Pseudoscones
The Socialist has come down with a bad cold. I didn’t have any cold relieve stuff in the medicine cabinet except for a half-empty box of Thera-flu, so one o’clock this morning found me wandering the cold remedy aisle of the local 24 hour grocery store. This isn’t the usual store I go to (that one was closed).
I was feeling sorry for myself because:
a) I was living with a sickie
b)I’d spent the evening without said sickie but with my sisters celebrating an imminent birthday. and
c)The sisters prepared a special birthday desert for me – cheese cake.
Regular readers know that cheese cake and I have a history. It’s a case of mutual distaste. It stays out of my way, I stay out of its way, and everybody is happy. This isn’t something new. I started avoiding cheese cake when I was of an age that required only a single digit to record. My now famous sentiment (oft challenged, but never overturned) is that cheese is not a dessert. When it comes to my birthday dessert, I have always asked for chocolate cake with chocolate icing. I haven’t had a chocolate cake with chocolate icing (that I didn’t have to make or buy myself) since I was in my teens.
But I digress. To recap: I’m shopping for cold remedy stuff, feeling sorry for myself, and I want a chocolate cake with chocolate icing. So after I’m done with the pharmacy aisles, I wander over to the bakery.
Granted, this was 1:00 in the fricking a.m., but surely there should have been a single chocolate cake with chocolate icing left, right? Wrong. The closest I could come was vanilla cupcakes with that fluffy chocolate icing on them (which is not proper icing, if you ask me.)
I stood there, trying to decide what else would make me feel better, when I hit on scones. I developed a taste for scones while I was in Scotland some years ago, and they remain a treat that reminds me of a particularly good time in my life. Most supermarkets in my area carry scones, so I figure this was going to be easily procured than my chocolate/chocolate cake.
I wandered the entire bakery area twice. No scones. I couldn’t believe it, so I took one more slow pass. By this time it was close to 1:15 in the morning, and the stupid vanilla cupcakes with fluffy chocolate icing were starting to look good. And then I found them.
The scones were triangular instead of round, which doesn’t bother me too much, though I’m more used to the round variety. But my only choices were blueberry and chocolate chip! And the scones were topped with a granulated sugar topping.
I stopped the night manager who just happened to be walking past and asked him if they didn’t have any real scones in back. He assured me that all the scones were out, and that these were real scones. When I questioned him on that, he claimed that he’d had chocolate chip scones himself while in London, and these were authentic.
I put the questions to the nice British guys who hang out on the Dear Diary forums.t types out there: “Do you really eat chocolate chip scones? Or is this some horrible Americanized bastardization of an otherwise lovely breakfast treat?” It turns out that this is indeed an abomination in the eyes of connoisseurs from the land of scones and clotted cream. One of them even went so far as to call it sacrilege. I ended up with the blueberry scones because it sounded less unauthentic than chocolate chip scones, and while they weren’t bad, the weren’t traditional scones. And they sure as hell weren’t chocolate cake with chocolate icing.
Interesting. Blogger’s spell check just tried to change “Scottish” to “scatological”. I shall have to tell my friend the Dutch Scotsman about that. It is apt and ironical, and I suspect he’ll enjoy the joke.
Tonight, while doing some additional grocery shopping at my regular store, I checked out the scone situation. They had blueberry, orange flavored, cinnamon, and chocolate chip varieties, but no normal scones. It appears I’m going to have to make my own, which is no great hardship, but certainly a disappointment. On the way out, I stopped by the freezer section and liberated the last Pepperidge Farm chocolate cake with chocolate icing. I’ll save it for Thursday, the actual celebration date. The Socialist (who is feeling much better today, thanks for asking) will be teaching that night, but I don’t mind celebrating by myself.
I also hit Borders today, armed with a gift certificate from the Younger Sister. I made out very well, and will spend the coming week basking in new music:
Joan Armatrading: Love and Affection
Joseph Arthur: Redemption’s Son
Israel Kamakawiwo’ole: e ala e
Israel Kamakawiwo’oke: Alone in IZ World
Bruce Cockburn” Anything, Anytime, Anywhere
Tracy Chapman: Collection