A couple of weekends ago I tried to make The Scones, only I didn't have all the right ingredients (heavy cream is not a staple in our house except in summer, because you need to whip up a blob of the real thing for those blueberries, and winter, when you need same for your hot chocolate, and now I'm thinking pumpkin pie is coming right up and I'd better get to the store -- so actually it's only that short stretch between St. Patrick's Day and -- wait, what about Irish coffee?! I now realize that there is officially no time in our lives when we shouldn't have at least a gallon of heavy cream in the fridge).

Anyway, scones but no cream! So I was lazy and decided to invent Low Fat The Scones. Why, Jesus, why? Why did I believe that this would somehow not ruin but improve their sconey goodness? Because I live in a fantasy world wherein my shortcuts end up being more delicious than the actual recipe, and are done in half the time, and also cause those last ten pounds to just melt away.

I knew we had a problem when Jackson, owner of a six-year-old's palate, left most of a breakfast full of chocolate chips on his plate. So I threw the rest in the garbage, put on some pants, and drove to the store for eggs, cream, butter, more chocolate chips, and some donuts to tide us over. If there's a job worth doing it's worth doing with an additional 1,500 calories, I've now taken to saying. This philosophical shift was soon after vindicated by one look at Deb's babka. I think I grew an extra butt cheek just by reading the recipe.