Weekly Dish

Last fall, David and I bought an orange tree to plant in our yard, next to the Meyer lemon tree he bought for the first birthday I celebrated in Baton Rouge, right under our bedroom windows. We’d just found out that I was pregnant with Josie, and the tree planting felt symbolic somehow, a visible reminder of the life I was busy growing inside of me. Oh, I know, I’m such an English teacher — my students would tell you that I find everything symbolic. Still, the orange tree meant something. Something important, even if just to me.

When we bought it, the man at the nursery told us that citrus trees are generally safe to plant here because it only freezes in southern Louisiana about once every ten years. Citrus trees don’t like to be frozen.

The winter after we bought our orange tree (and many other non-freeze-tolerating plants), only the second winter we’d lived here, it froze. Twice. The hibiscus leaves shriveled, the elephant ears bowed their heads to the ground, and the basil finally kicked the bucket. But the citrus trees, especially the orange tree, I was determined to protect. During the week of the freeze, David would scamper outside before we went to bed, and stake up bedsheets to cover the little still-green shrubs. Every morning, I’d wake up and look out the windows to see if I could tell if they were still alive. And every morning, they were.

So, when they blossomed in the spring, basking our backyard in a sweet, flowery aroma, just weeks before my due date, my attachment grew stronger. I photographed them and talked to them and breathed in their heady scent with a sentimentality that is probably particular to women in the third trimester of pregnancy.

And, as the rules of nature dictate, the flowers eventually gave way to tiny round green globes, and Josie made her way from inside my belly out into the big bright world.

Once the oranges were there, hanging from the branches, they didn’t do much deserving of notice. They were growing, to be sure, and every so often, I’d glance out the window and think, “Wow, those are really getting bigger.” Unlike the care they required to keep them alive during the freeze, or the showy way their flowers demanded attention with their unmistakable scent, the little green oranges grew inconspicuously, day by day, drinking up the sunlight and water they needed to ripen.

Until, one day a few weeks ago, they seemed ready to be picked. I took my basket outside, gathered the small, orange orbs, and brought them into my kitchen. I ate a couple of them just as they were, but they don’t have the most exciting flavor. They are sweet, but subtly so, and not very acidic. The scent of the zest, however, is overpoweringly orange-y, so I grated it all, and started trying to decide what to do with it.

David went through a scone phase over the summer — he tends to bake in frenzied sprees: first, there were muffins, then cookies and biscuits and bread, and, for a while, scones. I remembered that he made the orange chocolate chip ones from Once Upon a Tart…, and they were good, but we agreed that the chocolate overwhelmed the delicate orange flavor, and made them quite rich for breakfast.

So, with the zest and juice from our newly harvested oranges, we made scones, buttery, soft scones with a lovely whisper of orange in every bite. As we sat on our deck this past Saturday, nibbling scones made from our first oranges and watching our giggly baby, now almost seven months old, I was reminded that the emergence of life is at once the most ordinary and the most remarkable event, no matter how expected or natural or commonplace.

And so it is with food, it seems, as our daily existence requires that we fuel our bodies with what the earth produces, or some variant of it, but that act, the act of feeding ourselves and each other, however everyday and routine, can possess great magic. Perhaps I am imbuing a simple scone with more meaning that it deserves, but I have to tell you, as I sat with people I love, eating food that my hands had made from ingredients our little patch of earth had grown, I felt a sense of connectedness and joy that I don’t find in many other areas of life. As the busy, harried holiday season is gaining speed, I hope that you will find a way to share a little food magic with people you love. And, if you happen to want that magic to come in the form of a scone, I highly recommend this one.

It is, after all, the season for both citrus and sharing. Happy magic-making to all!

Orange Scones

4 cups all-purpose flour
4 t. baking powder
1 t. salt
1 cup sugar
1/4 t. freshly grated nutmeg
3 sticks butter, diced
4 large eggs
1 t. vanilla extract
1/2 t. almond extract
1/2 cup freshly squeezed orange juice*
1/4 cup orange zest (loosely packed strips)*
2 T. orange marmalade (optional)**

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees and line 2 baking sheets with parchment paper.

In a large bowl, stir together the flour, baking powder, salt, sugar, and nutmeg until well-mixed. Add the butter and work it into the dry ingredients with a pastry blender. Be careful not to over-mix; you just want to blend until there aren’t visible traces of the butter and the mixture looks like little round crumbs. (Jerome and Frank say to do this in a food processor, but we don’t have one big enough.)

Toss the orange zest with the flour and butter (I use my hands; you just want the zest to get evenly distributed).

In a small bowl, whisk the eggs, and then stir in the vanillla, almond extract, orange juice, and the marmalade, if using. Pour this mixture on top of the buttery crumbs, and fold, just until the dough sticks together and the flour has disappeared. (Jerome and Frank recommend a wooden spoon for this job; I like to use a sturdy spatula). Watch carefully to prevent over-mixing. As my friend Tee will tell you, over-mixing makes for a tough baked good. (And just in case you’re put in charge of mixing in his kitchen, be very careful! He hates to see anything over-mixed, much to the amusement of his wife, Kathryn, who probably over-mixes just to annoy him.)

Spoon the dough onto the parchment-lined baking sheets in scant 1/2-cup rounds (about a palmful of dough from my hands). Make sure to leave space between the scones, as they will spread as they bake. You may have to bake in batches, depending on the size of your baking sheets. Bake for 18-24 minutes, or until the tops are golden and the edges are beginning to brown. Serve immediately. Baked scones are only good for the next couple of days, but the batter will keep in the fridge for at least a week. We usually bake 4 at a time until the batter is gone. It will make about 12 scones.

*You’ll need about 3 medium-sized oranges or 2 large ones for the zest and juice; I use the long strips of zest you get from using a claw zester.

**We’ve made the scones with the marmalade and without (it’s not something I keep in my fridge), and I can’t really tell a difference, so I’ll leave it out from now on.

–Adapted from Once Upon a Tart… by Frank Mentesana and Jerome Audureau

Posted: Monday, December 10th, 2007 at 9:24 pm Filed under: Something Sweet, Breakfast/Brunch, Bread, Fruit, Winter. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.