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I was introduced to Lulu at a party a last year by a good friend of mine. She had just moved to San Francisco from Austin, Texas and we immediately hit it off talking about food and cooking. She told me that in Austin she had a cooking group that would get together once a week. Everyone would pitch in a couple bucks, someone would buy the ingredients - and they would cook delicious meals together.

I thought that was a fantastic idea and I was thrilled to get an email from Lulu a couple weeks later letting me know she was going to do one in her new town. The idea is this: its sort of a cooperative dinner party....Lulu buys the ingredients, anyone who wants to cook comes early, those who just want to eat come a couple hours later, and people chip in a couple bucks for ingredients and bring a bottle of wine or beer depending on the menu. It's always vegetarian, and it's a regular thing - we are shooting for monthly. Typically 8-10 people participate.

There are a couple things I loved right off the bat about cooking at Lulu's. First off, Lulu is a great cook, and it is enlightening for me to cook with someone who might use different ingredients than I typically do, or use them in a way I hadn't previously thought of - for example, Lulu made a beautiful pot of risotto with watercress and citrus this last time around, and it was amazing. The other thing I enjoy is cooking with a group of people that I am just getting to know. The first time we got together, about an hour into cooking chilies rellenos the doorbell rang, and up the stairs comes Ross. He read about the get-together on Lulu's website, emailed her out of the blue, and asked if he could come. Now I can't imagine a cooking night at Lulu's without his Irish accent and friendly, chatty disposition. It's just cool to meet new people like that. Ross also gave me his mom's Irish Soda Bread recipe which I will share with you on St. Patrick's Day, next month.

Anyways, this time around Ross was nice enough to bring a stack of Irish cookbooks to share with us. I talked him into letting me borrow Darina Allen's Ballymaloe Cookery Course cookbook, it looked as if it had been well loved. It is a massive, beautiful book based on the recipes from her school in Ireland. It must have 1000+ recipes in it, spanning 600 pages - the photographs are stunning as well. It will come as no surprise - there is no shortage of potato ideas in this volume, but also goes well beyond that. Many of the recipes are inspired by the garden and farm at the school. Her cooking style will resonate with anyone who subscribes to the fresh and seasonal approach to the kitchen - good earth, good soil, good food.

I read through the book last week before I would go to sleep at night, trying to pick a recipe to try. I suspected I had stumbled onto something exceptional when I got towards the end of the book. I came across a two-page spread that looked like it had been sitting open faced on someone's kitchen counter for the past year. The pages were a bit wrinkled, a smudge here and there, and these particular pages even stuck together in a couple places when you closed the book. It was the scone section. So I picked the Coffee and Walnut Scones to try.

There are a couple things you should know if you are going to try this recipe. First off, it makes a lot of scones, and there is a lot of dough to handle. I think partly because of this, in the end, my scones ended up a bit bready in texture - absolutely delicious, nutty, hearty, and espresso flecked - but a little tough and bready. I did this batch all by hand, and I think the gluten built up a bit in the flour from trying to work in the liquids, and the bit of kneeding. Next time around I'm going to cut the recipe in half and use the processor to make the dough (although this method isn't exactly "slow" in spirit - it really works for me - and I always end up with flaky pie crusts, biscuits, and scones)... I'll cut the butter into the flour using 20+ pulses in the food processor. Add in the rest of the dry ingredients (not the walnuts). Add the wet ingredients and walnut halves and combine with another couple of pulses, and then dump it out onto the counter and shape without handling the dough anymore than I have too.

The icing is essential. Don't skimp on it. In the beginning I was carefully spreading each little scone with this coffee-infused sweet goodness, until it occurred to me to just go ahead and dunk the whole tops into the icing - perfect, and much more efficient.

As a final sidenote, Darina's recipe calls for coffee essence, which I think is just coffee extract in the US - but I just went ahead and used freshly ground espresso powder which I had on hand. I'm sure it gives the scones + icing a different look and slightly different flavor but is still similar in spirit, and damn tasty - I might go back to the extract next time to see the effect on the color and flavor.

Coffee and Walnut Scones

In the US scones are rarely eaten with butter or cream so be generous with the icing.

900g (2lb) flour
pinch of salt
50g (2 oz) caster sugar
175g (6 oz) butter
3 eggs
2-3 tablespoons coffee essence (I used 1/4 cup freshly ground espresso powder)
about 425ml (15fl oz) milk, to mix
150g (5 oz) walnuts, chopped coarsely

Coffee Icing
450g (1 lb) icing sugar
scant 2 tablespoons coffee essence (hs note: I used 1/4 cup espresso powder)
about 4 tablespoons boiling water (hs note: I used about double this)

Sieve all the dry ingredients together. Rub in the butter and add the walnuts. Make a well in the center. Whisk the eggs and coffee essense with the milk, add to the dry ingredients and mix to a soft dough. Turn out onto a floured board. Knead lightly, just enough to shape into a round. Roll out to about 2.5cm (1in) thick and stamp into scones. Put onto a baking sheet. Bake in a hot oven for 10-15 minutes until golden on top. Cool on a wire rack.

Meanwhile make the coffee icing: sieve the icing sugar into a bowl. Add the coffee essence and enough boiling water to make it the consistency of thick cream. Spread each scone generously with coffee icing. Allow to set.

Makes 18-20 scones, using a 3-inch cutter.

From: , Pelican Publishing Company (June 1, 2002)

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