"scones" news and stories

• Foodies and scientists cooked up a great course at Harvard last fall.
• Remember all those great meals you had in 2010? Those were the days (of poutine and Scotch eggs).
• Recall a more refined era with some tea and scones.
• One Massachusetts purveyor is selling candied bacon sticks -- because "people like bacon." (You don't say!)

• Carb lovers, rejoice: Whole-grain pasta has come a long way from its gluey, gritty past.
• Will L.A.'s food trucks be subject to the same health department rules as other food venues? Renegade restaurateurs await word.
• Mark Bittman gets in touch with his inner Brit with this scone recipe.
• Quick: What do you get when you cross a Chinese restaurant with a Mexican restaurant? If you're Chef José Andrés, you get $6 million dollars to start a new restaurant in Las Vegas.
• Xiao Ye is "best when the customers are a little drunk, a little high, maybe both and in any event extremely hungry." Oof.

Photo: Cameron/Sweet Beet and Green Bean

These apricot scones look like an ideal way to prepare for whatever the day holds in store. Baked by Jacqueline of Sweet Beet and Green Bean and photographed by her friend Cameron, they appear both enticing and calming, craggy outcroppings of sweet serenity. While the scones look great on their own, the composition of the photo as a whole is pretty fantastic, too. Nutritionists recommend eating naturally colorful foods, but if this photo is any indication, it's a recommendation that stylists and interior designers should follow, too.

[Via Sweet Beet and Green Bean]

Towering, craggy and full of inviting nooks and crannies, this mountain of white chocolate and sour cherry scones is one that cries out to be scaled.

Baked by the estimable David Lebovitz, they are, as OutKast might sing, the prototype for the perfect scone, studded with an abundance of cherries, dusted with just the enough sugar for a satisfying crunch and harboring untold depths of white chocolate.

Lebovitz admits to devouring almost two batches in the space of a week; based upon the evidence presented above, who could blame him?

[Via David Lebovitz]

Since the colder weather finally settled in, I've been making at least one pot of soup or stew a week. However, I often feel like a bowl of steaming, brothy goodness isn't complete without a bit of bread or a couple of crackers to go along with it. Some weeks I buy a multi-grain baguette at the farmers market but sometimes I like to make my own rolls or biscuits.

I've had my eyes open for new quick bread options lately and there are two that struck my fancy today. I haven't actually made either yet, but I've printed out both recipes and they are destined for the "Must Make" stack in my kitchen. The first is the recipe for Jalapeno Whole Wheat Scones from from A Smart Mouth. I don't have all those exotic flours on hand, but I've been looking for an excuse to buy buckwheat flour and this may be reason enough. The other is the recipe for Cornmeal and Bacon Muffins that Erin (of Erin Cooks!) made over the weekend. She says she wasn't quite happy with the texture of these, but I find that the drier, crumbly breads go quite nicely with soup, so these might still be salvageable yet.