Monthly Archives: May 2020

WHAT HAPPENED TO MUFFINS?

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Muffins used to be far more popular than they are today. Lots of restaurants used to put a basket of muffins on the table at dinnertime as an alternative to sliced bread, but you rarely see that anymore. I used to manage a restaurant where we did a big breakfast business. Our most popular breakfast was the ‘Lucky 21’ combination. It included 2 eggs, bacon or sausage, coffee, and a muffin. I made the muffins. The ‘Lucky 21′ breakfast cost $1.21, so obviously this was a long time ago. Today, most restaurants that have muffins on their breakfast menu offer them as a meal option, not just as part of a meal. Why? It’s because muffins got huge! I’ve started making muffins again and making them the same way that I made them when I managed that restaurant long ago. My muffins contain between 150 and 200 calories. By comparison, a Dunkin’ Donuts coffee cake muffin contains 590 calories. Costco muffins contain over 600 calories. Some Cinnabons contain over 1,000 calories. As muffins got bigger and bigger and more and more filling, restaurants stopped including them in meal combinations. At some point, the muffin became the whole meal, and then restaurants stopped serving them. Restaurants would rather sell you a meal than a muffin. I am nostalgic for the days when a muffin was the size of an unfrosted cupcake, not a loaf of bread, and was just part of a meal.

FAKE BLUEBERRY MUFFINS.

Another reason for the demise of muffins is that the quality of the ingredients went downhill. For example, 50 years ago, blueberry muffins had blueberries in them. Today, most packaged blueberry muffins and blueberry muffin mixes are made with imitation blueberries. Look at the photo below of Martha White Blueberry Muffin Mix. The photo on the box shows muffins bursting with blueberries and fresh whole blueberries in front of them. But if you read the ingredients on the side of the box, you will find that what looks like blueberries are actually ‘artificial blueberry bits’. Most blueberry muffin mixes are made with imitation blueberries, and it isn’t just blueberry muffins that are made with fake blueberries. A lot of blueberry pancakes, blueberry waffles, and blueberry breakfast cereals are also made with fake blueberries. Some products that are marketed as health food, like blueberry granola and nutritional bars, are also made with imitation blueberries. The reason for this is simple. Fake blueberries are much cheaper than real blueberries.

Real Blueberries That Aren’t Real Blueberries. There are a lot of blueberry products that say they are made with real blueberries but that doesn’t mean what you think it means. Take a look at the picture below of Kellogg’s Special K Blueberry Protein Meal Bars. This appear to be a healthy product, filled with real blueberries, but if you read the ingredients, you find that what appear to be blueberries are actually ‘blueberry flavored cranberries’ that have been dyed blue.  Special K Blueberry Bar Ingredients. There are many other ‘blueberry’ products like this on the market. It works this way – if a product contains imitation blueberries, but the imitation blueberries have some real blueberry juice in or on them, then the manufacturer can say that the product is made with ‘real blueberries’. So, here is my question….should we call a cranberry that has been dyed blue a blueberry? It is blue, and it is a berry, but to my way of thinking, a blueberry is a specific kind of berry. A blueberry is not the same thing as a blue berry. Note the space between the words ‘blue’ and ‘berry.’ What do you think?



NEW IN THE CHOCOLATE ROOM.
Cinnamon Streusel Muffins. These muffins are also known as cinnamon crumbcake or coffee cake muffins. ‘Streusel’ means crumb in German and Yiddish.  These muffins are my personal favorite. Best of all, they taste just like the cinnamon streusel muffins that your old German Aunt Johanna used to make! Well – at least they taste just like the cinnamon streusel muffins that my old German Aunt Johanna used to make. A word or warning…because I don’t use preservatives, my muffins will go stale in just a few days at room temperature or in the refrigerator. I store them in my freezer. They freeze very well. Most packaged muffins contain preservatives. The worst are the bagged mini muffins that are made for vending machines and dollar stores. They typically ‘stay fresh’ for 60 to 90 days according to the manufacturers. My guess is that you will live longer if you don’t eat them.

ABOUT FACEBOOK MESSENGER.

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If you want to send me a message, either send me an email or a text message. I do not use Facebook Messenger, Twitter Direct Messages, or other messaging apps. Your privacy and security go down as the number of companies that have access to your communications go up, and I can’t think of a good reason for using messaging apps that offsets that. I also do not open email attachments unless I know who sent it and who created it (You shouldn’t either.)

WORST APPLICATION EVER.

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I used to manage a restaurant here in Berkeley. Part of my job was to hire new employees. Normally, people are on their best behavior when they are trying to get something, like a job, an apartment, or a loan. However, sometimes people would say very insulting things to me while they were applying for jobs. Some people say insulting things to me now while they are applying for apartments. On one occasion, an applicant for an apartment looked me in the eye and said: “I hate landlords” while I was reviewing his application with him. I have asked people who run businesses if they ever had an experience like that while interviewing a job applicant. Several said: ‘Yes’. A psychologist I know explained this to me. She said that when a person applies for a job or an apartment while he is insulting the person who can give him that job or apartment, it is probably because he wants to be rejected. A person may apply for a job that he doesn’t want just so he can collect unemployment insurance. A person may apply for an apartment that he doesn’t want in order to please his parents who are nagging him to move out of their house and get his own place. And sometimes, people say insulting things without even being aware that what they are saying is insulting. The Kitchen Crier was one of those people.

The Kitchen Crier.  In 1999, I rented a one-bedroom apartment in the Rockridge district of Oakland. Over 50 people came to my one and only showing, and 20 of them turned in applications. That wasn’t unusual in 1999. It was the height of the Dot-Com Bubble of the late 1990’s. Besides, Rockridge is a very desirable neighborhood, and there aren’t a lot of apartments in Rockridge. At the end of the showing, I sat down on the living room couch to review the applications I received. I thought I was alone until I heard the sound of somebody crying. I got up to investigate. To my surprise, I found a young woman sitting at the kitchen table, crying, and holding a handkerchief over her eyes. There was a partially filled-out rental application form on the table. I said to her: “Are you OK?” She shook her head and said: “Yes,” so I went back to the living room. I wondered why she was crying, but I didn’t know what to say. After a while, she came out of the kitchen. She had stopped crying. Then she looked around the living room and started crying again. I said: “Is there anything I can do?” She shook her head and said: “No. It’s just that my mother warned me that I’d wind up in a place like this, but I didn’t believe her.” Then she handed me her rental application and walked out. I watched her drive away – still crying. I don’t think that she was trying to be insulting; however, she was aware of the fact that she wasn’t the only person who wanted to rent this apartment. A lot of people left applications while she was there. The apartment wasn’t a dump. I don’t rent dumps. It was in superb condition. As you may have guessed, I rented the place to somebody else.