The Morning After

I awoke, not in heaven nor in hell, on the morning after. As far as I can tell, no one I know is missing, not even my fourth boss, who was so incredibly hellish that I thought for sure she'd be one to disappear. *sigh* And not even my sister, who is the polar opposite of hellish.

Made me glad I had made strawberry scones for breakfast, just in case.

I used an old recipe from the Joy of Cooking, but modified it a bit by using half-and-half rather than heavy cream, adding chopped strawberries and a combination of salt and sugar on the crust rather than either one or the other, as the recipe recommends. I thought it would add a little je ne sais quoi to the scones.

They were wonderfully light and airy with a sunny yellow crumb thanks to the bright eggs from pastured chickens. The sweet, fruity pockets of strawberry goodness were really the best part; next time, even at the risk of weighing them down a bit, I'd add more strawberries. The salt-sugar experiment was fine but I'd probably use just sugar next time, a very sparing sprinkle of raw sugar for the sweet hit of the larger crystals.

I ate one of them warm from the oven, then wrapped the cooled ones and refrigerated them. When I awoke to find myself still here, I reheated one for breakfast (just as good reheated) and had a rapturous meal on the morning after.

Strawberry Scones, adapted from the Joy of Cooking (did you know the book now has its own website?)

1-3/4 cups sifted all-purpose flour

2-1/4 teaspoons double-acting baking powder

1 Tablespoon sugar

1/2 teaspoon salt

6-8 ripe strawberries, chopped

1/4 cup butter

2 eggs

1/2 cup half-and-half or full cream

A mixture of salt and sugar for sprinkling over the top before baking, about 2 teaspoons

Preheat the oven to 450 degrees F.

Into the first four ingredients in a large bowl, cut the butter using two knives or a pastry blender, until the butter is the size of small peas. In a separate bowl, beat two eggs. Remove 2 tablespoons of the egg to use as a wash later, then mix in the cream with the eggs.

Make a well in the dry ingredients and pour in the cream mixture. Combine the wet and dry ingredients with a few swift strokes. Handle the dough as little as possible. Place it on a lightly floured board and pat it out to about 3/4" thick. Cut wedges with a knife - it should make about 10-12 wedges.

Transfer the wedges to a baking sheet (I lined mine with parchment paper and I'd recommend that) and brush with the reserved egg wash, then sprinkle with the salt-sugar mixture (or take my advice and just go with sugar in a larger crystal).

Bake for about 15 minutes (my oven runs hot so I rescued these at 10 minutes and that was just right). Cool on a rack.

Razzleberry Scones

There are scones and then there are SCONES. I have had ones so delicious that they literally melt in the mouth and others that resembled doorstops more than foodstuffs.

The best scone I ever tasted, all light and buttery, was at Tal-y-Tara, a quirky little tea shop-cum-horse tack shop in San Francisco; I haven't yet plucked up the courage to ask them for their recipe.

But I was in the mood for scones the other day and didn't relish the sinkers they sell at Starbucks, so I decided to make my own using some raspberries I had purchased at the farmer's market last week and, once again, Molly Wizenberg's recipe, substituting fresh raspberries and lemon zest for the ingredients in hers.

I quickly froze the berries so they wouldn't get squashed while kneading the dough; they kind of did anyway, but it doesn't seem to have hurt them at all. I also sprinkled the tops with just a smidge of turbinado sugar before they went into the oven. The resulting scones were very satisfying, bumpy and fruity and substantial. These are SCONES!

Wedgies

My Dad frequently exclaimed, "It's the berries!" to signify something that got his enthusiastic approval. He would use it for things as various as foods he liked, experiences he relished and people he enjoyed. It was his go-to expression of pleasure and there was a lot in life that he enjoyed.

One day in summer in Connecticut, when we were all staying at my grandmother's house in Connecticut, Mom bought fresh strawberries for dessert and we all pigged out. When we could eat no more, it was my turn to do the dishes and I noted that there were just enough berries left for one person to have for breakfast. Mentally, I "dibsed" those few berries as I wrapped them and put them in the fridge.

When I awoke the next morning, my very first thought was of those strawberries. The rest of the family seemed still soundly asleep, so I crept downstairs and opened the fridge - no berries! Just then, my older brother came in from jogging and when I asked him, "What happened to the strawberries??" with more than a little whine to my voice, he grinned broadly and stole Dad's line, "I ate them," he said, "and they were the berries!"

These days, I'm still that young girl who hoards her berries, but now I make sure I get my share! The other day, I made berry scones using Molly Wizenberg's*** recipe from her book, "A Homemade Life." Her scones are simply out of this world, smaller and lighter than the triangular bricks one sometimes finds and yet not like cake, either. She makes them with ginger and lemon but suggested a handful of berries would make a good substitute for the ginger (which I didn't have) so I used some frozen mixed berries and they made spectacular wedgies filled with pockets of berries bursting with juice and flavor.

What I shoulda done that bright summer morning long ago was take my smug older brother by the waistband of his jogging shorts and given him a wedgie of an entirely different sort!

***Molly is coming again to the bay area on a book tour as her charming memoir-with-recipes, "A Homemade Life" is released in paperback. You can hear her talk and have her sign your copy in Seattle, Boston, Oklahoma City or New York, but it's easier just to come to Corte Madera on March 29th for her talk and book signing at Book Passage bookstore at 7pm. The event is free and open to the public. She is a charming speaker as well as writer - don't miss it!

If you don't live in the bay area, go to Orangette and click on the link under the photo of her book to find out where else you can meet Molly and ask her to sign your copy.

Mid-Morning Snack

My Beloved works part of the time out of a home office; the rest of the time, he's an on-the-road sales guy. When he's home, we sometimes enjoy a mid-morning snack, usually a cookie or a muffin we have picked up on our morning walk with Cora and brought home. It makes a nice break for him while he's working and I only get hungry for breakfast around 10am, so it works well for us.

This time, we had Beckmann's Lemon Current Scones. Beckmann's sends a rep up from Santa Cruz each Wednesday to attend our local farmer's market so we stopped by their booth for a treat. I must learn how to make these for myself once the farmer's market closes at the end of October - these are just too good to have only in the summer. Lovely and local, they are made with fresh ingredients and no preservatives. They freeze well, too, as I learned this morning when I busted out a couple to heat up for our mid-morning snack.