Muffins and Morphines

For me, homemade blueberry muffins are synonymous with weekends at home as a child. No school for a couple of days and my mother is making a special, leisurely breakfast. The smell of a blueberry muffin wafting hot from the oven fills my memory and I am six years old again, helping my mom cook in our Mill Valley home with the kitchen window that afforded a view of Mount Tamalpais in the distance.

Our kitchen was definitely unique. Even then, I knew it was different than in my playmate’s homes. Teak paneled walls were set off by Chinese-red cabinets, blue-green Formica countertops, an old-fashioned braided carpet of many hues, and a pastel turquoise-green refrigerator. This appliance requires some explaining. Back in 1955, when our house was built, appliances mostly came in one color – white. To my mother, that simply wasn’t in her color scheme. So the brand new Frigidaire was hauled down to the local Volkswagen dealership, where it was given a lovely coat of what I think was called “Birch Green.” That is how I grew up with a VW Bug in the house.

Back to breakfast. My job was to mix up the juice. I would get the Donald Duck concentrate from the freezer at the bottom of the fridge. Now, in my book, anything Disney-related had to be the best; therefore Donald Duck orange juice was the one I insisted that my mother purchase. They should have had me on TV – I would’ve given

them a glowing testimonial. Anyway, I would peel the lid off, pry the pasty concentrate out of the can with a fork, and then add, I think, four cups of water to the pitcher. Finally, I would stir everything with a big spoon, getting orange juice all over my hands, which, of course, had not been washed beforehand.

Meanwhile, my mother made the muffins. She would put the Duncan Hines mix in the bowl, add an egg and then, instead of draining the little can of blueberries into the sink (where they would have stained the white porcelain anyway), she would drain the juice into a measuring cup and use it as part of the liquid for the mix. It turned the finished product a lovely lavender color and added lots of flavor. Naturally, since our muffins sported a remarkable hue, they merited their own remarkable name. My mother called them blueberry “morphines.” It was an odd little joke that we shared, made even odder by the fact that my parents (both doctors) always kept a few ampoules of real morphine in the green refrigerator for medical emergencies, should they be called out in the middle of the night (which my father occasionally was).

As the muffins would bake, my mother would fry up some “Li’l Smokie” sausages and then we would all sit down to the best breakfast in Mill Valley, made all the more special by our having made it together.

I loved that my mother and I shared silly in-jokes. Back in the day, I would have been stirring up some “orangutan” juice. For lunch she might fry up a couple of “hangle-burglers.” And then there were always the blueberry “morphines.” I still make them that way after all this time, and my mother now gone for five years. I also share in-jokes with my daughter, Jessica. Naturally, I can’t divulge them to you, but if you ever run into Jessica, ask her about “kitty sex germs,” what, exactly “floats,” and the mysterious regions of the “BMA.” She’ll know exactly who sent you.