Comms 101

Spiced Carrot Muffins with Lots of Carrots

At not-quite-two, my daughter says most words a little slant. Hot, for example, is haahs, which sounds remarkably like the word ass. I’m generally not puritanical about swearing, but there’s nothing quite like hearing a toddler repeatedly say “ass, ass, ass” as she gingerly touches a sunsoaked slide on the playground.

She is, unsurprisingly, understood by no one other than her father and me. This does not deter her from peering meaningfully into adult faces while making her slurpy sounds. She stares people down and nods with her eyebrows raised like, “got it?” Tragically, they do not got it, which becomes clear to her when they respond blithely, “Oh, reaaaally?”

I’ll admit that even I don’t always get it right away. Little blonde bloodhound that she is, she sniffs out my feigned understanding right away. She purses her lips and gathers her patience to try again. “Fahs, Baba. Fahs,” she says, assertively pointing to her diaper. “Ohhh, farts!” I say. “Yaaaaa! Fahs!” she replies, beaming.

There are few things I love more than the look on her perfect cabbage face when I finally understand what she’s been trying to say. At first, I thought she was feeling proud of herself. Then, I realized she’s actually feeling proud of ME for finally getting it. Sometimes, she even claps for me or gives me a condescending little pat on the arm. “Oh Baba, you gorgeous imbecile,” she might say. “I thought you’d never get there, you dense little poundcake.”

As a writer, being understood is my top priority. If my readers don’t understand me, it is, without question, my fault. Unfortunately, this belief bleeds into the rest of my life, too. If someone doesn’t understand me, I must not have explained myself well enough. Language is a notoriously slippery fish and most people aren’t very good listeners. Intellectually, I know these things to be true, and yet, my first instinct is: my mistake, I must not have been clear.

Where my daughter has confidence, I have self-blame. It’s an emotional habit that’s mostly fruitless and nearly always harmful to my wellbeing. Try as I might, some people are always going to hear ass when I say hot. Maybe the problem isn’t that I haven’t explained myself well enough. Maybe the problem isn’t always me. Instead of punishing myself, I should probably take a tip from my kid and send my hot ass catapulting down the slide towards the nearest snack.

Spiced Carrot Muffins with Lots of Carrots

Makes 9 full-size muffins or 24 mini muffins

This is, at heart, a low-sugar muffin recipe packed with veggies for toddlers. Not a toddler? Don’t have a toddler? Please don’t be dissuaded. Perfectly spiced and not too sweet, these muffins only get moister and more delightful as days pass. If you like a muffin that’s closer to cake, you can increase the sugar to 1/3 cup.

Ingredients:

• 1 ¼ cup AP flour

• 1 teaspoon baking soda

• 1 ½ teaspoons ground cinnamon

• 1 teaspoon ground ginger

• ⅛ teaspoon ground cloves

• ½ teaspoon ground allspice

• ¼ teaspoon salt

• 2 large eggs

• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

• ½ cup olive oil

• ¼ cup packed dark brown sugar

• ½ cup applesauce

• 2 cups grated carrots (2-3 large carrots grated on the large holes of a box grater)

• ⅓ cup raisins

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees and grease a muffin tin with olive oil or place muffin liners into the tin. (I don’t use muffin liners fwiw, but do you.)

Combine the flour, baking soda, cinnamon, ginger, cloves, allspice and salt in a medium bowl and set aside.

Lightly beat the eggs, then add the vanilla, olive oil, brown sugar, applesauce and carrots and mix together.

Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and mix until the flour is just incorporated. Do not overmix. Fold in the raisins.

Fill nine of the wells in a standard muffin tin or all 24 in a mini muffin tin. Bake for 20-25 minutes until muffins are golden and an inserted toothpick comes out clean. Mini muffins may need less time so start checking them at 15 minutes.

Thinking about: This fascinating piece in The Cut about a group of liberal TikTok psychics who think Trump is leading us into the Divine Feminine era of peace, love and community. Equal parts wacky, inspirational, and unsettling.

Craving: This Ottolenghi recipe for Braised beef short ribs with butterbeans and figs. (Scroll to the bottom.) Doesn’t that sound so good and so perfect for fall weather? Now if it would only arrive…

Following: Sana Siddiqui of @curatingthetable and her accessible approach to Indian cooking. Everything on her feed is a real feast for the eyes.

Seeking advice: My husband and I have had the same IKEA dishes since *gasp* college and it’s time. The problem: I can’t decide what we should get next. Hit me in the comments if you’re passionate about your dinnerware.

And now, a poem for you: