe. Didn’t have oat bran either, so decided 1/2 cup of flour mixed with 1/2 cup of oats would be close enough.

Only when I added the cup of frozen cherries, did I realize almonds weren’t on the list of ingredients. But I clearly remembered our favorite cherry muffins having almonds. Turns out I should have used the strawberry almond muffins recipe, in which I substitute 2 cups of cherries. And that would explain why I froze my cherries in 2-cup batches instead of 1-cup batches.

Broken Cups

The delicate blue cups fell out as I opened the cupboard, cascading onto the counter, bouncing then breaking on the unforgiving slate floor. One handle landed on the stove top all they way across the kitchen.

The falling cups brought a cascade of tears from my eyes.

They were my grandmother Susan's cups, part of her set of daily dinnerware.

Fostoria Glass Company, which had a plant in her hometown of Moundsville, W.Va.,  launched a line of melmac dinnerware in the late 1950s. They came in pastel yellow, pink and blue.

My mother Edna had the "Kismet" patterned plates with solid blue cups and bowls. (I still have her platter and serving bowls.) And I had a full eight place-settings of Grandma's "Meadow Flowers" plates with solid blue cups and bowls.

I vowed when I received them, that I would use them on a daily basis. And we do. Now my full place-settings number five. We are a family of three. We will survive.