Steve Macone

A tradition is a habit whose logic has faded. A silly thing you keep doing even when you can’t remember why, like bringing a tree inside in December, or continuing to visit family.
-Steve Macone

. . . high tea suggests it’s available only to people whose families remained loyal to the king in some long-ago war.

Our tea came, then the waiter brought our food, on a three-layer silver tray with a dome on top, like a wine rack that had mated with a statehouse. We served ourselves, one of those times pretending to do the work yourself is a privilege, like going to a dude ranch or finding a spouse.

On the top level were scones — ingenious edible serving utensils you use to pick up something called clotted cream, which is what would happen if you mixed the best parts of butter, whipped cream and childhood. The tray’s bottom layer was all business: tiny, adorable sandwiches — cucumber and cream cheese, salmon and egg — stacked together tightly, as if a fancy mouse had packed an emergency shelter. All with the crusts trimmed off, supporting my theory that rich people are just little kids. And in the middle were cakes: lemon and praline mille-feuille, passion fruit gugelhupf.
-Steve Macone

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