Still Waiting for Spring

When I was a little girl my English mother would take me home every other year to see my grandparents.

We would sail from New York Harbor to Liverpool on a Cunard White Star liner, the M.V. Britannic

- the last ship that took eight days instead of five to cross the Atlantic - and it was on that lovely ship that I first became aware of how much I liked food.

The meals were all delicious. We had breakfast in the dining room; then elevenses on deck. Next was luncheon, followed by the evening meal. We ate freshly baked hard rolls with sweet butter. Fried eggs and rashers of Irish bacon. Leg of lamb and peas cooked with mint. The stewards wore white gloves and served in the French manner, using two spoons to plate the food we requested.

I ate caviar for the first time when I ordered it off the menu for myself while sailing home after having learned to read - and I mean really read, not Dick and Jane - while I was enrolled at The Rock Ferry Convent School during my stay in England. I was five years old.

The steward got a funny look on his face, and my young and beautiful mother looked at him and said in her most imperious English accent, "As she eats olives and anchovies," (which, by the way, she found extremely odd) "I imagine she will eat caviar. Please bring it to her as she requested." It came on a plate with little pieces of toast and tiny cubes of aspic, which turned out to be only a decoration. My mother was right. I loved the salty caviar on the dry crunchy toast.

At my grandfather's house


the food was wonderful too. We ate beautiful, crumbly, pale orange Cheshire cheese, and Hovis bread sliced thin and buttered. Eggs boiled softly after being plucked from under the bottom of a reluctant hen. Green onions (scallions) and red radishes. Chicken pies. And in the kitchen there was always a Victoria sponge cake and a plate of triangular current scones, not too sweet and perfect with a big cup of tea when I got home from school.

Last week, just when I thought I couldn't stand another miserable day, sure enough, Easter Sunday in the country dawned cold and dreary. It seemed more like Thanksgiving than Easter.



It started to rain and stayed gray, and bitter - the type of weather that comes as fall is heading into winter, not the type of weather you expect when winter is heading into spring. And I couldn't imagine that anyone in the City was thinking about putting on a new hat and patent leather shoes to parade along Fifth Avenue.

But I could imagine a big cup of tea and a scone right from the oven, which was perfect since David - over at Cooking Babbo - had suggested that my next recipe from Zuni should be the Orange-Currant Scones. And it was.

Orange-Currant Scones
Desserts & Pastry, Page 479
(A do-ahead recipe; see Addendum below.)

I got everything ready to make the scones and proceeded through the recipe.






















These are delicious, with a perfect texture and crumb.  They are so good that I am not surprised that Judy Rodgers "no longer bother(s) making special pastries for Sunday brunch..."

I know that currants are traditional, but I think these would also be good with dried cranberries, provided you can get excellent ones - a nice treat for Thanksgiving morning before the rest of the feasting begins!

Sylvano

Addendum

When I made these scones, I froze some of them in quart-size freezer bags. I took two of them out of a freezer bag and put them right into the toaster oven. They toasted beautifully; I split each one in two and lightly buttered the halves (but you don't even have to split them; just butter the toasted tops.) To gild the lily, I served them with this orange/elderflower marmalade available at Ikea. It's a favorite in my house.