Blessed Sani-tea

Especially in the evenings of late, we've been quietly enjoying our new tea station.  I'm sipping a cup of chamomile now.  Just pulling open the drawer gives me a glimpse of order in a world gone mad!  Hahaha!    Or maybe my mind is desperate because we've been living in such chaos for the last five months.

At any rate, between the tea drawer and the new electric kettle I procured--with automatic shutoff!--our tea drinking careers have blossomed.

I have a picture, but I won't show you, of what I did to my my mother's kettle while boiling water on the stove for tea.  I went to her living room to get something and received several texts from my husband and a phone call too.

Did I totally forget about the tea kettle boiling on the stove?  Yes, yes, I did.  By the time I discovered it, it was so scorched, I actually had to wait for it to cool before I could separate it from the burner.  So the next day I bought the one in the picture for our house.  I don't trust myself anymore.

Interestingly, an ex-library copy of My Heart Lies South that I had ordered arrived in the mail today, and it opened to the chapter on medicinal teas that Mexican ladies regularly used to successfully treat various ailments, including menopause.  My favorite one the author describes is

 toloache, a dreadful mysterious weed, which is secretly given to husbands who have strayed too far from home and fireside.  It effectually soddens them and if they are given enough of it, it causes them to sit drooling gently by the fireside forever, while Mama goes out to earn the living.

You just can't beat the early 20th century Mexicans for practicality in the handling of domestic affairs.

We had a Ball!

On St. Valentine's Day, in honor of Emmaline's 16th birthday, we hosted an afternoon tea and English Country Dance at our home. Barbara Attema taught and called the dances.

Yesterday Emma and I talked about the wonder of this kind of dancing--how it is especially well received by shy persons--ones we normally would not think of as enjoying this kind of activity. We decided that the format provides them a way to be comfortable while interacting with others. In this way, I suppose, it is like good etiquette, where the prescribed forms help one to relax.











Emma received the most lovely, the most thoughtful gifts. The companionship of these good girls is a true blessing to her and our whole family. I am also grateful for Nathaniel's friendship with Travis. Travis filled the deviled eggs, helped clean and set up for the party, announced the young ladies as they came in, and took pictures. What a delight he is!

Napkins Can Make You Smile or The Joy of Decorative Napkin Folding

Our Mother Cabrini Guild will host an afternoon tea for the ladies and girls of our parish on Sunday. If Ike doesn't come calling, we plan to decorate the church hall on Saturday. The Guild has a great decorating team for all our events, and I have been looking for a way to contribute. After a little research, I decided that developing some napkin-folding skills would complement the other ladies' accomplishments. Last night Emma and I sat down together at the kitchen table to try a new napkin folding book that I ordered called Decorative Napkin Folding for Beginners. Shortly after we started, Herb lost his glasses somewhere in the gameroom, so while I helped him look, Emma worked diligently. Below are individual shots and descriptions of the results. She took all the pictures.



This posy pocket could go formal with a rose bud and baby's breath. Here Emma made use of materials at hand: crape myrtle blossoms.


The place card holder here features a Marian holy card that we have saved from a friend's graduation. It could also hold a clue for a treasure hunt, a saint quote, or a Bible verse.


This design is actually supposed to be Boat with Sails. It gets the sail effect by separating the layers. We decided to form it into a Mary grotto by squishing the hull into the cup and not separating the layers. A Mary cut-out would work nicely. We had stickers handy, though, so Emma used one to try out the effect.

This is Lady Windermere's Fan. I think it would look like a bird if you stood a colored boiled egg up in the little hollow. For crispier folds that would do away with the hollow, wash the napkins in starch, then iron. Actually, all of these designs would benefit from a good starching.

The book showed this silverware holder outfitted with plastic utensils. It would be a fun way to rev up a casual place setting for a barbecue or picnic.

. "Cockscomb" features a ruffle down the front. It's understated, yet elegant.

This one, though called "The Nest", reminds me of a little person sitting on the floor with both legs stretched out.

Here's a boat design for a lakeside meal or fish dinner.

After Emma finished the napkins, Herb found his glasses. . .



in the attic.

Studying the Tea Leaves of My Past

Lew Rockwell has a link to this article on the anniversary of the tea bag. I confess that I have always taken the tea bag for granted. I never considered when its use became widespread or why.

My Hall's teapot has an infuser, but I just stuff a bag inside it. I guess my tea habits are a trifle on the unsophisticated side.

I haven't been a morning tea drinker since I was a teen. At that time I converted my bedroom into a sitting room, complete with a wicker "tea" table from my grandma's house. I purchased a blue and white Japanese tea set from an import shop and eventually collected the matching openstock dinnerware. Every morning before school I would have my mother join me for green tea. It seemed perfectly normal to me then. Now I realize the truth. I was a strange child. Mom never let on, though. What a good sport! And she had probably had three cups of coffee before she "took tea" with me. She kept an electric percolator on her vanity, beside the makeup mirror. I guess she had to fortify herself before she could step out of her bedroom each morning. Being the mother of teenaged girls during the '70s demanded regular fortification.

Nowadays I usually sip coffee from a plain old white Corelle mug. All of my style comes from what I add to it. I don't go for any of the exotic additives that you'll find at Starbucks. My two favorites are Eagle Brand sweetened condensed milk and Steen's cane syrup. One or the other, mind you. If I'm doing Steen's, I add half 'n half. My hair may be limp, but my coffee has body!

Tea at Somerset

Emma carefully penned "Beloved and Esteemed Grandparents," on the salutation line of the invitation to afternoon tea.

Under cover of darkness, she propped the completed invitation, wrapped in Saran Wrap to protect it from the morning dew, against a vase of pansies on the table on her Somerset grandparents back porch.

So began Emma's experience with her latest tea party book acquisition Tea and Cake with the Saints by Alice Cantrell. The book arrived Monday afternoon; Emma delivered the invitation Monday night. Is this what is meant when a book is described as "capturing the imagination"?

"Some little fairies have been here," Grandma cheerfully informed me the next morning when she called to accept the invitation.

Emma had set the tea party date for Wednesday, the Feast of St. George. While she peeled the eggs for deviled eggs, she told me a legend about St. George that she had read in E. Nesbitt's book, The Book of Dragons and lamented the fact that we do not have a dragon cookie cutter. Life can indeed be trying! We decided that since St. George is the patron saint of England, having a tea party on his feast day would be enough. Emma chose Easter egg, baby chick, and tulip cookie cutters for the sugar cookies that she made.



The menu featured ham, turkey, and tuna sandwiches, sugar cookies, deviled eggs, strawberries, freshly picked blackberries, a gingerbread cake, and raspberry punch. Nathaniel picked the most blackberries but roared away on the 4-trax when I tried to take his picture.



Emma served everyone from a separate table before joining them at the tea table. The raspberry punch looked fabulous once Emma transferred it to Grandma's depression glass "Iris" pitcher and glasses.



"Is this going to spoil our supper?" Grandpa asked when he had seated himself at the tea table and surveyed the abundance of food.

"No," I lied.