Joshua's Sunday Sampler: Chocolate Chip Muffins

Yesterday we awakened at 3:30 a.m. to a basement with water coming in the windows. Six inches of water fell in 4 hours here and most people got something. It took us four hours to fight it and keep the waves at bay, then we were zombies a lot of the rest of the weekend!

But tonight Kyle, Josh and Own made chocolate chip muffins in the train muffin tin given to us years ago by our friends Carol and Tom. It's an adaptation of the recipe from one of my favorite modern cookbooks:  The Muffin Lady.

2 cups flour
1 cup sugar
1 tablespoon baking powder
pinch salt
2 eggs
3/4 cup milk
1/4 cup oil
4 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
1/2 tsp.  corn syrup
1.5 tsp. vanilla
1 cup chocolate chips
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Mix the dry ingredients and add the eggs, milk, oil, melted butter, lemon juice, and corn syrup.  Fold in vanilla and chocolate chips. Makes about 9 muffins from fancier tins, or 12 regular round ones.

Re-read some Simone Elkeles titles this weekend and read The Rules of Attraction for the first time to get ready for a panel I'm on with her this week. I adore her as a person and as an author. She did one of her first talks at STDL, and it's been exciting to see her career rocket after that. She is always kind to my teens and remembers ones by name when I see her now. If you like good romances, you can't bet TRA and it's first title, Perfect Chemistry. Rules of Attraction Plus her book trailers are hilarious.