Yes, those muffins from the beginning of season three are now online, on Twitter (@SmokinMuffins), and now the newest contributor to the LOSTblog website! I was lucky enough to exchange some emails with this lovely dozen to uncover just what makes these muffins tick.LOSTblog: Now let’s get started. How did YOU get started? Were you a ready-made mix, or did you come from scratch?
Juliet’s Smokin’ Muffins: I am 100% DHARMA-brand muffin mix. Give those wacky hippies some credit - they knew how to make long-lasting baking ingredients.
LOSTblog: Were you nervous when you learned that it was Juliet who was planning on mixing and baking you? Was there any word in the cupboard about her?
Juliet’s Smokin’ Muffins: Extremely nervous. We all know Juliet's good at just about everything else, but her lack of culinary expertise was infamous in the kitchens of Otherton. Oh, sure, she claimed to be making Jack sandwiches and soup and who knows what else while he was locked up in the Hydra. But word around the pantry was that Tom was doing all the cooking behind the scenes. I used to ask Tom whether he minded Juliet taking the credit for his baking. He'd just shrug and say 'Bread is bread'.
LOSTblog: Did you know that the plan was for you to be served at a book club meeting? Is that considered a “good gig” for muffins?
Juliet’s Smokin’ Muffins: It's considered a much better gig than movie night. Because, really, there are only so many times one can sit through Xanadu. Or Satan's Doom, for that matter.
LOSTblog: Now I am certain that this will be difficult for you, but how well do you remember the day of YOUR, well, incident?
Juliet’s Smokin’ Muffins: It's all a bit of a blur. Everything was going surprisingly well early on. I'd been mixed up in close to the right proportions and put in the oven at something resembling the correct temperature. And then... well... Sigh. I know 'Downtown' is a fine song and all. But really, you can put it on after you take your muffins out of the oven, y'know?
LOSTblog: At what point did you become concerned about your baking time?
Juliet’s Smokin’ Muffins: Around about the 108th minute, I figured it was the beginning of the end.
Juliet got me out but it was too late by then. And, of course, she just abandoned me for the book club after that. Then Oceanic 815 crashed and she got so preoccupied with all the locking people in bear cages and handcuffing herself to Kate and injecting Claire with bogus vaccines and blowing things up with dynamite and all the rest of it, that I just sat, forgotten, on her kitchen back bench.
Until Hurley showed up. Now, Hurley will eat 15 year old saltine crackers. But even he drew the line at Juliet's cooking.
LOSTblog: Thank you, I know that recalling that horrible day must be particularly painful. Moving on, I’m certain our readers would love to hear anything you have to share about The Others.
Juliet’s Smokin’ Muffins: Let me just advise everybody to keep their eye out for Episode 13 of this final season. Without spoiling too much, Damon and Carlton have promised me a muffin-centric episode ('Muffin Ventured, Muffin Gained') that will show all the events on the island from my point of view and will really tie a lot of the mysteries together. You'd be surprised just how far a ruined batch of muffins can travel, what with time skipping and Hurley smuggling me onto the helicopter for emergencies and so forth. You thought the time paradoxes of Locke's compass in Season Five were confusing? Some of my batch went back to 1977 with Hurley and were ground back down (using that expensive drilling machinery) to form the original muffin mix from which I was created!
But other parts of the batch went all over the place. Ann Arbor. Nigeria. Tunisia. And all through time too. Jacob's fish? Battered in muffin crumbs.
LOSTblog: And what about the rumors that you are somehow related to the Smoke Monster? Is it just a coincidence that your names are somewhat similar?
Juliet’s Smokin’ Muffins: Nothing is coincidence on Lost. I think that's all I'm permitted to say. (COUGH) Constant (COUGH).
LOSTblog: Any other insights you’d like to share with our readers at this time?
Juliet’s Smokin’ Muffins: Due to time anomalies, most of the batch of Juliet's smokin' muffins ended up back in Australia before we were even created! We've been living down here happily ever since then. Oh, sure. That fake psychic tried to trick Claire into taking us on board as some kind of good luck charm. But I wasn't going to get all muddled up in all that again. I'll just stay in Sydney and keep LOSTblog readers posted on what's going on Down Under. That seems much more sensible.
LOSTblog: Thank you again so much to Juliet’s Smokin’ Muffins for taking the time to answer these questions. Once again, welcome to LOSTblog!
