Making Muffins in Shanghai

A whole post about making muffins?! How can that even be remotely interesting? Well, at home, it's not, you just buy the box at the store, open it, read the instructions, turn on the oven, mix the proper amount of ingredients, put it in the oven and wait for the timer. Then, voila, perfect muffins for the whole family to enjoy. If only it were that simple here. Let me tell you the Shanghai way of making muffins.
First, even finding a box of Betty Crocker blueberry muffins in Shanghai is exciting, even if you have to pay close to 5 dollars for it. Of course, you pay it for the glimmer of hope it gives you that you might be able to have a taste from home. Then you realize, hmm, that fully furnished apartment came with one pot, one pan, and three cooking utensils. That's not going to cut it when it comes to making muffins, or even the quick bread recipe on the back of the box. So, you have to make a big trip to IKEA across town and pray that they have a muffin pan and measuring cups since you didn't bring them to your fully furnished apartment. You do a little dance in IKEA when you find both. At the grocery store, you buy the boxed milk that is not in the refrigerated section, the eggs that are not in the refrigerated section, and the only recognizable vegetable oil which comes in a Sam's size container. Now we have all the ingredients, the pan and the measuring cups. Just pull off the sticker with the Chinese instructions that is covering the English measurements and oven temp. We're ready to make muffins, oh wait, no cooking spray to be found. Let's get a little creative. Put some butter on a paper towel and grease the inside of each muffin cup. Ok, now we're ready. Turn on the oven, oh yeah, it's in Celcius, and the box has the temperature in Farenheit. So, go to the computer and hope that you are not the only one who has forgotten the conversion calculation from elementary school. Yes! More people with bad memories, there is a whole website devoted to conversions, got it. Ok, now turn on the oven. Good, check. I did bring an oven thermometer so I could know if the temperature was right in Farenheit. Now to mixing the ingredients. No big deal, I can do this part easy, I've got my measuring cups, oh wait, they're in milliliters! Back to the conversion website. Now at least I have an educated guess, since my 100 ml cup is the equivalent of .42 cups, and I needed 3/4 of a cup of milk and 1/4 of a cup of oil. I almost pull out the calculator, since my head is starting to hurt. So, in go two eggs, and about the right amount of milk and oil, I hope. Mix, and put in the muffin cups, really this was the only normal part of the process, but I had to buy a bowl to even mix it. Ready to bake, wait, the oven is not on, great(at this point, I'm close to giving up). Figure out how to turn on the oven and then wait for preheat. Come back in about 10 minutes to check, readjust since it is not quite hot enough. Apparently, I unknowingly turned it off, because when I came back in another few minutes it was not hotter, but cooler(at this point, I'm close to cussing). Stand over the oven and watch it to make sure the temp goes up and not down this time. Ok, close enough. Put the muffins in, and set the time for a little shorter to make sure I don't burn these now precious muffins. Come back and check a few minutes before the timer goes off, and they look done. Put in a knife, and yeah, they are finished. Glad I checked, if I had waited until the timer went off, they would have been burned.
Finally, voila, perfect muffins for the whole family to enjoy. And believe me, they were the best muffins I've ever tasted, even if it took me 12 days to make them.