Of corn muffins and relationships

I woke up this morning and thought: I love my husband.

We have been married 12 years and been together almost 20, so you are probably thinking it doesn’t take a genius to get that. Or, if you are the cynical kind you are probably thinking: still?

Let’s just say that even if love is presumably the foundation of marriage, it is not always center stage. Life, we all know, gets in the way. Life is quite the diva, cherishing the spotlight, pushing and shoving its way to the front and relegating the true protagonist to the chorus line. Life is… well, larger than life, constantly changing costumes and starring in a variety of roles: work, finances, children, health.

You get the gist, you know what I mean. As much as you promise yourself things won’t change, they do, whether you have kids or not. Just more certainly and quicker if you have kids. And I am not implying they change for the worse, just that they are different.

There are still a lot of cuddles and horsing around, but it usually involves the children too. Kids are just incapable of watching/hearing you share a moment of laughter or tenderness without jumping right into the middle of it.

Your seemingly endless reserves of affection are more finite than you thought once your offspring, on which you reversed your supplies all day, are in bed. Instead of lying on the couch hand in hand, legs intertwined while watching a movie, you both lightly snore with your eyes half open, pretending to be awake.

Moments of intimacy are well planned and consumed behind locked doors in muffler mode. Gone are the days of spur-of-the-moment fun involving surfaces of your décor other than the bed.

I think we all at some point of a relationship (during a fight, when you reach an important milestone etc.) question how much of life together is routine, companionship or even the unthinkable, a very efficient way to rear a family or to share costs in an expensive metropolis. 

Sometimes it is so hard to see black and white, because contours have a tendency to grey with time. It is hard to tell the difference between a real feeling and the memory of it (like those childhood reminiscences you create in your mind through stories you have heard your parents tell over and over). It is hard to differentiate types of love when sex is no longer the driving factor of the equation.

But then Love, demoted to supporting role or even walk-on by the egotistic diva that is Life, has a way of creeping back when you least expect it. It waits quietly and patiently on the sidelines and then unexpectedly takes center stage for a solo that is so sweet and lovely that it is like watching your first  movie in color after owning a black and white TV.

That is how I felt this morning. Is it because he got back from a trip last night while I was asleep and waking up next to him this morning just made me happy? Is it because some sad news I heard from a friend set my mind racing, making me analyze every facet of my relationship? Is it because there has just been so much going on in our lives this winter that I realized having him with me along the way just makes it so much easier. The truth is it could be either of these reasons or all of them together or maybe none of them. I don’t know and I don’t care. All I know is that Love is the star today and that is all that matters.

Corn muffins are a little like marriage: they are every day food, not glamorous, but easily adaptable. They are a little sweet, slightly salty, moist and comforting yet with that unexpected grainy texture and bite.

The other day I brought some corn muffins to work and a couple of colleagues asked me for the recipe. I told them they could get it from the blog. As I was looking for the link to send them I realized I had never posted corn muffins! How did that happen?

I was very glad I still had a few at home to photograph.

I do not have my own special recipe for corn muffins and used this one because I didn’t have the buttermilk many recipes call for. I was actually also a little short on butter and used a couple of tablespoons of leftover coconut milk I had in the fridge. It worked fine as a substitute, and for those of you who don’t like coconut, there was not a hint of it once baked.

Ingredients (adapted from Ina Garten on Food network)

3 cups flour

1 cup brown sugar

1 cup cornmeal

2 tbsp baking powder

1 1/2 tsp salt

1 1/2 cups milk

1/2 lb (225gr) butter, melted and cooled (I had a little under 200gr so I added 2 tbsp coconut milk)

3 eggs

Preheat the oven to 350° F/180°C and line 12 muffin cups.

Mix flour, sugar, cornmeal, baking powder and salt in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment. In another bowl, combine the milk, butter and eggs. Pour wet ingredients into dry ones and stir until they are just blended at the lowest speed. Fill the paper liners to the top using a spoon. Bake for 30 minutes or until the tops are crunchy and a toothpick comes out clean. Let cool.

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