Chocolate Muffins

We have just enjoyed our first Poetry Tea-time of 2010. I lit one of my Christmas candles and brewed the tea my new tea-pot, a gift from my husband which matches my charity shop tea-cup and saucer. My daughter bought me a Muffin and Cup-cake cookbook for Christmas (with the printed warning that adult supervision may be required) and we used it to make Chocolate Muffins. She chose it herself while in the Garden Centre with her dad and was excited by her find and told him that I could use it to bake for poetry tea. It is gratifying to me that this is such a fixed feature in her mind: something that we do and will keep doing and that is good to do. I plan to work through the book systematically and bake each recipe in turn, even the odd sounding ones (although I will have to give anything containing banana a miss.) Each child chose two poems, all old favourites, and again I am pleased that my children have such a thing as favourite poems. My little girl, a not-yet reader, recited the first verse of 'The Owl and the Pussy-Cat' and asked for a Pam Ayres as her second choice. I dared to read 'Snake' by D.H. Lawrence, a poem I am very fond of but have thought too long for the children to listen to, and they sat quiet and said they liked it. Dad joined us as he is off school due to snow again and, as the muffins were quite small, we had two each. Poetry tea may not take very long, it certainly wouldn't fill and afternoon of school, but I cannot imagine a better or richer experience. Next week, it's Sticky Muffins.