Now halfway through Agent Sonya by Ben Macintyre, I've had no reason to disagree with the book's subtitle – the true story of WW2's most extraordinary spy. Born into an affluent, intellectual German-Jewish family in Berlin, Ursula Kuczynski had her first taste of activism at the receiving end of a policeman's truncheon while marching with the communist youth group in the May Day parade. Her radicalism dismissed by her family as a teenage fad was anything but, setting up an international career as a Soviet agent in China, 
Switzerland and England. The most interesting bit of the book is not so much the espionage itself but the three children she raised during the time, pulling off a work-life balance masterclass in a profession most unsuited for it.
The book makes a reference to Isokon House, a Bauhaus-style block of flats in Hampstead, home to communist spies in the 30s. This was just the propellant for a trip to the modernist jewel already on my Building an Appetite list. A gallery on the ground floor played a short film featuring Agatha Christie, who lived – and entered a prolific writing period – in the building during the war years. A life-sized model of the original kitchen barely fitted two people but was surprisingly 
ample on shelf storage space.
Kuczynski's cover as a housewife in a Cotswold village gained her a reputation as an excellent baker of scones. I sidestepped the jam-or-cream-first dilemma by opting to make a savoury batch. I chopped 100g of smoked bacon into small cubes and heated them in a pan for a few minutes until the fat rendered and the meat crisped up. I added 275g of self-raising flour and ½ teaspoon each of salt and baking powder into a 
mixing bowl. I worked 100g of cubed, softened butter into the flour with my fingers until the mixture took the consistency of fine crumbs. I added a beaten egg and 75-100ml of whole milk, then the bacon. I tipped the sticky dough onto a well-floured board, flattened it and rolled it out into a 1-inch-thick disc. I cut out rounds with a pastry cutter and placed them on an oven tray. I brushed the tops with milk and baked in a 200C oven for about 12 minutes.
Perfectly flakily good on their own and even better with a glass of Pinot greesh, the scones were well delish!
Krishnan
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