It's been rough waters around here this summer, and often it's felt like every little thing from dry cleaning to grocery shopping has been a struggle, complicated, involving something broken or compromised or incorrect. Yesterday, Rob an I had a morning that reminded me that oh, yeah, it's not always like that. Some days are lousy, but some days are....not.
We got up early and drove out to Verrill Farm in Concord for some produce and a breakfast of these amazing cranberry-orange scones with a just-sweet-enough icing. I am an admitted scone snob, most scones I find to be either incredibly tough or incredibly dry, neither of which I am in the mood for in the morning (or ever). Verrill's scones, though, are ever so slightly under-baked. This leaves them tender inside, crunchy outside, with the tri-partite bonuses of moist icing, plumped dried cranberries and bright orange zest that render them full of flavors that couldn't be further from standard scone "hockey puck" fare.
We gathered some luscious corn, blueberries, eggplant, and shallots from the farmstand, and then headed over to the bakery section for some scone-y perfection. But--sigh--we were greeted with the sight of an empty tray. Oh. Ok. We got good stuff, we'll just take our veggies and maybe a cookie and go home. But as we turned, defeated, to leave, who should come out but a bakery employee carrying a giant tray of fresh cranberry-orange scones!
Sweet fancy Moses were they delicious! And even more than that, wow did we feel happy from the victory and surprise of getting a treat we thought was lost to our Sunday.
Farms are great places to get such surprises. Your home vegetable garden is too. I was joyfully shocked when my sluggish zucchini plant shot forth 6 perfect specimens in the 4 days before we moved from our condo last week, enabling us to feast on grilled zucchini in our new home. The roots that have sprouted rom my New Dawn rose cuttings were another great surprise. Discovering at Verrill Farm that local blueberries are at their sweetest this week was another spark of "yay." And of course the scones. The fresh, flavorful scones. They were there just for us.
This is not to say that I'm not expecting any more trouble out of life in the near future. But I am so grateful to have been reminded by that little moment in the bakery section that some days are pretty darn good.
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