Excellent Scones

Buttermilk Lemon Scones

2 1/2 c all-purpose flour
1/4 cup sugar
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 c cold butter, cut into chunks
3/4 c buttermilk
1 large egg
1/2 dried currants
1 T grated lemon peel
2/3 cup powdered sugar
2 T lemon juice

Preheat oven to 350. Mix together flour, sugar, bp and salt. Add cut up butter and cut in with a pastry blender or pulse in food processor until mixture resembles coarse meal. (If using a processor, scrape into a bowl.)

In a separate bowl, whisk buttermilk and egg to blend. Add to flour mixture along with currants and lemon zest. Stir with a fork until evenly moistened. Dough will look crumbly.

Scrape dough onto a floured surface. With lightly floured hands (important) work into a ball, then pat into a 7-8 inch round about 1 3/4 inch thick. Cut dough into 8 equal wedges. Place wedges 2 inches apart on a baking sheet.

Bake scones until tops are browned, 20-25 minutes. In a small bowl, stir together powdered sugar and lemon juice. Drizzle glaze over slightly warm scones.

On my most recent visit to Gma and Gpa's, I chose to tackle a box of recipe clippings, coupons and newspapers, to see what needed to be saved, and what tossed. It was an interesting exercise, going through decades of recipes, finding out about my grandmother's culinary obsessions over the years. The very best find was her 1935 school handbook. She would have been about 12 then, and in the 6th or 7th grade. The booklet explained the best way to do dishes, how to plan meals for optimum nutrition, and was full of basic recipes. In the pages in the back, Grandma had noted that she was "making batters today" and had detailed two unfamiliar verses to "Polly Wolly Doodle".

Scones appeared again and again in the stacks. Everything from Traditional English Scones to Ginger Scones with Passionfruit Jam. You name it, if it was a scone, she'd clipped it and saved it. So when I returned home, I had to smile at the recipe for these, already sitting on my own desk. And of course, I had to make them. They are quite rich-- I don't even want to tell you what the calorie count is per scone-- but they are a rib-sticking breakfast and mighty tasty. The recipe is from Sunset Magazine, April 2006.

Some of the other items that seemed to be of particular interest: panettone (which she still loves), Dutch Baby (a giant pancake), crepes, blintzes, crab, almost anything with pumpkin or apples, quiche, cheesecake, pancakes and waffles, waffles, waffles. Though it appears that Gma was obsessed with breakfast food, the breakfast I remember best was always soft-scrambled eggs made with milk and pepper, and bacon frying on the electric stove. I am always glad to make the scrambled eggs for her now when I get the chance.

Yet Another Flourless Chocolate Cake

This is about the easiest cake there is to make, travels well, and Grandpas seem to like it...

Flourless Chocolate Cake

4 oz fine-quality bittersweet chocolate
1 stick unsalted butter
3/4 cup sugar
3 large eggs
1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder plus additional for sprinkling

Preheat oven to 375 degrees and butter an 8 inch round baking pan. Line bottom of pan with a round of wax paper and butter paper.

Chop chocolate into small pieces (I just threw it in in two big chunks). In a double boiler or metal bowl set over a saucepan of barely simmering water melt chocolate with butter, stirring, until smooth. Remove top of double boiler or bowl from heat and whisk sugar into chocolate mixture, and whisk until just combined. Add eggs and whisk well. Sift 1/2 cup cocoa powder over chocolate mixture and whisk until just combined. Pour batter into pan and bake in middle of oven 25 minutes or until top has formed a thin crust. Cool in cake pan on a rack 5 minutes and invert onto a serving plate. Dust cake with additional cocoa powder if desired.

Can be prepared in 45 minutes or less, start to finish.
Makes one 8 inch cake.
from Gourmet, 1997 via epicurious

Previous flourless chocolate "Velvet" cake here.

Simple Chocolate Icing

Here is the icing I used with Lucille Williams' Never Fail Cake:

Simple Chocolate Icing
(Ghirardelli's card No. 13, no date)

3/4 cup ground chocolate (I only had cocoa powder, so this is what I used)
3 tablespoons milk
3/4 cup sugar
2 tsp butter
1 egg
1/4 tsp salt
1 teaspoon vanilla

Combine all ingredients except vanilla. Cook in double boiler until it thickens, stirring constantly. Cool a bit and add flavoring.

This makes a fluid icing that forms a smooth, fudgy shell over the cake, dripping attractively down the sides until it hardens. It turned out to be just the amount of sweetness that the cake needed. I don't recommend whisking before spreading, as this caused bubbles in the icing that later popped and made my cake's surface a bit moon-like. I think it would be ok to pour this on when the cake is still a little bit warm. I encouraged drips down the side by pulling a little bit of icing away from the center with a spatula. If the icing cools too much before it's time to ice, try putting it back on the double boiler to warm, and stirring gently with a silicone spatula.

PS- While I was visiting this week, I asked Grandpa if he knew who Lucille Williams was. No clue. So while she has gone on to bigger and better things, her cake will live on via the internet.

From the Vault

Lucille Williams' "Never Fail" Cake

1/2 c cocoa powder

1/2 c brown sugar

1/2 c water

1/2 c butter

1 c sugar

3 egg yolks
1/2 c milk

2 c flour

1 tsp baking powder

1 tsp baking soda

add egg whites beaten dry

This recipe was among the hand-written cards in the metal White King Flour recipe box given to me by my grandmother on a recent visit. This box, and the other boxes and binder that came with it, are a treasure to me. Some of the recipes in the box are my grandmother's, some my great-grandmother's (my grandfather's mother). Others are from their friends, neighbors, newspapers and advertisements collected over many years.

When I volunteered to bring dessert to some friends' house for dinner today, I thought it would be fun to pull one from the vault and try it. Looking through the neatly filed cards, I thought of all of the women who had carefully written, typed, taped and glued the recipes together.

Lucille Williams' cake may have been "Never Fail" because she knew the recipe so well, or because back in the 30s or 40s or 50s or even 60s, whenever this recipe was placed in the box, everyone knew how to make a cake from scratch. The recipe consisted only of ingredients. No directions, not even an oven temperature. The only thing that was indicated (thank goodness) was that the first three ingredients should be cooked together.

I had all of the ingredients already without having to make a trip to the store, and I was intrigued to find out if the cake's name would hold true, so I guessed at the method and went for it.

Here is what I did: (Preheat oven to 325º)

1. Cook brown sugar, cocoa and water over low heat, stirring until smooth and melted

2. Cream butter and sugar, separate eggs and set aside whites, add yolks one at a time

3. Add chocolate mixture

4. Add dry ingredients (flour sifted and bp, bs and salt mixed in), alternating with milk

5. Beat egg whites until dry, fold into batter

6. I lightly sprayed and greased a 9" straight-sided cake pan and had a second at the ready.

Once filled, it didn't look like I could fill another whole cake pan, so I filled two 4" porcelain ramekins. This worked well for post-bake testing of the cake to make sure I didn't need to punt with a last-minute apple pie in case of cake failure.

7. Bake at 325º for approximately 50 minutes, or until a sharp knife comes out clean.

The cake was fairly moist, cocoa-y and not too sweet. I did feel that it needed a glaze or icing, so I chose one from the box as well, which I will post later.

In What Universe...

...is this cute? I hope that's her hair and not a desert neck guard slipping down the back. She looks like a video game mushroom. I was just looking for a pair of Ugg boots for someone, and this came up. By the way, did you know Ugg boots were so expensive??? I just thought they looked like tall slippers. Boots for people who don't like to get out of bed, maybe.

Because You Have Been Deprived

Here are some pictures I took in the French Laundry's garden in Yountville a couple of months ago. It was crazy how much stuff they still had growing that late. Everything is all covered up in white blankets now, hiding from the frost we had two weeks ago.

The spring flowers are already starting here on the ranch, halfway through January. Some of those crazy, precocious narcissi were going mid-December, but now the bright mustard is emerging and the camellias and magnolias are blooming, too. I barely got a taste of winter, but I know this January warm spell is just a teaser. Hopefully we'll get a few more good soakings before spring really starts.

Power Naps

Did I mention that my co-workers are bums?

Doesn't my eye look kind of reptilian in the header picture? My eye is not really scaly like that, just in case you were worried. It has something to do with blowing it out like that exposure-wise. Makes it look like a dinosaur eye made out of clay.

23 Useless Things to Know About Me

1. I don't like wind chimes. Fine for other people, ok to hear the whisper of them far away, but not on my house.

2. In elementary school, the boy who taught me how to snap my fingers was left handed. I can still only snap the fingers on my left hand.

3. I honk and wave at anyone holding a sign and wearing a costume. Especially a gorilla costume.

4. Once in an emergency at work, I was drafted to arrange flowers in a hurry for what I thought was going to be a fancy lunch-e-o-n (as opposed to just lunch). I grabbed the only flowers at hand, some coral-colored camellias in the back of the building, and did my best, which was pretty bad in this instance, and included petals sprinkled across the tablecloth. It turned out that it was just five salesmen eating sandwiches on paper plates. It was embarrassing.

5. Once in a different emergency, I was the second person to arrive at the scene of an accident. I made sure the first person was calling 911, then I went under the semi truck to check on the woman who had intentionally walked in front of it. She was breathing slowly and heavily, and her leg was bent at an awkward angle with the bone sticking out. Her pants leg was hooked on the underside of the truck, holding her leg up. I unhooked it and laid it on the ground. Then I reached inside of her jacket hood, which had twisted around to cover her face, to see if her breathing was obstructed or I suppose, if her head was damaged. It was not. It was a very strange and intimate moment to have my hand inside the warm pocket of air in her hood, hearing her breathing and feeling for blood or brain or skull, my fingers touching her thin brown hair. She was unconscious and I stayed with her until the paramedic crawled under with me to take over. Then I went to work. I found out later that she lived.

6. When I was in my twenties, if I had had a daughter, her name would have been Eleni or Heleni, after a little girl I met on a train in Greece.

7. My only career ambition for a very long time was to be the Koolaid Mom: the one with the house that all the kids wanted to come over to. For a while I told people I was an Art Therapy major, then a History of Consciousness major, neither of which I ever was.

8. I am way too serious.

9. I used to go on diets in high school that consisted of Diet Coke plus something like raisins or popcorn, ascribing magical powers to the food, as though I was on the verge of discovering the next Cabbage Diet. The diets never lasted very long, nor were they ever very successful. (Then again, I only weighed 130 lbs.)

10. I make friends slowly but well.

11. I've always wanted to have a big mouth and or a big nose. I am envious of women with strong features.

12. The whites of my eyes show all the way around my irises if I open them wide.

13. In my pocket, there is usually.....
a third of a used dryer sheet,
a receipt,
a clean doggie poo bag,
a barrette or hair tie and/or crumbs from dog treats

14. When people say things like "expresso" or "nucular" or "sommenier" it drives me bananas. The fancier the word they mess up, the dumber it sounds.

15. I believe that when people say "stop being so sensitive" they probably just said something mean.

16. I prefer books to short stories, although I have read good short stories. They seem contrived to leave you hanging, even when they are very good. (Exception: every story in this book is excellent. Ditto Kate Chopin.)

17. I don't read mysteries; they are too predictable.

18. When I was in high school, I often wore a pink hooded sweatshirt with the drawstring ends tied into nooses. And I had a terrible crush on a senior football player named Lance Ward.

19. As a freshman or sophomore, I invited Lance Ward (who was some kind of "back" on the football team--running or quarter or line or something, and three years older) to my house so that I could help him with his French homework. (If I had been remotely hot at that age, that could have been a really excellent metaphor.) We studied together on the floor of the front room. I provided a repast of oranges. Lance ate the peel in addition to the orange. I even made a tape of old Beatles songs to play softly in the background. I think he still got a D on the final.

20. Later, I wrote a painfully bad poem about him that included the word "noone," which I meant to be "no one," but I wasn't sure at the time whether it was two words or one.

21. I don't like bumper stickers. Same as religion, slogan t-shirts, or wind chimes: fine for other people, but not for me. Love to read them, but don't put them on my car.

22. In college, I won two prizes in a city-wide poetry competition, first and third.

23. My favorite doll's name was Sasha. She is in a toybox in my garage right now. I check on her from time to time.

Outside of a Dog

Is there a better problem to have than too many books to choose from? I was standing in a bookstore just off the square in Sonoma today, on a beautiful, sunny day, contemplating a stack of books I was about to purchase.

It made me think of the armloads of plastic-covered books I used to tote home from the air-conditioned library in the summers in Modesto, arranging and re-arranging them so that I could read the very best one last. Sometimes I'd sneak that one back on top if I couldn't wait. Holding the books in my hands, I anticipate with relish my private time to read, when I'll curl up in bed in my warm flannel pajamas and close the door on the rest of the world. Reading is one of my greatest pleasures.

Standing there in a beam of sun this afternoon, I started to question my potential purchase. All three books were intriguing, quirky stories with the right covers and accolades. But did I really need all three right this minute? Could I wait and save a little money? Then it occurred to me: three books is less than half the cost of a fancy dinner out, and they last ages longer, so actually, I'm saving money.

I know that isn't the most earth-shattering news in the world. I've not posted for a while, and I'm feeling a little rusty and self-conscious.

Did you know that in the 7th grade, I was a library aide? I loved books then, and I loved the library. It never occurred to me that it was an incredibly nerdy thing to do. My favorite job was covering new books in those Brodart plastic covers and gluing in the pockets for the check-out cards. I got to sit in a quiet room, with long, rectangular windows divided up into rows of panes looking out onto a wide lawn. The kind of windows that go all the way almost to the ceiling and are hinged to swing outward so that you open and close them with a long pole that has a hook on the end.

In my quiet room, I would open each book and look it over, looking through all of the pictures if there were any. Then I would remove the dust jacket, select the right size cover, neatly crease it to fit the paper, seal it and slide the cover's ends carefully back on the book.

Sometimes I would write out four-letter words in cursive on the backs of the card pockets with the glue, but not very often. Mostly I tried to make each new book look crisp and perfect in its protective cover. Did you know that a pristine dust jacket can add hundreds of dollars in value to a collectible first edition? Neither did I, until I checked out the site for the book cover company. I was googling it to make sure they were actually made of plastic.

That was the same library where I checked out and read "The Yearling" and cried and cried and cried. And where my friend Marc "Mocha" Davis and I laughed so hard no sound came out.

Hope this will do for now.

Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend. Inside of a dog, it's too dark to read. - Groucho Marx

Hee Come Sanny Claus, Hee Come Sanny Claus

I am missing my Elvis Christmas tonight! (Or should I say, "I am missin' me some Elvis Christmas"?) There have been many Christmases in my life, of all different sorts, in all sorts of locations, but the Elvis "Blue Christmas" album has been a constant. My sister and I could sing along with it in both 33 and 45 rpm. I'm thinking about that tonight as Mike and I ice these impromptu sugar cookies.




What about this guy? Rabbit? Sheep? Deer? Moose?


I had a plan early in the week to start a rich beef stew this morning so that by Christmas Eve we'd be curled up on the sofas with our tummies full of cozy comfort food. I bought all the ingredients in advance, and planned not to go to the store again this week. But somehow the day got away from me (including two trips to the store) and we ended up having cheese, wine and bread for dinner, after an aperitif of rum-laced eggnog. Then we got into decorating the cookies and it was too late for anything else. Such is the Christmas eve of the kidless. Still have to finish shtitching (typo or wine?) the letters on Pixie's stocking, since this is her very first Christmas and she almost didn't get one.

I have been thinking a lot about the things that I remember from Christmases past. Skiing, and hot chocolate back at Grandma's house. Mom's gingerbread. Singing the Elvis Christmas songs with my sister. Flannel nightgowns borrowed from Grandma. Heavy woolen quilts on the living room floor. In later years, Mom's clam chowder. Morning bacon, mimosas or bloody marys at Dad's (whatever else you think of them, Southerners do know how to liquor up a holiday). There is much, much more, but my husband is watching television by himself on Christmas Eve, and I just can't continue to let that happen. Maybe more tomorrow.

After the Fact

Here's the golden heart ornament I agonized over a few years ago. And I hope that no one got the impression because I said "damn presents" or something like that, that I resent buying presents. I LOVE buying presents. My only regret is that I can't buy all of the presents, at any price I want, for everyone. I love to give presents at least as much if not more than I like to receive them.

The Junk Drawer of Christmas Past

I did not send any Christmas cards this year. And, unless I said something that simultaneously offended about 15 people (which is totally possible), neither did many of my friends.

But not to worry, because I still have all of your Christmas cards from last year... and probably the year before. And quite possibly many years before that, if I poke around a bit. Until recently, the ones from last year lived in the top right hand drawer of my desk, where all of the "go to" stuff is supposed to be. The high-use, need-it-now stuff, like, oh, I don't know...STAPLES! or a STAPLER! or a pair of sharp SCISSORS! or a MARKING PEN! I'm shouting these things at you because they seem like ACTION THINGS! Things that are ready to spring into service immediately, poised as they are in the ergonomically located top right hand drawer. But my top right hand drawer is not organized thus.

In my top right hand drawer (which I am opening now) you will find the following: patch kit for inflatable bed (if I spring a leak, it will be ready for duty pronto), a "label blaster" punch-style label maker, an out of date rubber address stamp, a two line phone adapter (one of several I own), shoelaces, ribbon, hand lotion, sunscreen (you can never have too much of that), cough drops (who knows how old those are), a printout from West Maui Tiki Tours, a soft cloth for cleaning my computer screen, last year's calendar, Photoshop's "100 Hot Tips for CS3," a picture of Rusty and Jennifer's kids, with Santa, from last year, a stack of all of your Christmas cards, a postcard my mom sent me from York in 2006, before she came back and found out she had to have a quadruple bypass, birth announcement for Juliana Socoloff, my 1984 AYH membership card with serious looking photo (never know when that's going to come in handy), a postcard of a tongue, my poetry journal from 1982 or so, which I dug up to submit to Cringe, but which didn't make the cut, a very big antique marble, many, many binder clips, a baby's first thank you card from Abbie Duff, a bottle of prescription pills that I took one of and never took another of, a hilarious card from Karen Farley from her ex, Richard Gere, and the Tibetan monks, the picture-hanging kit I was looking for this morning to hang the stockings, two old journals, a bag full of beer caps made into magnets, foam helmet liners, a heavy silver cuff watch I used to love but haven't worn since I stopped working in an office (Damn, this is a big drawer!), a cute container of clips and tacks from The Design Group, three glue sticks, a red stamp pad, a bag of miscellaneous IKEA parts and screws, a giraffe keychain (that is very important), and maybe five other things which I have just run out of the energy to catalog.

But this is not about junk drawers, or why we have them, or why my most-accessible drawer is full of the least usable stuff. This is about your Christmas cards. This year, many of them became gift tags for presents. Very handsome ones, at that. I just cut the fronts into squares, punched a hole, then added a slit for the ribbon to slip into. Voila. And I'm contemplating sending out Thank You postcards, cut from the fronts of these old cards, too. But if I tell you, that will spoil your surprise at receiving a cheap, recycled, late Christmas card from me for New Year's. So shhhhhhh.

Last Minute

Just in case you still need a last-minute gift, here are a few ideas: Donate to the Heifer Foundation and help a family in need build self-sufficiency and better health. (A flock of ducks is still just twenty bucks! Not only that, but you can print a card for the honoree right on the site.)

Drop off some unneeded coats today at a One Warm Coat location.

Food banks across the country are running out of food; find one at Feeding America, or make a donation to the bin at the grocery store. Every dollar donated to Feeding America helps buy 20 pounds of food for hungry families. (Whole Foods and Sunshine Market have bins set up here in the valley.)

Drop off toys for Toys for Tots.

Contribute to your local public television or radio station.

Check out charities at Sixdegrees.org, where you can get a "Good Card". You choose the amount, the gift recipient chooses the charity.

Here it Comes Again

Even though intellectually I've committed to paring down this year, as so many of our friends have, it feels just as hectic. Yes, I'll be buying fewer, and less expensive, presents, but I still have to locate the things and wrap them. Smaller presents take just as much time, if not more, to wrap. And price, high or low, does nothing to assuage the guilt of trying to locate presents with meaning, presents that are Special.

Once, when Mike and I were going through a particularly rough patch in our marriage a few years ago, I was zombie-walking through Cost Plus, late at night, just about this time of year, looking for that final, special, meaningful present. I came across a rack of heart-shaped Christmas tree ornaments, painted gold. I picked through them meticulously, until I found one with the right sheen, the right proportions, to carry the weight of the symbolic gesture I was attempting to make.

I stood in a long, long line, the heavy shopping basket making deep reddish indentations in the crook of my arm. As I reached the front of the line and the bleary-eyed cashier began to ring my order, I spotted a flaw in the heart's finish. Just a little nick, in the back. In those few seconds, I agonized over whether to mention it, or to forget about it and just get on with it.

But I couldn't give a flawed heart. It just had to be perfect. So much depended on it. In the time I'd waited, this heart had become laden with all of the meaning and hope that had gathered like a storm cloud over me in the preceding months. So everyone in line waited while I ran back to grab another one, quickly scanning through the hearts I'd previously rejected. I was back before she'd finished ringing the... whatever the hell else I bought that year and gave away, never to be seen or remembered again, so in the scheme of things, I suppose it wasn't a big deal to anyone else.

But it was a huge deal. For me, at that moment, everything depended on the perfection of that golden heart. So many times, this is what it comes down to for me: a present begins to symbolize the entire relationship, and I find myself standing in some store at half-past nine on a weeknight,, my eyes dried to eggshell from all the mall air, holding some aubergine cashmere shawl, or minuscule jeweled penguin, or whatever, in my hand, wondering if this thing will be a thing that the receiver recognizes as truly special. As meaningful as I, at that moment, am feeling that it is. If I walk away from that one perfect, destined to be misunderstood thing, the guilt hits me immediately. I cannot leave these things behind. Which is why I must Christmas shop very quickly, and with a list. If possible, I need to finish early, before the guilt of not finding the perfect, most meaningful present drives me to go out and seek it all over again.

I don't even want to talk about the emotional weight of handmade gifts, whether they are imagined and made imperfectly or imagined and never completed. I'd need to pay you by the hour.

(There would be a picture here of that heart, which I still hold in my hands for a few extra seconds before I put it on the tree each year, but for some reason, every time I click the "add picture" icon, the "save now" button is activated, and I don't get an opportunity to add my picture-- ever.)

This is just another in a long, long string of frustrations starting with satellite internet (hughes sucks), and ending, for the moment, with the discovery of the AT&T data card, which doesn't suck yet unless it is the cause of my not being able to add pictures. The good news is, I am back on line.

*****
If you're not sure what to make for dinner, try lentil soup: dice some mirepoix vegetables (carrot, celery, onion) and saute with thyme. Meanwhile, put a cup or so of lentils, rinsed, in a saucepan and boil in water or stock until tender (about 30 minutes). If you have some on hand and like it, dice up some ham, chicken or turkey and add to the vegetables. Likewise with chard or other greens. I used some beet greens, and added a pinch of oregano, pepper flake and nutmeg. When the lentils are tender, throw in the contents of the saute pan, and then season to taste with sea salt or Better than Bouillon. Cook together for as little as 0 minutes or as much as a day, serve with sourdough or levain bread brushed with garlic butter.

More soon, my friends.

(Anyone else see "Pumpkin Dump Cake" in the google ads at the right? What the hell is that?)