I have never been a tremendous fan of muffins. Over the course of my life I would say that 2% of the muffins I’ve eaten have been transcendent, 50% have been mundane, and the remaining 48% have been some variation of dried sawdust and lard baked in adobe ovens for 14 hours.

The muffin world is unfortunately fractured between those that treat muffins as the centre of their world and those that class them aS generic baked goods (along with tarts and pies and cakes).

For some reason, neither model seems to produce appetizing muffins.

The former, assigned to life in the doldrums of muffindom, try to bust out of their shell with with muffins like Cherries n’ Chocolate and Tropical Pineapple Crunch. Ack!

The later, treating muffins with only occasional interest, vacillate between the sawdust-variety bran raisin, and items which contain so much sugar and syrup that they’re more a dessert item than a healthy breakfast aside.

Despite my misgivings, this morning I awoke and set out with wee Oliver to see if muffins could be obtained to take the edge off an early Sunday morning. I needn’t have bothered.

It would appear that even though we have World Class Ways of Getting Here and World Class Tourism Attractions, there is either no demand for Sunday muffins among the tourist class, or there is demand, but it is going unslaked.

To give you a brief rundown of my fruitless journey: Beanz (doesn’t have muffins on Sundays (!)), GrabbaJabba (closed on Sundays), Urban Grocer (opens at Noon on Sundays), Island Food Centre (closed on Sundays), Obsessions at the Delta Hotel (closed on Sundays), Peakes Quay (open, but completely muffin-free).

In final desparation, wee O. and I piled in the car and drove to Tim Hortons where I found a lackluster low-fat raspberry muffin. Not great, but it was a muffin.