Muffin Monday: La Crèam Boheme

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Clik here to view.World Aids Day happens every year on December 1^st and like all “days” of the year around disease, the intent is to drum up some attention to an otherwise forgotten topic.  I feel like Aids gets ignored a lot in my circles—I certainly hear more about cancer because of my job—and this year I found myself oddly drawn into wanting to support this awareness a bit more.

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Clik here to view.Maybe it’s because I listen to the news far more often on my drives into work, but knowing that while the numbers are going down for infected, the percentage of youth is increasing really scared me.  Maybe that’s because I have a brother in the middle of that age group (13 to 24) that makes up 40% of the newly infected each year.  Yes, 2 out of every 5 new cases happens primarily to the young and underaged.  Whether that’s from sharing needles or sex, you know it can’t be good—especially when the latter can so easily be prevented with education and condoms.  Why is it that the youth of this country is so prone to contracting a virus that is a lifelong burden?

Partly it’s simply youthful naïveté.  We, and I say we since I’m still at the end of that age spectrum, feel invincible.  It’s a character flaw with youth—most of us are healthy with fully working bodies and have yet to see the ravages of age or misfortune hit us.  It seems like this period of our lives will never end.  I’ve been thinking about aging and ageism a lot these days, in part because of Cloud Atlas and in part because of the diversity of ages in my own little circle of friends.  As a result I’ve become more aware of my youth, of aging and I have to admit, a lot more terrified of the variety of ways aging works against us in this country.  Even so I can’t imagine living past 30 and when that’s how these kids are thinking, they don’t bother to protect themselves because they aren’t worrying about the future.  It’s the now and the ID that determines whether you give into impulses even when you know better.

There’s another element to this statistic that, as a white middle class female, I find difficult to write about.  The majority of cases in youth are specifically young, poor black men who contract the disease.  I want to write about this candidly but as with all matters of race and class, it can be awkward and difficult to do out of fear of being seen as racist or ignorant so I’m going to do my best to say this candidly and ask for kindness if I say anything out of place.  My understanding of this phenomenon is that the African American community is extremely un-accepting of homosexuality—or at least the poorer communities.  Being tough, being manly and all these macho concepts have made homosexuality a real sin and there’s this concept of being on the “down low” that makes it acceptable for black men to have sex with each other but deny that they are actually gay.  Obviously I have no experience with this and I can’t understand all the pressures that go into it but I do have a big complaint: the rap music community.  I can sum up my complain in one example: I HATE Kanye West.

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I hate Kanye West.  I have in recent years come to appreciate pretty much any genre of music—even rap much to my mother’s utter bewilderment.  There are actually some really amazing pieces of poetry produced by this genre and as a newly formed runner, some really great tracks to keep me motivated.  HOWEVER each time I hear a great song feature the line “No homo” I get almost physically affected by how angry I am.  Here are rich, often times black artists, who are perpetuating the culture of anti-gay mentality in their communities.  You would think that especially for men who have become elevated in the world, who work in an industry heavily populated with all sorts of individuals, who as black men should understand persecution in this country with a unique and intense level, would have evolved past this point.  Again I know I’m just a little white girl and I can’t really know where they are coming from and maybe there’s a reason for this, I just know it makes me angry.  There’s one song I love but have just had to remove from my run list because Kanye has a few lines and each time he would say “no homo” it ruined my momentum.  IF I could bleep that part out I would.  I don’t mind cursing and even some of the more violent hyperbole some of these songs use—I see their purpose.  Those two words?  No.  I see nothing positive to them at all.

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Clik here to view.When you make something bashful and shameful you also minimized education and safety.  If having sex with other men is something to hide or deny, these young men are also not going to be actively seeking to protect themselves.  This mentality contributes to the risky behavior and unprotected sex that is spreading this disease so rapidly through the young, black male community.  I hate that and I hate the people with the power to solicit positive change who instead make it worse.

Of course it’s also important to keep in mind that AIDS is not a disease of just the gay community. I know I focused on that pretty heavily here and I want to make sure that I don’t give this impression.  Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.It’s just as easily contracted by straight sexually active individuals and also transmitted via needle sharing.  It’s just statistically more of a risk factor for the gay community and that’s because up until the explosion of the virus, homosexual intercourse was relatively without risk.  There’s no risk of pregnancy and aside from herpes, most of the other diseases transmitted via sex were curable with a round of penicillin.  The mistake was made that condom free sex was a viable option and so the disease spread like wildfire in a population ripe for the picking.

I wish there was some way for me to help generate more awareness and tolerance among the at risk populations but I feel as though, and especially for young black men, I just wouldn’t be taken seriously.  That’s why I was really touched to see Alex Newell out trying to raise awareness this last weekend.  I’m a huge fan of the actor’s character on Glee (Wade “Unique” Adams) and before you say it yes, I watch Glee.  I love the cheesiness it sends some really sweet messages and the music covers they do are often quite good, if not better than the originals.  (Check out last week’s “Kiki/Turkey Day Mashup” and I dare you not to get it stuck in your head.)

Maple Cream Muffins

adapted from Alton Brown’s Old School Muffin RecipeImage may be NSFW.
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•  2 ¼ cups flour
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp baking soda
• ¼ tsp salt
• ½ cup sugar

• ½ cup canola oil
• 1 whole egg
• 1 Tbsp Flaxmeal + 3 Tbsp water
• 1 cup honey greek yogurt
• 1 tsp fiori di scilia

• ¾ cup cream cheese, room temperature
• 1 Tbsp heavy cream
• ¼ cup maple syrup

Getting ready: preheat your oven to 375 and prep two muffin tins to make about 15 muffins.

In a small bowl whisk together your cream cheese, cream and maple syrup until smooth.

In a small mixing bowl sift together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt and sugar.  Set aside.

In another bowl whisk the flaxmeal and water.  Let it sit and thicken for three minutes.  Then whisk in your canola oil, egg, yogurt and fiori di scilia extract.  Mix the dry goods into your wet bowl and whisk until the batter just comes together.  Lumps are good as always.

Scoop enough batter to fill your muffin tin ¾ of the way.  Using the back of a spoon form a small well in the center and scoop a heaping tablespoon of the maple cream cheese mixture into the center.

Bake at 375 for about 20 to 25 minutes until the muffins just start to brown.  The middles will sink down with the cream to make a doughnut shape.  You’ll wind up with a partially baked, gooey center.  Let the muffins cool fully before eating.

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Image may be NSFW.
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Image may be NSFW.
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