My muffins

I have a confession: I’m still not over Boston.

I know I said I wanted to finally get out of New England but I miss it – the restaurants, the ocean, the snow and slush of a real winter and, of course, dear friends. But I am – slowly – getting used to life in the District; beginning, predictably, with the neighborhood that surrounds my office (or, as I like to call it, my home-away-from-home) – Dupont Circle.

Here’s another confession: I’ve become addicted to
Marvelous Market’s marvelous chocolate chip muffins.

As soon as the clock moves to the PM my mind drifts to chocolate – specifically this chocolate chip muffin (the images of dancing muffins are sometimes accompanied by more banal thoughts of chocolate caffeine – or “mocha” as Starbucks calls it.) And so begins the debate – to muffin or not to muffin.

Eight times out of ten the “pro-muffin” side triumphs and off I go, either around the Circle (Dupont, that is) or across, depending on the angle of my squint on that day (some days the circumference seems shorter; other days a walk past the fountain does).

As the cashier noted while ringing up my already half-eaten muffin this evening, “at least they’re not brownies.” True, but neither are they healthful, stick-to-the-ribs hearty bran-oat or blueberry wheat-germ muffins. My babies should rightfully be called cupcakes, because, friends, that is what they are. A light and moist chocolate batter studded with chocolate chips, poured baked to near-perfectness is cake, not a muffin no matter what the shape is.

Issues of nomenclature (and its enabling capacity: who can really justify eating a ‘cupcake’ two-three times per week) aside, I have come to fear that others in the neighborhood have discovered my secret. Several recent trips – all late in the afternoon – have found me standing forlornly before a baked-goods shelf already emptied of chocolate-y goodness. The other muffin options – while generally satisfying – simply do not compete (and how could blueberries and apple really be expected to?).

So what now?

Pragmatically, I should probably take the empty shelves as an unspoken endorsement of my renewed pledge of healthy eating.

Or I could branch out.

I bet their chocolate croissants are pretty marvelous too.