Fact: I’ve turned into a cooking machine.

I mentioned my new mechanized status to a friend at church on Sunday. “You should see the piles of food we go through,” I said. “It’s crazy!”

My friend leveled his eye at me. “You could have stopped with one, you know.”

“Good one,” I said. “Way to shut me up.”

Saturday noon, we had a crowd: our family, plus my nieces and nephew, a college student, and Melissa. At the stove, loading up plates with lentils and rice and green beans, I had to keep reaching for more dishes. Finally, I turned around to survey the room. “How many people are here anyway, huh?”

I’m pretty much in my glory, cooking for all these people. I explained to one of my friends that I like the hubbub. It makes me feel necessary. She wrote back, “Hubbub makes me sink down and grope feebly for my smelling salts.” As they say, to each her own!

Here’s a peek at my kitchen hubbub:

What’s happening in your kitchen?

This same time, years previous: roasted tomato and garlic pizza sauce, rainy day writing, almond cream pear tart, a quick rundown, and say cheese!.

This same time, years previous: in my kitchen: 5:25 p.m., the cousins came, the quotidian (9.2.13), the quotidian (9.3.12), roasted peaches, picture perfect, honey whole wheat cake, and blueberry coffee cake.

A quick pop-in to say: Eat Muffins!

Specifically, blueberry muffins.

I never had a good blueberry muffin to my name, you know. And then a few weeks back, a friend in the midst of A Blueberry Muffin Search approached me (via the internets) to see if I had a recipe to recommend. I didn’t, but I tossed a bunch of links her way, just so I’d at least appear helpful.

After that, I had blueberry muffins on my mind, so when I spied a blueberry muffin recipe touted to be The Best Ever in another corner of the internets, I paused. The recipe looked too sweet, I thought. Bland, too—no lemon, no whole grains, no streusel, no nothing. Just butter, milk, eggs, the usual, blah-blah, boring. The only unique thing was that the recipe called for a quarter of the blueberries to be mashed before stirring them into the batter. It was supposed to make the muffin stay fresh longer, they said.

Gross, I thought. Wouldn’t the mashed berries turn the muffins gray?

But the muffins in the photo looked yummy (of course). Were they pulling my leg?

Turns out, those New York Times people weren’t lying. Tender and sweet, the muffins could not have been more delicious. With each bite, I felt like pinching myself. How did something this good come from something so simple? Why had I never discovered this recipe before?

The second time around, I tried to improve the recipe with lemon zest and juice…and failed. Because these muffins really are the best.

Blueberry Muffins
Adapted (not at all) from The New York Times, Jordan Marsh’s Blueberry Muffins.

½ cup butter
1¼ cups sugar
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 cups flour
½ teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons baking powder
½ cup milk
2 cups blueberries
extra sugar, for sprinkling (I used demerara)

Cream together the butter and the sugar. Beat in the eggs and vanilla. Gently mix in the dry ingredients. Add the milk. Using a fork, mash ½ cup of the blueberries on a plate and stir them into the batter. Fold in the remaining blueberries.

Spoon the batter into muffin tins (makes about 12). Liberally sprinkle the tops with sugar. Bake the muffins at 350 degrees for 25-35 minutes. Allow the muffins to cool completely before running a knife around the edge of each muffin and removing from the tins.

This same time, years previous: way to go, kids, the quotidian (9.1.14), caramelized oatmeal topping, around the house, and dreaming.