Muffins with meaning

It's been a drizzly, cold weekend in New York City. For once, though, I don't mind the weather so much, because it's allowed me the opportunity to stay warm and cozy at home without feeling like my time could be spent more productively. On Friday night, I was asleep on the couch by 9:30 pm and made the 15 foot migration to my bed 20 minutes later. We managed a respectable 13 mile run on Saturday morning, and then rewarded ourselves by snuggling under a blanket to watch "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" while drinking Belgian-style brews and eating strong cheeses. Later, we actually rallied to meet friends at the frou-frou Morimoto, where we indulged in an extraordinary amount of sushi and, of course, more beer. Today has been both relaxing and rewarding thus far: a couple of hours reading the NY Times followed by a quick 5 miles in a mostly deserted, rainy Central Park. I'm now showered and cozy in my favorite Boston Marathon sweatshirt, enveloped by the warm, delicious scent of baking banana pineapple muffins. The best part of my weekend is rising up (literally) as I type this.

These muffins are my mom's favourite recipe -- or at least, they are the ones she made most often when I was growing up (and probably still does, though I'm home too infrequently to be sure). At that time, most yellow bananas in our house fulfilled their destiny as a midday snack or as filling for a peanut butter-banana sandwich. But for the one or two bananas each week that turned brown and soft with neglect, a more delicious fate was in store. These potassium powerhouses would soon find themselves peeled and mushed, mixed with a bit of crushed pineapple, and stirred into a pastry mix. Twenty minutes later, my mom would retrieve the fragrant, yellow muffins from the oven, scoop them out onto an old newspaper for cooling, and then dish one out for me with a pat of butter on top. Sometimes these muffins were prepared on Saturday mornings, but just as often, their tempting aroma would fill the house on midweek evening and provide a comforting bedtime snack.

It was somewhat significant for me to whip up this same batch of muffins for my husband soon after we were married. I don't fancy myself a domestic goddess, and I don't derive a great deal of satisfaction from mothering those around me. But carrying on the tradition of almost-weekly banana pineapple muffins seemed to rest on my shoulders once I left my mother's home and moved into one of my own. With both purpose and pride, I transformed the first brown banana in our apartment into my mom's signature muffins (and I'm certain that my sister does the same for her family on a routine basis). Because the muffins are, in fact, very good, and because anything baked with love is downright delicious, Zdenek showed his approval by helping me to finish the whole dozen within days.

It's been months -- if not more than one year -- since the scent of banana pineapple muffins has filled our Upper West Side apartment. I'm not sure why, exactly, other than perhaps I'm trying to avoid having a dozen baked goods around when there are only two of us to partake. (Zdenek has instead made good use of mushy bananas by folding them into his pancake batter after Saturday morning long runs.) But today, as we were heading out the door to face the rain and cold, Zdenek suggested that "we" (meaning me) whip up a batch of banana pineapple muffins this afternoon, and I didn't require any convincing. On our way back from the Park we stopped off to buy a crushed can of pineapples; thirty minutes later, we're both salivating at the thought of a warm, delicious muffin on this dark and dreary Sunday afternoon. And I know there's a pretty good chance that, thousands of miles away, the same treat can be enjoyed this weekend around my mom's kitchen table.