“Okay, Meg. Here’s the scoop. This recipe is a closely guarded secret of
Toronto Downtown Bed and Breakfast. Many guests have, over the last decade,
asked, yea, begged us for the recipe, and we always managed to (ever so
politely) put them off. It was going to our graves.
The last person who cajoled us for this secret actually went home to Ohio,
found his great grandmother’s secret (and ever so delicious) recipe for
cranberry coffee cake and sent it to us with the statement: “There! You’ve
seen it, you own it, and now you owe us big time. Fork it over!“ We couldn’t
continue to be impolite, so we rummaged through our cookbook collection till
I found an English cookery (as they call it) book with a recipe for
blueberry muffins. It was all in pounds and shillings, or grams and googols
or some foreign measurement system, calling for obscure ingredients like
demerara sugar and aubergines or the like, and then to be baked at Heat
Setting 2 or some such indecipherable temperature. I knew that if we sent
him that recipe he would never be able to create a muffin from it, and I
would get him off our scent. Which we did. He thanked us politely and gave
up.
But now, only because you are a Very Special Friend, and because Toronto
Downtown Bed and Breakfast is no longer in the business of impressing new
guests with our culinary excellence (we are only accepting repeat guests now
- and they already know of those excesses) - we will reveal it. But only to
you and the three million readers of your blog (because, if they like you,
they must be special people too):
Preheat oven to 425F. Grease four muffin cups in a six-muffin-cup pan. Set
aside. Rummage through bottom drawer of fridge until you touch something
soft. Take it out carefully and remove all the fuzzy parts, and the pit if
any. If you found more than one, use them both. They needn’t be the same
species. Place in a six-cup mixing bowl. Add one 220g package of Sherriff’s
Added Touch Oatmeal Muffin Mix, an egg, and a third cup of cold water. Stir
gently with a fork until moistened and divide among the muffin cups (the
package says “makes six muffins.“ Don’t believe it.). Bake 18 minutes.
Serve. Call it by whatever name the fruit had when it was recognizable.
There! Satisfied? When are you coming back? I think we’ll let you make YOUR
recipe next time, right?
Love,
Jim”
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