The next time you find yourself at urgent care, the delivery room, operating table, or even the supermarket and your doctor, nurse or cashier is wearing a mask, suggest they join you in exercising our freedoms by removing it. When you’re done there, go to your car, cut your brake line and drive away as fast as you like without wearing a seat belt. As soon as you get home (or wherever you land) pull yourself from the wreckage, brush aside the bodies, take the gun out of your waistband or bag and shoot yourself in the foot. Because you can.
Sift together flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, baking powder and salt.
In another bowl, combine sugar, milk and vegetable oil. Beat the egg and stir it in. Add the vanilla.
Fold the flour mixture into the wet mixture and stir just until everything is combined.
Cover the bowl and let the batter rest in the refrigerator for at least an hour or as long as overnight.
When you're ready to bake the muffins, place an oven rack in the top third of the oven and preheat to 425 F.
While the oven is heating, oil a muffin tin, remove the batter from the fridge, stir in the chocolate chips and fill the muffin cups to the top. Add some water to any empty cups. Put the muffins in the oven and bake for 9 minutes before turning the oven down to 350 F. Continue baking for another ten minutes or so – don't open the oven door for at least that much time. The muffins are done when you can insert a toothpick in the center and it comes out clean. Note: these times are for a tin of 12 muffins.
What a week. What a day. I lost my cool with a store manager today who said he couldn’t require his employees to keep their masks on. “What if they also took their shoes off, hung them from their ears, and walked around the store barefoot? Would you ignore that also?” I wanted to say but just walked out instead as the mouth breathing MAGAs in line looked at me like I was being hysterical – Guess what, I was! – and I felt bad for losing my cool with someone who was probably doing his best just showing up when even grocery shopping has become a partisan theater of sneers. Memo to all who continue to support or remain silent about our impeached president and his bigoted politics of division and death: It’s working.
On Wednesday, excerpts from an upcoming collection of oral histories, Don’t Get Me Started on Starter, were leaked revealing he was the last person in quarantine to make banana bread.
