Reunion, with Tea

I am sitting in a hotel room in Columbia, South Carolina.  Soon I will go to breakfast with grad school friends who are in town as part of their grand North American tour.  They live in England, but both of their sons live in the U.S., one on each coast.

Yesterday we had a grand tea.  My English grad school friend made scones, and I brought 2 sweet treats:  raspberry streusel bars and butterscotch bars.  I've posted the recipe for butterscotch bars before (go here), but search as I might, I could never find the recipe that I used for the raspberry streusel bars.  So I experimented.

On Sunday, I realized I had forgotten to put in much sugar.  Happily, I realized it as I was assembling it, so I used a bit of brown sugar.  They were very crumbly because I always try to use less butter.  So on Tuesday, I tried again.

I wanted these bars to work because they were my vegan and gluten free offering.  I used too many frozen raspberries, so the bars were a bit soggy.  Happily, everyone loved them.  

The scones were the stars of the show, as they deserved to be.  And there were other treats.  We had delicious finger sandwiches.  I forget how wonderful a cucumber sandwich with cream cheese can be. There were some petit fours and slices of apple.

But of course, the real treat was being together.  Long ago in grad school, we gathered every Saturday.  We each brought a treat to share, and we worked on various craft projects.  Many of us in those days were working in embroidery of sorts:  counted cross stitch, crewel, tapestry.  I remember going to various craft stores and wishing I could afford the pre-assembled kits.

I also remember wondering if we should be working on writing projects--and not the research for grad school type of writing assignments.  Most of us had dreams of writing a novel or some other long-form piece.  Of course, it's much easier to sit in a group and socialize over sewing than to socialize over writing.

And now, here we are, decades later.  I am grateful that it is still good to be together, even if the parameters have changed.