Jordan Marsh Blueberry Muffins

A trip down memory lane

When I was little, we weren't constantly leaving the house to go shopping. It seems like nowadays we're always running to the store for something. I remember that most of the time we were just hanging around the house. If I wasn't in school or outside playing with the neighborhood kids, I was inside the house in my room or spending time with my mother. Of course, from 2 to 4 in the afternoon we were glued to the radio listening to Gus Saunders and the callers on the Yankee Kitchen. But, for the rest of the time, we were outside in the yard or watching TV. A lot of TV.

Circa 1961 when I was little. At home in our living room in Bridgewater, Mass. 

We loved watching The Mike Douglas Show and the game shows. We liked Password - but my mother couldn't stand it when Alan Ludden would look into the camera like he was completely disgusted with the last incorrect answer from the other team. The Match Game was a favorite of ours as was Hollywood Squares. I loved Concentration!

We ate up the cooking shows - The Galloping Gourmet (oh! Graham Kerr - what a doll!) and The French Chef (we worshipped Julia Child!). Then there were the soaps - Days of Our Lives, another one I can't remember, and The Doctors.

In my middle school years, I was addicted to Dark Shadows! My mother thought that the show was morose. I think it may have been when I was in 6th grade that school went into double sessions. Since I got home late in the afternoon I'd ask my mother to watch the show for me and tell me what happened. "Oh, I don't know... there was that guy, you know the one that looks like a vampire, and then there was that other one...."

I do remember going to the grocery store with my mother. We went to Hockomock Farms in West Bridgewater. One time when we were there I was looking at the paperback rack and saw a book that my 8th grade English teacher recommended to the class. The book was Eldridge Cleaver's "Soul on Ice". I remember my mother looking at that book and saying, "Are you sure that this is the book?" "Yes," I said. "I know it is." And it was. Now THAT's a story for another time!

May 1979, Graduation from Bridgewater State College. Same house.

Our biggest outing by far was an occasional trip to Jordan Marsh at the Braintree Mall (aka the South Shore Plaza).

Each time we went, my mother would take me to the Jordan Marsh Restaurant. I can recall one time looking at the fancy dolls and Christmas decorations in the store just outside the restaurant. And I remember getting one of those dolls for Christmas. Each time we went, before we'd go home, we stopped at the store's bakery to buy some Jordan Marsh Blueberry Muffins.

This recipe was shared on the Yankee Kitchen. Later when I was on my own, I bought some Jordan Marsh Blueberry Muffins and made this recipe. I added this notation:

 "Conducted a taste test w/a JMB muffin & it tasted identical!"

Well-worn and well-loved

Jordan Marsh Blueberry Muffins

1/2 c. shortening, margarine or butter

1 c. sugar (my notation: reduce to 3/4 c. for a less sweet muffin)

1 tsp. vanilla

2 eggs

1/4 tsp. salt

2 tsp. baking powder

1/2 c. milk

2 c. flour

1 pint blueberries

extra sugar 

Beat shortening & sugar together. Add eggs and vanilla and beat well. Mix dry ingredients together. Add to creamed mixture alternately with milk. Fold in berries. Thoroughly grease 12 muffin cups and around top edges, too. Dust muffin cups with flour. Fill with batter and sprinkle generously with sugar.

Bake at 450F for 5 minutes. Reduce to 375F and bake 30 minutes more. Cool in pans. Remove.