Baking ... AGAIN?!?!

a recent batch of maple-pecan scones

I write too much about baking. I know it. Every week or so, those who click on this site find some piece about sourdough bread--or waffles--or muffins--or scones--or ...

Speaking of which.

Wait a minute for the Speaking of which explanation.

One of my common themes in these baking posts is the personal nature of it. Over the recent holidays, for example, I wrote (as I had written during previous holiday seasons!) about my grandmother Osborn's fruitcake recipe--about her steamed pudding recipe--about my mother's idea for a bread shaped like a Christmas tree (an annual baking project I've done now for decades)--about our family fondness for cornbread--about ...

I've written, too, about my sourdough starter, which I purchased in Skagway, Alaska, in August 1986 when I journeyed there with my 14-year-old son to check out sites from The Call of the Wild--and to visit Dawson City, Yukon Territory, center of the Klondike Gold Rush (1896-99). We were also visiting sites related to my great-grandfather Addison Clark Dyer, who'd gone on that gold rush, etc.

So, yes, it's the personal aspects of baking that really ... get to me.

Now ... back to the Speaking of which ...

Yesterday, I baked a batch of maple-pecan scones (not a sourdough recipe), and I mentioned to Joyce that they are my favorite--though I periodically try other things when I bake the scones each week. (I have one for breakfast every morning--well, every morning but Sunday, but that's another story for another time).

She asked me what I meant. And I reminded her that one of my early boyhood homes (1709 E. Broadway Ave.; Enid, OK) had a pecan tree in the back yard. Back then, I didn't think there was anything special about the nuts--they lay around on the ground; we threw them at one another; we had mounds of them in the house with a handy nutcracker; Mom made awesome pecan pies; etc.

the type we had

Later, of course, I realized the value of pecans--their expense, their sweet reminder of Enid, of boyhood, of my parents, of ...

And maple? When we moved to Hiram, Ohio, in the late summer of 1956 (I was about to turn 12), we began patronizing the nearby Monroe's Orchard & Farm Market on Pioneer Trail, where we bought apples and other goodies--including their awesome maple syrup. Joyce and I still go there a few times a year, stocking up on maple syrup and other necessities. I use that syrup as a sweetener in my maple-pecan scones. (And, of course, we splash it all over sourdough waffles ...)

So ... every time I smell those scones baking--every time I take a bite of one--I find myself whirled back to Enid's pecan tree, to Hiram's maple syrup, to memories I simply will not allow to evanesce.

And, of course, I remember Proust and that taste of a madeleine that ended up triggering memories that resulted in In Search of Lost Time, his masterpiece.

(I've yet to write mine.)