Gluten-Free Blueberry Muffins — The Taste of the Trail, Carried Home

The kitchen is the room I live in. The other rooms are storage for memories — the dining room with its china cabinet, the living room with Paul's shipwreck books, the upstairs bedrooms where the kids grew up and which I have not entered (except to dust) in years. The kitchen is where the present happens. The kitchen is where the food is made and the dog is fed and the morning begins and the evening ends. The kitchen is the entire territory of my daily life now, and I find that this is enough. Karin and I talked Sunday. Stockholm in winter is dark. Duluth in winter is dark. We compared darknesses. We laughed. Karin said: "Linda, do you remember the time Pappa drove us to Two Harbors in a blizzard because Mamma wanted lutefisk?" I said yes. The story unspooled across the phone for twenty minutes. I had forgotten half of it. Karin remembered all of it. The memory was, briefly, complete between us. Mamma's hands shake more than they did last month. I do not point it out. I notice. I notice everything. The shake is small — barely visible when she is at rest, more visible when she lifts her coffee cup, most visible when she is trying to thread a needle. She still threads needles. She still bakes. She still calls me on Tuesdays at 10. The hands shake. The shaking does not stop the doing. The doing is what Mamma is. I cooked Wild blueberry pie this week. Berries picked from the Superior Hiking Trail in August, frozen for use throughout the year. Tossed with sugar and a little cornstarch. Baked in a butter-and-lard crust. Served warm with vanilla ice cream. The taste of the trail. Damiano. The kitchen back-room I have known for over twenty years. The pot. The ladle. The faces. Gerald. The work continues. The work is the same work it has been since 2005. The continuity is, I think, the gift the Damiano Center gives me as much as the gift I give it. We hold each other up. Erik's house is empty now. The Fifth Street house has been sold (the new owners are a young couple from Hermantown, they are kind, they have promised to take care of it; they will paint the walls and tear up the carpet and the kitchen will become someone else's kitchen and I have made my peace with this, mostly). Erik's own house in Lakeside is being cleared out. I helped on Saturday. I packed Erik's coffee mugs. I held one for a long minute. I put it in the box. It is enough. It has to be. And on a morning like this, with the lake doing what the lake does and the dog at my feet and the bread on the counter and the kitchen warm enough to live in, it is. I have been reading the Bible more lately. Not in any new way. The same passages I have known since confirmation class in 1977. The Sermon on the Mount. The 23rd Psalm. The book of Ruth. Whither thou goest, I will go. The repetition of the verses is its own form of prayer. The verses do not change. I change. The change is held by the unchanged words. It is enough.

The blueberries I froze from the trail in August have been finding their way into everything this autumn — the pie I made earlier this week, spoonfuls stirred into morning oatmeal, and now these muffins. After packing Erik’s kitchen into boxes on Saturday, I needed something small and uncomplicated to bake on Sunday morning, something that would fill the kitchen with warmth and let my hands do steady, familiar work. These gluten-free blueberry muffins were exactly that — simple enough to make without thinking too hard, good enough to wrap two in foil and bring to the Damiano Center on Monday.

Gluten-Free Blueberry Muffins

Prep Time: 15 minutes | Cook Time: 22 minutes | Total Time: 37 minutes | Servings: 12

Ingredients

• 2 cups gluten-free all-purpose flour (with xanthan gum included)
• 3/4 cup granulated sugar
• 1 tablespoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/3 cup unsalted butter, melted and cooled
• 2 large eggs
• 3/4 cup whole milk
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 1/2 cups fresh or frozen blueberries
• 1 tablespoon granulated sugar, for topping

Instructions

1. Preheat the oven. Set oven to 375°F. Line a 12-cup muffin tin with paper liners or grease well.
2. Mix the dry ingredients. In a large bowl, whisk together the gluten-free flour, 3/4 cup sugar, baking powder, and salt.
3. Combine the wet ingredients. In a separate bowl, whisk together the melted butter, eggs, milk, and vanilla extract until smooth.
4. Combine wet and dry. Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and stir gently with a wooden spoon or spatula until just combined. Do not overmix — a few small lumps are fine.
5. Fold in the blueberries. Gently fold the blueberries into the batter, being careful not to crush them. If using frozen berries, fold them in without thawing to prevent the batter from turning purple.
6. Fill the muffin cups. Divide the batter evenly among the 12 muffin cups, filling each about 3/4 full. Sprinkle the tops with the remaining 1 tablespoon of sugar.
7. Bake. Bake for 20 to 22 minutes, until the tops are golden and a toothpick inserted into the center of a muffin comes out clean or with just a few moist crumbs.
8. Cool. Let the muffins cool in the tin for 5 minutes, then transfer to a wire rack. Serve warm or at room temperature.

Nutrition (per serving)

Calories: 195 | Protein: 3g | Fat: 7g | Carbs: 31g | Fiber: 1g | Sodium: 210mg