sing it with me: hot cross buns, hot cross buns...

BACKGROUND: I had a bite of a hot cross bun today – a bona fide hot cross bun from my favorite British tea shop in Santa Monica. Apparently they’re an Easter-time religious/culinary delight dating back to days of yore when British street vendors could be found hawking them to hungry Christians on Good Friday. To drum up business, they’d cry out that familiar rhyme –

hot cross buns, hot cross buns
one a penny, two a penny, hot cross buns
if you have no daughters, give them to your sons
one a penny, two a penny, hot cross buns

At the counter of the British tea shop, as the bun was being purchased, many attempts were made to remember that little poem above. The lovely chap at the counter even went asking around the dining room to see if anyone could recall it (we all managed to get the first, second, and fourth lines, but the third had eluded everyone. ‘You probably just need to google it’, most would say. And that’s what I did when I got back to work.).

THE THING THAT’S DRIVING ME MAD: the voice in my head is singing the poem to the tune of ‘Three Blind Mice’, and it....won’t.....stop.........

hot cross buns, hot cross buns – see how they run! see how they run!

But I KNOW there’s a different tune that’s supposed to go with it – right? Reach back into those recesses of childhood memory and tell me if I’m crazy or not.

ALSO: for future reference, note that hot cross buns contain dried currants and other pleasant, albeit surprising, spices. Kind of like a fruitcake bun. Such a thing I had never before supposed, nay, not even in my wildest of culinary fantasies! The bun was happily followed up by a Thai dessert of rambutans on ice. I heart Santa Monica. Hot cross buns, an Aero bar, a lamb vindaloo pie, and rambutans all within the hour – it is enough. it is enough.

This is what a rambutan is, in case you were not aware. They are delightful.