Cranberry Orange Scones

It is a rainy/icy afternoon.  I'm out of my usual eating suspects.  I made spinach and artichoke mac and cheese with my leftover artichokes and some frozen spinach, and that was good.  I made a lot, freezing several little casseroles, so it's a good thing that it was good.

And then I tried these cranberry orange scones, from the King Arthur recipe here.   I did use frozen cranberries, half a bag left from the holidays.  I think that if I'd used the dried cranberries these would be sweeter, and sweeter is often good.  These are just a little bitter - I did use a LOT of cranberries.  But still, good.

My grandmother always made cranberries at Thanksgiving and Christmas, and that was quite a departure from her usual cooking.  Her usual was very plain and quite frugal.  She would eat two kinds of cereal, Shredded Wheat and Corn Flakes, and would rotate the two of them.  She would rotate molasses and sugar cookies.  She would rotate pink mints and white mints.  I can remember only twice that she ate between meals.  Cold water and yellow cheese in the refrigerator, always.  She would dry corn and store it in mason jars and she would make noodles and spread them on unused beds to dry.  Those memories are precious.  I can't remember what she cooked for meals, other than smoked pork chops.  Those cranberries were really a special thing.  One year, cranberries were scarce or there were problems in the cranberry bogs.  I missed them.

I wish I could share grandmother memories with my sister, but she is ten years younger than I am and she mostly relies on me for those stories.

I hope that my grandchildren have good memories of me.  I hope that they remember that I rode the roller coasters with them, took them swimming and to lots of parks, went to the movies and to Orange Leaf and Sweet Frog.  To the Playscape at the Nature Center.  To the baseball games.