MUFFIN

I don't usually refer to myself as awesome.

I don't plan to now.

But, though I may not be able to describe myself as awesome,

I can unreservedly say that these muffins I made are just that:

AWESOME.

These are so my new favorite muffins.  I made some others a few weeks ago, which I will post on here (because they were delicious), but there is no muffin to compare with these muffins.  Maybe they're just my personal taste...but whoa.

Sorry if I get you too excited, so that you make these and don't think they're that great.  I personally LOVE THEM.

The other morning I had a peachy-crumb muffin for breakfast at Bru Coffeehouse.  My favorite treat at Bello Mundo Cafe is their rosemary-lemon-olive oil shortbread cookie.  Their other shortbread cookie is also amazing, and my mother's favorite: orange-cinnamon-olive oil.

I tried to mesh some of the key flavors of these two treats: peach, olive oil, and cinnamon.  I wasn't sure how it would work; when I tasted the batter all I got was olive oil.  But the final product is scrumptious.

Matty and I woke up early this morning to bus-trek to SLO, as it was a barista's last day (Her name is Brenda and she rocks.  She is incomparably more amazing than my amazing muffins, and the one who mentioned baking to me this morning and, therefore, made me feel like baking!  Brenda, should you be so bored as to be reading my blog, I officially dedicate these amazing muffins to you.)  I fell asleep under clear skies and woke up shrouded in fog.  My day was made right there.  We were cold walking from the transit center, and as we walked into Bello Mundo we were hit both with the warmth of the shop, the cozy light enhanced by the red of the coffee cups and rainbow of the bar stools, and the most genuine "Hey guys!" you ever heard.  I really hope to save that image for a long, long time.  I was glad of the cold weather not only because I am always glad of cold weather, but also because, for some reason, that morning I had decided that I didn't care that it was August and I was going to wear tights and Ugg boots.  Why?  No idea.  I've been thinking a lot about school (move's in three weeks), and am probably mentally rushing September along.  Later today I had a sudden urge to make or work on a doll (which I usually get only in cold weather), and then to bake.  Thus, these muffins combine summer (fresh peach and olive oil) with fall (cinnamon and vanilla).

I hope you enjoy them!      

Peach-Olive Oil-Cinnamon-Vanilla Muffins

Makes six standard muffins.

Ingredients

1 cup flour
1 (slightly over-filled) tsp. baking powder
1/4 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. cinnamon
1 peach: thickly diced
1/2 cup milk
2 tbsp. honey
1/2 egg (Yeah.  I know.  I have Bantam chickens, and usually use 1 Bantam egg.  You can also separate a normal egg, use half the white, and squeeze half the yolk out of its little yolk-case.  Sounds weird, but I do it all the time.  I don't always want a whole dozen muffins.)
2 tbsp. olive oil
1/2 tsp. vanilla extract

Directions

Preheat oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit; lightly grease bottoms and lower half of sides of standard muffin tin with olive oil.  Whisk together dry ingredients.  Stir in peach, coating with flour mixture.  In small sauce pan, warm the milk over low heat.  When milk is warm, but not hot or simmering, remove from heat and whisk in honey.  This will dissolve the honey, so that it does not become a sticky, clumpy mess.  Also, heating the milk causes the milk sugars to caramelize slightly, making the milk sweeter.  Learned that at Bello Mundo.  Set the milk/honey mixture aside to cool a bit.  Remember that simple mixture for the next time you want a warm, yummy beverage.  While the honey milk cools, whisk together egg, olive oil, and vanilla extract.  Slowly whisk in honey milk.  Add to dry ingredients and stir until just moistened.  There's a lot of peach pieces, huh?  You'll be be glad of them: I promise.  Fill prepared muffin tin (up to the top because of all the peach pieces) and bake for fifteen minutes.  Let cool in tin five minutes before transferring to cooling rack.  These are good warm or at room temperature.

Because We were Out of Cream Cheese...

I made a super-yummy sandwich.

Yesterday I bought a lunch sandwich from the Avila Valley Barn deli.  It was awesome, but also huge.  I felt lethargic after lunch rather than energized, even though it was full of veggies and I only ate just over half the bread.  Granted, I could've left half of everything, but it was a hot sandwich and wouldn't have kept well, and, well, you know...

Trader Joe's sells these little half-baked breads ("A Half-Baked Idea") that are the perfect size for lunch sandwiches.  We started buying them more often because Matthew loves to eat them stuffed with his favorite fancy cheese: Port Salud.  Now we buy them even more often because I discovered what amazing little sandwiches they make.

My go-to packable sandwich is cream cheese with either cucumber or black olives.  Last night I noticed that we had one perfect cube of cream cheese left, and I decided to use it this morning.  I also thought I'd go fancy and mush a bit of basil into the cream cheese.  I woke up, baked my bread, chopped my basil, sliced my cucumber...and discovered that the cream cheese was gone.  Apparently Nana got hungry fairly late last night and ate it.  Which, of course, is fine, but left me wondering what to make for lunch.

So I quickly stirred together a bit of mayo and a bit of olive oil, adding the chopped basil.  When I pulled out my lunch this afternoon (Actually, it wasn't afternoon.  It was noon.  My shift started at 8:00 this morning, so lunch was at noon.), I was thinking that my sandwich couldn't really be bad.  Turns out, it was delicious.

Plus, it was even better because it was in an awesome bag.  Sandwiches keep better when wrapped in parchment or wax paper rather than plastic.  So, mine was in wax paper.  A few days ago I bought Matthew a Boo Boo Records T-shirt.

                             



                    

That's not Matthew's shirt, but is the same as Matthew's shirt.  I wanted to get him a little something while I was walking around SLO, but all the "little somethings" cost nearly as much as the "big something" that he actually wanted and I actually wanted to get him.  So, I got it.  He wore it today and it looks great!

It came in a paper bag with the logo on it.

                                  

The bag was too cool to just throw away, so it's been carrying my lunches.  I feel cool with my cool sandwich and my cool bag, buying a piece of cool fruit to eat with my cool sandwich from a cool farm like some cool French girl.  Oh yeah.

After work today Mom, Nana, and I went to Bello Mundo because Nana had never been.  I decided to stay an extra forty-five minutes after they drove home in order to go to Phoenix Books.




Phoenix Books used to scare me.  The people who work there are not always the nicest, it's super cluttered, the art is weird (naked--not artistically, just naked--women embracing VERY closely, dumpster-salvaged Barbie dolls glued to poster board, etc.), there's never any music playing, and it just feels generally creepy.  At least it used to.  When I started spending more time wandering SLO, I quickly came to love it in spite of and even for its weirdness.  For "coming across" something, Phoenix is great.  For actually finding something specific, it's not that great.  Although, I did want a copy of Stevenson's The Black Arrow, and after checking every couple weeks for a few months I found a great copy of it!  I buy way too much at Phoenix.  Today it was Notes from the Underground by Dostoevsky.

Want to know something fantastic?

                             

That cross street in the back is where the transit center is.  Those blue awnings belong to Phoenix Books.  HumanKind is a fair trade, volunteer-run clothing and gift shop.  That big window with the table in front of it peers into Bello Mundo.  The picture is taken from in front of Boo Boo Records.  Monterey might be the best street ever.

That picture really, really makes me long for a rainy day.

Here's the recipe (though I, of course, gave it unofficially above) for the sandwich.  With a piece of fruit it's the perfect lunch!

Enough bread for a sandwich.  I use a little "panini rustic roll," which is rather like ciabatta.
Piece of cucumer 2 1/2 to 3 inches long, peeled (unless English) and sliced lengthwise
1 tsp. mayonnaise
1 tsp. olive oil
Four to five fresh basil leaves

Toast bread if desired, split if applicable.  Mix together mayo and olive oil.  Chop basil and mix into mayo/olive oil.  Spread on 1/2 of bread.  Layer with cucumber and close sandwich.  If packing, wrap in parchment or wax paper and keep chilled, if possible.

ABBA and Some Pasta!

Yesterday was just awesome.

I woke Matthew up at six to head out for coffee, something he does far more often to me than I do to him.  We got ready and caught the 7:08 bus into SLO.  For a while we were the only customers at Bello Mundo, so we sat at the bar and talked with the baristas the entire time.  Matthew was at his witty best, and the two baristas had, apparently, already agreed that today was going to be amazing.  By the time Matthew and I left we had sipped on amazing coffee, breakfasted on a delectable croissant, enjoyed excellent conversation, and received a lesson in coffee-foam-art.  Best start to a day ever.



CAPPUCCINO



Glorious, isn't it?

We came home after coffee because I had a doctor appointment.  That, I'll admit, was lame.  But it only lasted a half hour.

My mother and I then lunched on Mexican food with our history professor friend.  Yummy food with the addition of a stressed out and curt waitress to make faces at...for what more could we ask?

Side note:  I happen to know two people named Jonathan, and I saw both today.  I knew professor-Jonathan first, referring to him as 'Mr. Wilson' about a year before he told me that I had to call him by his first name.  Changing names has not proven easy, especially since, to anyone besides him, I still refer to him as Mr. Wilson.  This should, in theory, make the distinction to my family members that when I refer to 'Jonathan' I am most likely referring to Awesome--Bello--Mundo--Owner--and--Barista Jonathan.  But it doesn't usually.  "I was talking to Jonathan in SLO today" always earns a puzzled look along with, "You saw Mr. Wilson in SLO today?"

Back to the day.  After lunch Mom and I went on a drive to Cambria.  A couple months ago we visited our friends who recently moved up to Auburn.  While there, the mother of the family discovered that my mother had adored ABBA as a teen.  A Swedish exchange student first turned her on.  Our friends, after learning this, decided to put on the film Mamma Mia.

Bad Points:
The young couple was stupid and annoying
The plot pieces involving aforementioned couple were stupid and annoying
Aforementioned couple/plot pieces resulted in a bit of brain rot



EWWWWWWWWWWW.

The actual performance of the song "Mamma Mia" was really, really awkward to watch during certain bits

Good points:
Songs, for the most part, were fun
Meryl Streep was great



Her two friends were pretty good too

Is Colin Firth ever not cute?



My mom used to have an enormous crush on Pierce Brosnan (specifically as Remington Steele), so we enjoyed watching him...what's funny is that, as he's aged, Brosnan has begun to look rather like my dad



Same type, anyway.

After watching the movie, Mom and I decided that we needed to go on an ABBA trip.  Thus our decision to drive to Cambria with ABBA blasting at us.

"Dancing Queen" is lame.  We (meaning, of course, Mom and I) believe that the reason it became so popular is that the youth and young adults of that era thought the song was about them.  They were the dancing queens.

My two favorites are "Take a Chance on Me" and, of course, "The Winner Takes it All."  There's no denying that second one's a good song.  Actually, you could totally deny that.  I happen to think it's excellent--the same song as, even if not on level with, "My Man" and "Hallelujah."  There's a hilarious version down below.

"Take a Chance on Me" is just cute.  "SOS" and "Mamma Mia" are also fun.  You have to be in the mood and either walking or driving, but, sometimes, ABBA can be totally fun.

Ready for the recipe, at last?  Some Like it Hot was going on while I made it.

Ingredients

1 pound fusilli (or whatever pasta you want)
2 tbsp. butter
2 tbsp. olive oil
5 cloves garlic, rather roughly chopped
1/2 red onion, sliced
2 smallish zucchini, chopped
2 sprigs rosemary, leaves pulled from sprigs and chopped
Very small handful oregano, chopped
1 handful grated parmesan cheese
1 tomato, diced
Kosher salt

Directions

Cook pasta according to instructions, reserving 1/2 cup pasta water.  While pasta is cooking, combine butter, 1 tbsp. oil, 4 cloves garlic, and onion.  Cook until onion softens.  Add zucchini, herbs, and salt to taste.  Drain pasta.  Transfer veggie mixture to empty pasta pot and return to heat.  Add pasta, remaining tbsp. oil and clove garlic, and reserved pasta water.  Cook until water is evaporated, mixing in parmesan at last moment.  Serve topped with tomato.