One sunny day I finally decided to make use of the kitchen facilities we have available at the place where I live. I thought to myself, “Anna, let’s just take it nice and easy, we’ll start with something simple.” The idea came like a flash of lightening: scones! I’ve made them before, and they require 3 ingredients. It doesn’t get much easier…
So… the three ingredients. Butter, milk and self-raising flour. Butter? No problem, found it immediately in the supermarket, in the logical place to look (i.e. the refrigerator). Milk? Well I basically had half a bottle left of an undrinkable dairy product that some company had had the effrontery to label as “milk” so I had decided to use that. I mean I couldn’t drink it, so I figured if it was baked it might taste better. After all, it could hardly get worse.
Self-raising flour? Well, here I struck a real hurdle. I couldn’t see anything that looked like it might be self-raising flour in the “flour” section. But then I thought, hey I can just get plain flour and add baking powder to it, I’ve done it before and I know the ratio. Wow, great solution right? Wrong. Do you think I could find baking powder anywhere in the same district? There was plenty of yeast but somehow I didn’t fancy making scones with yeast. Finally I spotted this thing called “Farina che lievita” hidden away in a corner, and on the assumption that “lievita” had something to do with “levitate” and hence “rise”, I bought it.
So I had my three ingredients. To summarise: butter, revolting milk, and flour that I very much hoped would rise but didn’t really know. But I needed to serve it with something. I had jam at home but thought I would just quickly buy some cream. What a joke! I trawled the entire refrigerator section for anything that even looked like it might be cream, with no success. Milk, butter, cheese, pasta and truckloads of yoghurt, but no cream. I gave up for the day and went home. I texted some Italians and asked them if you could actually buy cream in regular supermarkets, and they said “Yes, of course, but it’s usually not in the fridge, you have to look next to the fridge in the long life section.”
The next day I traipsed back to the supermarket to search for cream again. Imagine my rage and despair when I looked in the long life section only to see plenty of the afore-mentioned milks and yoghurts, but again no cream. I was starting to feel like I was in one of those nightmares, destined to look for cream in Italian supermarkets for the rest of my life. Finally I took my life in my hands and approached one of the shop guys who was filling shelves: “Excuse me,” I wept, “But do you guys not sell cream in this shop?” “Of course we sell cream!” he responded in amazement. “You do-o-on’t!” I sobbed, “I’ve looked everywhere and it’s not there!” At this point he very kindly left his work and led me in basically the opposite direction to where I had been previously exploring. I was exceedingly thankful to finally discover the cream in an autonomous little section near the bakery!? (Yeah I don’t get it either…)
Anyway, after the traumatic acquisition of the necessary ingredients, the rest of the baking process was surprisingly smooth. The scones rose as desired and were actually quite a hit with the girls who live here.
Oh and this is just a pic from one night with the three other Australian girls here. I’ve finally found people to play cards with! We played hearts! :):):)
