For the Love of Harry ~ Potter Pumpkin Muffins with Butterbeer Icing

“The Idea…simply fell into my head…to my immense frustration I didn’t have a functioning pen with me and I was too shy to ask anybody…I simply sat and thought for four hours (while on a crowded train ride from Manchester to London) and all of the details bubbled up in my brain.” J. K. Rowling

For the Love of Harry ~

We’re a ‘Potter’ family…Harry Potter that is.

It was 1997 when the Wizard saga crossed the ‘pond’…a saga about a boy…from humble beginnings….

“You fail to recognize that it maters not what someone is born but what they grow to be.” ~ Dumbledore

…who lives in a cupboard beneath the stairs and discovers…he’s a Wizard.

“You’re a Wizard Harry! I’m a What?” ~ Hagrid to Harry

It’s a story about good versus evil, the trials of adolescence, friendship, longings…

“It does not do…to dwell on dreams Harry and forget to live.” Dumbledore

…a story about loss…death…

“The ones we love never really leave us.” ~ Sirius Black

…Themes that transcend time, culture and gender…Yes…H.P. is a story for the ages…selling more copies that any other book in history…except the bible…according to Guinness.

Our son was three when HE first heard the wildly imaginative wizarding tale Rowling penned. Whether it was the sound of his daddy’s voice…or the magical world of Hogwarts…yet another young boy…was hooked on Harry… and so were we. We are one of millions of young families who grew up right alongside Harry, Ron and Hermione…the ‘Potter’ generation.

Okay I’ll admit it…It’s an obsession…We’ve read each Harry Potter book multiple times and listened to them on tape…on the way to baseball tournaments. The movie releases mark family milestones…like Our son’s 5^th birthday ‘Potter’ party. The invites…Hogwarts acceptance letters…complete with Potter glasses & keys with wings…prompting one postman to hand deliver the invite to the young ‘wizard’ whose name appeared on the envelope. We cheered when Harry won that first quidditchmatch and cried when Dumbledore passed…

We waited with wild anticipation for the first movie release in 2001…and it did not disappoint…we sat frozen in our theater seats as they rolled the credits…It’s a rare thing when execution meets expectation.…I think we paid to see that first move five times…watched it on video…dozens more…but it will be difficult to compete with the thrill of our last Harry Potter movie opening…we happened to be in London at the time…took the tube to a London Cinema…and later took a tour highlighting Gringotts Bank…and Platform 9 ¾. That’s big for a Potter family!

So it probably comes as no surprise that….after more than a decade of Potter family mania…we will be in line opening weekend…for the first movie of the last book…Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.

Had to mark the occasion…somehow…so I sheepishly baked…Potter Pumpkin Muffins with Butterbeer Icing….pumpkin is big at Hogwarts…don’t you know…pumpkin juice….pumpkin pasties….andbutterbeer is the drink of choice among the wizarding kind…It’s all laid out in the books….and ingrained in our family’s collective memory…forever.