Yep, Ringling Brothers has a winner here, except, except...
I was working on a cold adult beverage at Archies Friday night. Local bar, easy walk from the house. Only not this week. As I've noted in my profile I'm a short fat dude, not so fat that I won't walk anywhere, but fat enough that snow banks that force me to climb them to avoid speeding cars are a hardship. Ditto getting half way up them only to have them collapse, sucking my boots to a slushy underworld and leaving me stranded like some overturned beetle between a 62 Nash Rambler and the curb. Everywhere snowbanks, no-where sidewalks.
Anyway I was enjoying a frosty reward after a unpleasantly hazardous trek, soaking up the ambiance that only cheap beer and heaping nacho platters can create, but I couldn't get Archie chattering about the NFL, hockey, or the Celts. Seems that he lost most of his business to the snowstorm last week and all he wanted to talk about was the town government.
On the day of the storm the weather was impassible which you have to roll with here in the great white north, strike one. Only on the day after the storm the downtown streets and lots were still not plowed, strike two. On the second day after the storm they plowed, they plowed the cars parked in the downtown streets and lots into their spaces so they couldn't move, strike 3. Finally on the third day after the storm the city closed off downtown to bring in front end loaders and dump-trucks to pick up the snow. Nothing makes for better business than a police cruiser blocking both ends of the street all day, strike 4. Wait a minute, strike 4? Four days, no business, yeah strike 4.
Archie doesn't know politics, but he does know that he lost 4 days of business last week because the government didn't come through for him when he needed them to. On last Thursday the guy in the triconer hat screaming about the government maybe looked like a clown; what does he look like on Monday?
Lot of crazy folks then too, clowns, miscreants, posers, revolutionaries, but most of them were just kids that thought the Vietnam war was wrong, love should be free, and you should be able to enjoy a doobie (Mmmm doobies) once and a while without worrying about getting arrested. They were us, and they still are us, the crazies too. So I'm going to whip up some scones, invite the tea-party over, pretend I didn't hear the parts about second amendment solutions and birth certificates, and see if maybe the real stuff that scares us, like bankers crashing their banks and getting us to pay for their bonuses, can't be delt with in some mutually agreeable way.
Now if I can just keep the guy in the triconer hat with the gun and the Obama/Hitler sign talking to Sarah Palin out on the porch while the grown-ups chat inside...
Scones
Ingredients
Mix all the dry ingredients together.
Use butter,( I know it says, or margarine, use butter, very cold butter) cut it into the dry stuff until it resembles course crumbs.
Mix all the wet stuff together.
Add the zest of one fresh orange or lemon.
Add the wet orangy mess to the crumbs and mix them both until they just start to come together.
Place on a floured surface.(clean would be good)
Knead 6 to 10 times with the heel of your hands. (resist the urge to get medieval on the stuff)
Roll the dough out to a 9 inch round/ cut into wedges.
Bake the wedges at 425 degrees for 12 to 15 minuets.
Drizzle with orange glaze while still warm
Orange Glaze
Juice the orange or lemon you used to get the zest, add confectioners sugar until a paste forms, thin the paste with a little milk, glaze away.
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