The Forty Days

I wake up at 2:35 am.  Sometimes I wake up at this time, look at my clock, and thank God that I have five more hours to sleep.  I’ll gingerly squeeze my stuffed hippo Lenny, tell him it was all a bad dream, and lull him back to sleep with sweet tales of spending lazy days wallowing in the mud on the plains of Africa.  But today I wake up at the godforsaken hour of 2:35 am intentionally.  The alarm goes off.  I throw Lenny against the wall.  I get up and begin to stumble around like Fred the Baker–from the famed Dunkin’ Donuts commercials of the mid-80’s–muttering, “Time to make the donuts.”  Except in this case, it’s time to make the muffins.

At 3 am, I meet the vivacious Karisa at her year-old business, Taste No Evil Muffin Company, located at 2531 South Lamar (in the trolley in front of Maria’s Taco Express).  After exchanging whatever pleasantries are possible to be exchanged on this side of 3 am, Karisa puts me to work.  I have never baked anything before that did not come in a tube of some kind–requiring only that the contents be formed into little balls and be placed on a cookie sheet.  And I don’t like to cook either, which my wife seems to lament on a daily basis.  But I can take orders.  I take orders very well.  In fact, if I had been a participant in the Milgram experiments (which many of us may have learned about in Psych 101), I would have probably continued to press the button.

We begin by measuring out the ingredients–cups, tablespoons, and teaspoons of flour, cinnamon, baking powder, etc.  I am pretty nervous at this point because if I dump the wrong amounts into the wrong bowls, I could ruin a whole batch of muffins.  I imagine that if Karisa witnesses such a screw-up, she will dump the contents of the bowl over my head, make me sit in the corner, and periodically throw assorted baking supplies in my general direction.  But I don’t screw up–mostly because Karisa is standing right there instructing me and because I am going very, very slowly.  After I successfully distribute the ingredients, I excitedly wave around the sharp knife that is in my hand.  Karisa nervously tells me to stop.  What about a little celebratory gunfire?

While we are mixing the ingredients, I ask Karisa if she puts love in the muffins, and, if so, does the love make the muffins taste better?  Definitely.  She says that she once had an employee who did not put love in the muffins, and they tasted worse.  After we mix the wet and dry ingredients (including the requisite amount of love), taste the batter (yum!), scoop the batter into the muffin pans, and bake them in the oven, we have a bunch of hot, delicious-looking muffins and are ready for our 6 am deliveries to various coffee shops around town.

After we return from our deliveries around 7 am, Karisa makes me a delectable breakfast consisting of a toasted blueberry muffin and some sliced watermelon.  (Note: Toasted muffins are amazing, especially with a little butter or cream cheese.)  Having our first moments to really talk, I learn that Karisa has a long history in the food service industry, once had a job behind a computer as a software developer for three years (which she hated), thereafter went to culinary school, and eventually decided to open a business making luscious all natural and organic muffins.  To read more about Karisa’s history and the history of Taste No Evil Muffins, click here.

We also have a semi-deep conversation about relationships, marriage, monogamy, and sex, which I will not reproduce here as it is definitely not Nana-appropriate.  It is at this point that I develop the tiniest of schoolgirl crushes on Karisa and her muffin-making ways–that is, until our discussion about vaccines.  I will only say that we have differing views on the subject.  As punishment for trying to start an argument with her, she makes me do the dishes.

I end my day at noon, having had a great night/day baking muffins with my new-found friend.  I feel the love for Karisa and for all local, small business owners.  Karisa tells me that she knew owning her own business would be hard, but she was surprised by how hard it really is.  Karisa starts baking at 3 am every morning, shops for ingredients after the trolley closes at 2:30 pm, and has to find time for invoicing, other accounting, and some semblance of a social life.  But, for Karisa, it is a labor of love.  So all you Starbucks-eating, corporate muffin-consuming people out there, start showing some love and eat locally-baked muffins!  And if you live in Austin, start getting your muffins at Taste No Evil!  Seriously.

So . . . what’s love got to do with it?  Oh, Tina Turner, everything.  Every.  Thing.  Unless you are married to Ike Turner, I guess.  But that’s a whole different story.