If his library gig doesn’t work out, Jim Collins appears to have a fallback plan.
Jim’s lemon poppy scones were voted best-in-show at Thursday’s session of the Downton Abbey Support Group in the Morristown & Township Library.
The group is like baseball’s Hot Stove League, for PBS fanatics. Instead of debating the merits of designated hitters and bullpen aces during the long off-season, this crowd ponders the ins-and-outs of the upstairs-and-downstairs cast of a fictional Roaring Twenties British estate.
At Thursday’s meeting, members were treated to a sneak preview of Season Five, with the emphasis on sneak. The preview was about the length of a good sneeze; any shorter and the Subliminal Message Police would have a case.
There also were some eye-opening video clips of DA characters in other TV and film roles. We saw the naughty side of Maggie Smith, pre-Granny, and the very naughty side of Lady Sybil… so naughty, in fact, that we may require treatment for sybilis. (Ba-dum-dum!)
But Thursday’s main attraction was the Great Scone-off. Libraries are bastions of knowledge, and so visitors learned many important facts about scones, such as how to pronounce them (“scones” as in “cones” or “scones” as in “cons”… in other words, the pros and cons of scones and scons) and where to avoid them (Scotland, where they are made with potatoes).
We also learned that librarians, in addition to being very learned, are pretty good bakers.
Jim had stiff competition from colleagues who submitted savory scones, chocolate chip scones, vanilla scones, orange ginger scones, oatmeal scones, cranberry scones . . . it was like Willy Wonka for the One Percent.
And if it seemed like the fix was in, well, guilty as charged. Your correspondent stuffed the ballot box after stuffing his face. You never know when you will need a friend in high places when those overdue book fines hit critical mass.
As it turns out, however, one important recipe was missing from the evening’s scone-scarfing extravaganza.
This shocking discovery was revealed when we sought the expert opinion of Lorraine “Lady Edith” Rosenberg, whose hand-made DA costumes ensure her first-ballot selection to the DA Support Group Hall of Fame.
Her favorite scone?
“I can’t eat any of them,” Lady Lorraine said. “I’m gluten-intolerant.”
