Our initial meeting of the Tasting Circle was at co-moderator Katy van Geel’s house in South Amherst at 9:30 a.m. on a sunny Monday. We eight participants had come from far and near; some people’s GPSs devices had worked better than others’ — but there we were. We all knew each other from Five College Learning in Retirement, except for Penny Geis, who had just joined.
Good smells of coffee came from the kitchen, but first came an orientation to the course. Any food allergies? Shellfish, gluten? We went over the order of hosting and Gail Gaustad shared a bag of roasted and unroasted Chinese chestnuts from her garden for us to sample and take home if we wished. Katy gave a brief history of some old family cookbooks.
Once preliminaries were over, the participants were curious to know how we envisioned what was going to happen in these sessions? Well, we said, we will gather, talk a bit about the food we had chosen to prepare, eat, and then tell stories. We were convinced that these would flow naturally, as good food and good stories are inextricably linked. And so it was.
We sat around the dining room table to have coffee, tea and sample 12 beautiful jams and jellies, all homemade: cherry, strawberry, raspberry (red and black), quince, grape (jelly and jam), peach, apricot, apple butter and two Seville orange marmalades. There were warm currant scones and Scottish oatcakes just begging to be buttered, and a spectacularly difficult chocolate Babka. And the stories began, just as we had predicted and hoped.
At the end Penny Geis sighed happily: “I’ve found my tribe!”
Nina Scott is a retired UMass professor of Spanish. She has lived in Amherst since 1968. Katy van Geel is a retired librarian and CPA and moved to Amherst in 2007.
Currant scones
Makes 8-16
3½ cups flour
½ tsp. salt
6 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. baking soda (if using buttermilk)
5 tbsp. unsalted butter
1¼ cup milk (or buttermilk)
Generous handful of currants
Preheat oven to 425°F.
Sift together dry ingredients. Lightly work in the butter with a pastry blender, then add the currants. Add the milk all at once and mix lightly to a spongy dough. You won’t be able to work in all the flour, don’t worry about it — just dump it all out on a pastry cloth or board and work it in gently with your fingers, kneading very lightly to make the dough smooth.
Press the dough out to a ¾- 1-inch round. If you want 16 small scones instead of 8 large ones, divide the dough in two, and then press both rounds into ¾-1-inch rounds.
Cut the rounds into eights. Brush with egg or milk. Transfer to an ungreased baking sheet.
Bake for 10-15 minutes; it’ll depend upon how big your scones are. You can tell they’re done when their bottoms are light brown.
Tips
Keep ingredients as cool as possible; add liquid all at once and mix lightly; handle as little as possible; cook quickly.