Tag Archives: New York Times

Scones

 I found this easy one in the New York Times:

Ingredients: 2 cups of flour, 1 tablespoon baking powder, 1 teaspoon sugar (increase to 1/4 cup if you want a sweet scone), 1/2 teaspoon fine sea salt, 1 1/4 cups of heavy whipping cream

  1. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees and position a rack in the top third of the oven. Thoroughly combine the flour, sugar, baking powder and salt in a large bowl. Make a well in the center of this mixture, add 1 1/4 cups of cream and stir the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients with a fork. Work quickly, stirring as little as possible, until a soft, shaggy dough forms. Add more cream, a tablespoon at a time, if the dough seems too dry.
  2. Use a large serving spoon or cup measure to drop the batter onto an ungreased baking sheet, allowing at least 2 inches between each scone. Brush the top of each with heavy cream and bake until golden, about 15 minutes. Transfer to a wire rack to cool.

And from NPR, a note to be sure to eat your scones properly:

“The grocery store Sainsbury’s showed a photo with a fruit scone smothered in cream and jam. The problem: the photo showed jam on top of the cream. Customers in Cornwall argued the jam must go first…Some Brits take their afternoon tea very seriously. That’s landed the grocery store Sainsbury’s in trouble. They put up a picture with a fruit scone smothered in cream and jam. That is normal. The problem is the photo showed the jam on top of the cream. In the county of Cornwall where the picture went up, customers were outraged. They argued that jam must go first. Sainsbury’s admitted its mistake, saying it has all scone wrong.”

Reading Goals

Grant Snider offered his “Reading Goals in the Book Review section of the New York Times.

75px-Hot_chocolate_p1150797  I need to remember:

“I will journey far outside myself,,,without leaving my chair.”

See the full cartoon – here.

Emily Dickinson and Riding a Bike

Now another way to relate to one of my favorite poems by Emily Dickinson:

Then there’s a pair of us — don’t tell!
They’d banish us — you know!

In Mary Choi’s essay for the New York Times – The Terror and Humiliation of Learning to Ride a Bike at 33  – she confesses to being an adult who never learned how to ride a bike – a skill lacking in my upbringing too.   I thought I was alone, but Choi’s humorous essay gives me hope.  All I have to do is move to New York City and buy a bike helmet. riding_a_bike_clip_art_19458

First Fig

The poem by Edna St. Vincent Millay – not the luscious fruit from my grandfather’s fig tree – but both I remember fondly.   An interview with Caroline Kennedy in the New York Times “By the Book” reminded me; she recited it for her father – I for my Italian grandfather…

First Fig

My candle burns at both ends;
It will not last the night;
But ah, my foes, and oh, my friends—
It gives a lovely light.

Fresh Fig Compote

When my grandmother could get to them before all the children ate them off the tree, she made compote for the grownups:

Ingredients:

1/2 pound fresh figs

3 tablespoons unsalted butter

3 tablespoons dark brown sugar

2 tablespoons Sambuca

Heat butter and brown sugar over high heat, stirring frequently, until syrup begins to bubble. Add figs (quartered with stems removed) and stir to coat with the syrup.  Continue cooking over medium heat to caramelize, stirring constantly to prevent burning.  Just before serving, add the Sambuca.

Proceed with Caution

If you’ve ever tried to cross a street in Italy, you will relate:

“Soccer in Italy is not unlike driving. Laws are treated merely as suggestions.”
…Jere Longman, New York Times