ode to blueberry scones (and of course a bit on choo choo trains)

i'm browsing through the july cooking light with the fresh berry-peach cobbler on the cover and tabbing pages that sound yummy before we go to the farmer's market tomorrow morning. b & w are coming over for coffee first--because michael's french press in the green stelton beats the heck out of the bucks stand in the pavillions or the six dollar sludge at pacific whey-- then we're piling the boys in the red wagon and walking the mile or so up the road to buy fresh peaches and whatever else tastes like summer.

i had so much fun planning the "tea luncheon" for mom's retirement party with my brother and sister in law that i'm eager to get baking and cooking again. martha would be so proud--i dusted off the hors d'oeuvres handbook which is always inspiring and we decided on curried egg salad sandwiches, sesame chicken salad sandwiches and of course those cute little cucumber and cream cheese yummies. sal and jenn assembled the latter with some gorgeous rye bread and perfect sprigs of dill and i made the chicken salad and eggs and we did a pretty impressive assembly line sunday morning. michael was a superstar on owen patrol and even managed to get owen to share his new harvey choo choo train with another two-year old. it was a gorgeous party all areound--dad turned the backyard into a garden resort (which didn't take much effort as i'm pretty sure he has any i.e. botanic garden beat) complete with half a dozen canopies, misters, and fresh cut gerber daisies at each table. i'm kicking myself for not taking pictures of the spread!

per request s & j baked no less than 8 goat cheese, spinach, pine nut, tomato quiches (jenn uses the joy bible and i made about 8 dozen blueberry scones from the cooking aficionados at cooks illustrated. and once again i considered ditching this dissertation thing to bake scones 73 different ways and write witty little food essays to accompany each recipe i brilliantly "rescue." here's the blurb on blueberry scones:

The Problem: Real British scones are like British humor—steeped in tradition, dry as a bone, and often tasteless. The American versions run the gamut from misshapen muffin-like objects to big-as-your-head cakes.

The Goal: We wanted to bring together all the best qualities we found in American versions of scones: the sweetness of a coffeehouse confection; the moist freshness of a muffin; the richness and fruit of clotted cream and jam; and the super-flaky crumb of a good biscuit.

and you want that goal too--so much that you'll follow every painstaking precise step just to come close. but then I like my kitchen gurus a bit bossy--martha, marcella and even jamie back when he still bought groceries on his scooter. Plus, I love a reason to pull out those beautiful kitchen gadgets that have been getting a bit dusty (really though, you should have seen those cucumbers sliced on my matfer mandoline)--my favorite of which is my dualit scale which makes measuring for baking a breeze (mostly i use it to measure cheese for my baked mac & cheese and pasta or rice) as i hate to deal with scooping or spooning flour.

so the best trick--the one i'll try when i make the peach cobbler--is to freeze the butter and then use a box grater rather than cutting butter cubes and dealing with a pastry knife. it worked amazingly well. the only trick is that you have to freeze twice as much butter as you need--peeling the paper off half of the stick so that you have a half to hold while grating.

but i think the secret is in the final prep -- you fold the dough "like a business letter" and then roll flat, spreading the blueberries on top and slightly pressing in the dough. finally you roll the berries up like you would for a cinnamon roll and then flatten and cut into yummy triangles. the pic up at the top is the final result -- golden, sweet, flaky and although the test kitchen promises you won't need clotted cream or preserves they were quite tasty with some lemon curd and then crumbled on top of some vanilla ice cream. but the real sign of approval came from mom herself who sent me this on gtalk about the scones: "it was soooooooo delicious!!!!"