Care for a Spot of Tea?

I work with a lady named Aura who was born in Australia and lived in Italy before moving to the U.S. She's our receptionist, and she has the most interesting accent. Seriously, it would be worth prank calling my office to listen to her. Since she is so multicultural, she suggested that we have an English tea party at work with real china and traditional fare. I like tea but consider the whole idea of it to be a little too dainty for me. I'm used to slamming down a large black coffee or two for my morning caffeine intake, but I was willing to give the tea party a try.

Since I love to cook, Aura brought me one of her English cookbooks so that I might get some ideas on what to bring. It was sort of like reading a different language. For example, they use different measurements and nomenclature than I'm used to (i.e. 200 grams of caster sugar???). I chose to make scones. Aura said the word is supposed to be pronounced with a short "o". Who knew? I found an Americanized recipe online, so I didn't have to do any conversions. Though it was kind of a pain to get up at 6:00am to make baked goods, they turned out great. But really, how can you go wrong with a recipe that starts with 3/4 of a pound of butter!

I think everyone enjoyed our little cultural diversion. Just as we had finished up, a sales rep stopped by and dropped off coffee and doughnuts from Krispy Kreme. Welcome back to America, folks!