Cupcakes are everywhere. Whole TV shows are devoted to them and my two kids can’t get enough of the little confections. Personally, I think it’s time to show the lowly muffin the respect it deserves.

"Excuse me, is that your son licking the windows?" Nervous laughter. Do I pretend to NOT know him and say, " Nope, just hanging out getting my peach muffin..." or take the proud mom version - "Yes, and in his defense, there are pictures of fruit painted on the windows".

My family has a long tradition of vacationing on the "North Shore." In Minnesotan, that means the northeast corner of Minnesota (often called "the arrowhead") along the shore of Lake Superior.

When I think about French toast, I can picture myself as a grade-school-aged kid in my aunt and uncle’s crazy-busy kitchen. I’m wearing my PJ’s, swinging my feet from the bench seat at their kitchen table, and there is breakfast chaos all around me.

I love to dig into a good book, and over the years I’ve found friends, family and co-workers who feel the same. We share laughs, our ideas and our recommendations. And though it’s fun to discuss books casually, this love of reading has often made me wish that I could be part of an official book club. The opportunity just never arose… until now. At the end of this summer I thought, “Why don’t I start my own book club?” So, I gathered some friends, we set an autumn start date and our literary society began. First things first: we voted on a kick-off book – a memoir from a local Holocaust survivor (a fascinating story, by the way). Then came the next crucial question, “what will we do for food?”