Satiating What We Long For

   

      People ask me: Why do you write about food, and eating and drinking? Why don't you write about the struggle for power, and about security and about love, the way others do?

      The easiest answer is to say that, like most other humans, I am hungry. But there is more than that. It seems to me that our three basic needs, for food and security and love, are so mixed and mingled and entwined that we cannot straightly think of one without the others. So it happens that when I write of hunger, I am really writing about love and the hunger for it, and warmth and the love of it and the hunger for it -- and then the warmth and richness and fine reality of hunger satisfied -- it is all one.

      I tell about myself...and it happens without my willing it that I am telling too about the people with me and their other deeper needs for love and happiness.

      There is a communion of more than our bodies when bread is broken and wine drunk. And that is my answer, when people ask me: Why do you write about hunger, and not wars or love?

                                                                                                                                          --  MFK Fisher

      Nearly a registered nurse, having been trained and educated in a city that faces the consequences of a long lost economy and the impossibly evil clutch of substance use, offering my faithfully-returned readers a recipe for muffins seems like a feeble act. What I've learned in the hospital rooms of Baltimore and from its people who defy injustice by their resilience should not surprise me, considering my faith: that after the vital signs have been taken, the medicine administered, the pain acknowledged, the surgery performed, the dressings changed  -- people love and can and will talk about food.

      Remarkably, for all of the mysteries of our minds and bodies that we may not understand, we do know what our palates yearn for. To bake a muffin that provides the anticipated sweet without being excessive, the surprising tart clench from buttermilk and the robust chew of whole grain is to have something honest and unpretentious to offer, satiating what we long for.

Millet Muffins with Buttermilk and Cinnamon

adapted from Cafe Fanny and Blue Wave Pastry

      You can certainly substitute ingredients to make these gluten free or vegan. Also, though it's not absolutely required, giving the millet a good rinse prior to grinding it will help reduce any of its natural bitterness.

Ingredients

2 eggs

1 and 1/3 c brown sugar

10 T melted unsalted butter

1 and 1/4 c whole millet (often found in the bulk section of grocery stores)

2 3/4 c all purpose flour

1 and 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 baking soda

1/2 tsp sea salt

1 tsp cinnamon

1 and 3/4 c buttermilk

Process

      Preheat your oven to 350F and grease a muffin tin tray.

      In a food processor or with a mortar and pestle, grind the millet until it's just slightly broken up from its whole-grain ball form, about ten seconds -- you still want plenty of crunch and texture.

   Beat together the eggs and sugar until pale and fluffy. Add the melted butter, half of the buttermilk and the millet.

      Stir in the dry ingredients and remaining buttermilk. Mix gently and not too much -- over-mixing makes muffins flat!

      Spoon the batter so it fills each muffin tin three-quarters of the way full. Bake for 20 minutes or until an inserted tooth pick comes out clean.

      Remove from oven, run a knife around the edges and let sit for 10 minutes before inverting the tray to remove the muffins. Let cool and enjoy with coffee or tea.

Yields: about 18 muffins

Prep time: 20 minutes, tops

Bake time: 20 minutes

Writing by Adria Lee | Photography by Amy Pennington