“A story should have a beginning, a middle and an end, but not necessarily in that order”
Jean-Luc Godard
Jean-Luc Godard
After yesterday’s admission that I hadn’t made much progress I thought I’d better get on with things and start making some tangible progress so today, given that most of the tasks will require a fair bit of forward planning I selected an easy one, no.10 – hosting a tea party. Before I inflict my baking skills on any poor unfortunates I need to get some practise in. Some Google based research of a few American (its always good to get an external perspective on these sorts of things) websites tells me that a teas party should consist of small sandwiches, scones, and cake served on a 3 tiered serving tray. I know I can do sandwiches, making a cake seemed like a bit excessive, so I thought I’d start with scones.
Hercules’s 10th challenge (for those who weren’t paying attention in the previous post) was to obtain the cattle of Geryon. It took him a while, first he had to cross a dessert, then sail around in a golden cup in order to get to Erythia where Geryon kept them. Upon arriving he was attacked by a three headed dog, which he clubbed to death (good practise for when he had to catch Cerberus later on) then Geryon, who was non to happy about a naked greek hero come to nick his cows. He shot Geryon with a poisoned arrow then set about herding the cows back to Eurystheus. Understandably tired after all the fighting and cattle rustling he fell asleep and Cacus (a local cannibal) pinched half of the cattle, making them walk backwards so they wouldn’t leave a trail (pretty cunning but not clear on why a cannibal would want to steel so much beef?). No sooner had Hercules rounded them all up again than Hera (that goddess who started all this) sent a gadfly to sting the cattle and they scattered and it took him a year to round them all up and get them home. King Eurystheus was so pleased to get the herd he immediately had them all sacrificed – bit ungrateful but maybe he was a vegetarian?
Anyway, back to scone making. A bit of advice from Penny and a quick bit of google based research turned up a suitable recipe…………. ( http://britishfood.about.com/od/eorecipes/r/fruitscones.htm) and I was ready to begin. I set to work with Radio 4 for company (Classic serial: An angel at my table by Janet Frame). The first issue I noticed was that the claim of only 15 minutes preparation time was hopelessly optimistic, it took me that long just to get everything weighed out sieved etc. The next problem was that while I had all the ingredients I don’t have a rolling pin – a wine bottle had to do in this case.
The main issue I encountered though was my own inability to follow instructions. I had just rolled out the scone mix when a glance across the worktop revealed three unopened sachets. Ah!, that would be the baking powder! So guessing that it probably doesn’t make much difference what order you add everything I kneaded the powder into the mix and rolled it out again. 15 minutes in the oven and the results can be seen below – not bad for a first attempt? I have eaten one of them, it tasted ok, if maybe a bit eggy and so far I’ve suffered to ill effects. However, if there are no further bog posts then you may assume the worst.
Result! - Bring on cake!
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