Lola at the Coffee House

I learned ages ago to make buttermilk biscuits. The buttermilk reacts to the baking soda, so you don't need baking powder, and you can significantly reduce the amount of fat you use, too. It ruined me for any other type of biscuit, though.

It is indeed Lola. You are right to be proud of it. It's a credit to you I must admit and had I been interviewing you for a job you would have got it right away on the strength of your lovely coffee-house and the quality of the clients you have drawn to your cash-point, and with a 10% pay hike just for the way you entered the room and comported yourself in the hot seat. You did look quite a picture and just the right person to halt the slide in plant hire sales which we have been experiencing recently with that Ph.D. in mechanical engineering I used to give time of day to. He was making the clients feel inferior. I'm through with experts. They can't even fix a couple of poky banks in a scratty little hole like Cyprus without frightening all the retirees.

I wouldn't have been too concerned about your professional qualifications because the work here is really quite simple and I can easily see that you will soon pick up the general gist of it. And I hate Cee-Vees anyway. They are passe. History. A glowing reference always makes me think somebody was trying to get the subject off their hands. Anything nasty is obviously the work of a t**t. Not a good Christian.

And then there is your culinary expertise as well. I'm a fan of multi-tasking. You will be able to advise our canteen manageress. Her steak and kidney pies with double chips, double peas and gravy is really quite nice but she presents it with such an absence of finesse it takes my breath away. And she never thinks of sprinkling a touch of nutmeg on the Ambrosia rice-pudding when she takes it out of the micro-wave. Vera is a good-hearted lady but she will insist on keep wiping her hands on her apron. It's in my father's will that she is not to be fired. She watches over me like a ministering angel. She says that it's a nasty world outside the plant, machinery and tools industry.

There have been whisperings that Vera is my mother, or my wet nurse or some-such scuttlebuck but my mother ran off to the South of France after I was first shown to her.

When do you wish to start?

baking powder contains the soda so its the soda that imparts that flavor that I dont like. Ive had the buttermilk kind and theyre pretty good with the redeye gravy for breakfast.eggs and side meat

Yes please, Lola. They are great favourites of mine.

As are scones (I say 'sc-on-s' like 'johns', Farmerman). But never commercially made - only fresh from a day's baking. Still slightly warm from the oven, with butter melting on them - yum! Or laden with clotted cream and jam - lovely on a summer's day. Crumpets too - like them in winter in front of a roaring log fire. I do find foods seasonal - certain flavours fit certain seasons I think. Like the one at the back of this coffee house perhaps?

2. Skowne.

It is time for tea, now that you mention it. Or is it. When is tea time? Late afternoon? Sybil, is it tea time yet? If so, I'll have some hot tea and some little sandwiches, with some type of creamy filling, and some other little goodies. Make a couple of them a little bit sweet, but not too. Thanks

Ummmm um um um...........I loooooooooove buttermilk biscuits.

Sybil, be sure to include some butter milk biscuits and plum jam. And hurry!

Well, spendi, it would be difficult to be an almost full time patron of Wassau's cafe and work for you both. It sounds like your perhaps mother, perhaps wet-nurse is doing pretty well anyway. She's your ministering angel. And she's right, it's a nasty world out there. But as you've already said, the Cafe 101 is different in this way. It's lovely here. We have everything we want and good companionship besides.

clotted cream sounds as appetizing as hematoma. Ive heard of it but is it like the Canadian whipped crea, that they serve in some of the hotels along with their sticky pudding?

Te whipped cream I used to get at the Algonquin in St Andrews NB was creamy and buttery but just lightly sweetened. They never called it "Clotted" especially in a hotel that catered to medical conventions

She probably went to Lourdes on the GVT

"Ne would she scorn the simple shepherd swain,
For she would call him often heam,
And give him curds and clouted cream."

Spenser.

This is indeed a lovely café, Lola, quite warm and inviting, with wonderful company. I'm so glad I discovered it.

Already I have learned about Jaffa Cakes from izzythepush, and since chocolate/orange is a favorite flavor combo of mine, I was delighted to find that Amazon has them, ready to send my way from the U.K.

Until those arrive, I think I'll nestle in a comfy chair, next to the fire, with a cup of green tea and some of Wassau's fabulous apple strudel. Right now, I feel like just relaxing and listening to the conversations going on around me.

You are exposing my life long lack of understanding about british tea time.
Sometimes it sounds like late afternoon wee snack with a cup of tea (does that mean dinner follows later?) and sometimes it seems like our US (etc) supper.

SKONN

We have breakfast, dinner, tea and supper. In my case about 10.30 am, or thereabouts, between 12,30 and 1 pm, about 5.30 pm and right now respectively. In between we have elevenses, brunch for self improving types, afternoon tea, and a cup of tea and chocolate digestive biscuits when the commercial break comes up in Coronation Street. That's peak electricity and water demand period as we put the kettle on and have a wee whilst it's coming to the boil.

Generally the greatest intake of nutrient is at tea time but a sizable minority don't hold back at dinner time either. And a few eccentrics are not averse to getting the chip pan out at supper time, Breakfast is usually light as most of us feel a bit groggy at that time of day. Snacks don't count.

Thanks. You'd think I'd have learned this from the probable hundreds of english mysteries I used to read, but noooo, I was never clear on it.

Hilarious dear fm. Very good. I agree absolutely.

Sweet Spendi. But I still have to agree with fm on this. Too funny!

Welcome firefly. Do snuggle in and let Wassau and Sybil work their way into your heart with their magical food concoctions. The cafe patrons are congenial, as you can see, even if they do pick at each other from time to time. But I wouldn't have it any other way. I just hate it when everybody gets along so well, you have to be sure they're lying and back stabbing and causing mischief. So don't be put off by the occasional grumpy characters around here.

Oh no, now I'm hungry again. I guess I better go on home across the street and go to bed before I start eating more scones, or cookies or buttermilk biscuits again.

Well, yes, osso. I don't really know either. But when we were visiting London, and we went to "high tea" at some hotel that's very famous, but I can't remember the name, it was in the afternoon. And we had tea and little sandwiches and cakes and it was very very posh.
And yes, I think dinner follows later than we are accustomed to eating. Or at least that's the way they did it on Upstairs Downstairs.........

Tea dear........come running!

I wasn't playing the word games much tonight. I have been doing my income tax. But it's easy this year since I made so little money. Not having money wasn't easy, but at least I don't have to pay any more to the government for once.
Good night all. Off to bed now.