Do You Know The Muffin Man ?
THE TIMER IS COUNTING DOWN. Tension fills the air. The crowds are a-buzz with antici…….pation. I am on Muffin Watch.
It is Saturday morning at Gramma’s House. We have all had our tea so our hearts are once again beating.
My wife, the lovely and culinarily adept, Dawn, has put some muffins in the oven and handed me the responsibility of keeping watch on them. Everyone seems to be a bit nervous – no – they are scared. They are fearful that I will drop the ball on this and instead of hot steamy muffins dripping butter or jam we will have charcoal briquettes. I mean – really now! I am a college graduate.
Are the muffins getting that nice golden brown on the top yet? No! It’s not even close to the 
proper time. Let ‘em ride! I don’t want to take them out too soon. I do that and they would be all goopy and we’ll have to have toast instead of muffins. Then again, if I let them go for too long its hockey pucks for everybody.
I am sitting in the kitchen slumped over my second mug of tea. The oven and the muffins are on the other side of the room. If I am going to do this right it is going to require some planning. I need a Muffin Watching Checklist. Remember: “Plan your work, and work your plan.”
Muffin Watching Checklist
1) Maintain Consciousness
2) Recognize the oven where the muffins are in vitro.
3) Coordinate left and right feet to get me there.
4) Open oven door, pull out oven rack to check the muffins.
5) Let go of oven rack, jump around, then go get the dang oven mitt.
6) Look to see if muffins are getting tan.
7) Rinse and Repeat
On my third excursion into Muffin-Land I began to see some color starting to appear on the muffins. Progress! There was color, but not enough for me to blow my whistle and call the play dead. More was needed. I wanted them to be somewhere in between Fabio and George Hamilton – a nice Superstar tan, like the muffins had been spending time on the beach in Boca Raton.
Not Fabio
The instructions on the envelope that had the muffin
Not George Hamilton
mix in it said “16 Minutes.” Ha! At 16 minutes they were all still as pale as Katy Perry. No! More time was needed.
At 17 ½ minutes they were getting there. A bit rosy, like Queen Elizabeth after a day on the Moors. More time! More time!
At 19 minutes the muffins on one end of the muffin tin were looking good. They had a real Farah Fawcett tan going there, while the muffins on the other end had acquired a robust and healthy Eli Wallach patina like in “The Good, The Bad and The Ugly.” Time! It is Muffin Time!
Turn off the oven! Put muffin tin on a rack to cool down to somewhere below the temperature of Magma, and in a few minutes, peel off the cupcake papers and yell to everyone,
“So what are all of you having? I’m having muffins!”
Down the Hall on Your Left 
Your “Muffin Watching Check List” is the best!! In fact, the whole blog is great, especially for a Monday morning. Thanks, John.
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And, the muffins weren’t bad either. You have definite skills here, John. (Sorry, I forgot to mention where the oven mitts were.)
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