"The Vintage Baker" by Jessie Sheehan

I was in more of "reading" mood than a "cooking" mood this weekend, and my reading included a new cookbook I had recently ordered, The Vintage Baker by Jessie Sheehan. This isn't a tea cookbook, but I shouldn't have been surprised that I came across a few tea-inspired recipes in the book.


When I opened it, I discovered a lovely surprise, a cute little facsimile cookbook of Vintage Recipes. In the intro, Sheehan explains that she got interested in all things related to sweets and baking when she went to work at a bakery in Brooklyn, New York, more than a decade ago and began collecting recipe booklets.

The recipes in this book are "revamped" versions of some old ones, and I enjoyed seeing where she got the originals. Here, for instance, is her recipe for Chai Banana Fritters. The chai spices are part of her "update" to the recipe, and this sounds quite delicious.

And have you ever heard of Swedish Tea Rolls? I had not, but Sheehan says they taste like "the best mini cinnamon-sugar toaster pastry you've ever had," and she also says they're perfect with an afternoon cup of tea. (I'm sold!) The Vintage Baker is one of the most fun, unique cookbooks I've come across in a while, and if you're into vintage recipes yourself, I definitely recommend that you take a look. 

I've been collecting vintage recipe booklets as well for the past few years, especially looking for anything suitable for teatime, so I love her idea of updating some of these recipes. Do you collect (or have saved) vintage recipe booklets? If so, got any recommendations?

"Growing Your Own Tea Garden" by Jodi Helmer

It rained all weekend and I didn't get to play outside as I'd hoped, but I did take advantage of the rain to read a review copy of a new book I got from NetGalley, Growing Your Own Tea Garden by Jodi Helmer, and this is one of the first tea gardening books I've read that I believe would be useful even to those who have no intention of gardening but simply want to educate themselves.

The book opens with a brief history of tea, then it gives a good overview of selecting all the plants for the tea garden, from true tea plants (Camellia sinensis) to those "teas" made with leaves, flowers, fruits, and roots. "Some of the most popular 'teas' are not tea at all," Helmer notes. "True tea is made from the leaves of the Camellia sinensis plant; herbal teas, including popular brews such as chamomile and peppermint, are considered tisanes. Tisanes are made from ingredients such as herbs, flowers, fruits, bark, and roots but no white, green, black, or oolong teas."

The distinction is an important one to make, so even someone new to teatime will be clear about what is and isn't truly "tea" in the tea garden. I enjoy drinking tisanes as well as teas, and I learned a lot about the plants used to make tisanes (and flavor my Camellia sinensis) by reading this book. For instance, Helmer writes that "although bee balm smells like Earl Grey tea and was even used as a replacement for black tea after the Boston Tea Party, the essential oil used in the iconic tea is from a different plant." Doesn't that make you want to run out and get a bee balm plant?

Quite a few mints are featured in the book (along with the advice to plant them in pots so they don't overtake the garden), and readers will learn fun things like the fact that pineapple mint is a subspecies of apple mint, chocolate mint is a cultivar of peppermint, and 'Kentucky Colonel' mint is the cultivar preferred for mint juleps because of its large and attractive leaves.

For those of us who like the idea of making our own tisanes, Helmer has helpfully included lots of potential benefits as well as cautions for these plants. St. John's wort, for instance, is believed to be a natural antidepressant, yet it has been banned from products in France because of its potential interactions with certain medications, she says. Similarly, burdock is a plant which "might inhibit tumor growth," she notes, but it's also a diuretic and should be used carefully. The section on these plants was one of the most useful parts of the whole book and makes an excellent starting point for anyone who does wish to use tisanes to benefit their health.

The book also includes tips for harvesting plants, recipes for blending them, some suggestions for tea garden designs, and a resource list for further study. A quick, entertaining, and highly useful read, Growing Your Own Tea Garden is sure to get lots of tea drinkers reaching for their spades and shovels.

"She Sheds Style" by Erika Kotite

Fridays are always a great time to begin thinking about weekend projects, and if it's not raining all weekend, I hope to tidy up the flower beds in front of my house. If it rains, maybe I'll just kick back with a whole pot of tea and keep lusting over the pages of this charming new book, She Sheds Style by Erika Kotite. She is a past editor of Romantic Homes magazine (one of my favorite editors they've had), and I love her approach to sharing these eclectic she sheds and the women who've built and decorated them. I still haven't decided whether I'd prefer a she shed or a vintage camper, but I do know that I want my one-day retreat to be multipurpose: it will need to serve as a writing cottage, a garden shed, and a tea house! It's rather a fanciful dream of mine, but you know what? I believe dreams are fine things to have. In fact, my friend LaTina gave me a pretty journal earlier this year, and I am using it to write down some of my dreams, including getting either a she shed or a camper.

I love all the photos in the book, but this tiny house in the Catskills absolutely takes the cake!

And check out this room in one of the book's she sheds. My eyes went straight to the tea cart at left and then to that teapot up top. (Did yours?)

I found several images, in fact, that inspired my dream of a writing cottage/garden shed/teahouse, including this one. This vignette would be right at home in my fantasy structure, whatever form it may take. I don't have a whole lot of wants anymore, but this future retreat is definitely one of them, and sometimes, I think writing down our dreams helps make them more real. Do you have any dreams like this? (And do you have or want a she shed?)

"Les Petits Macarons" by Kathryn Gordon & Anne E. McBride

I made my first macarons in 2012, having beginner's luck and finding success on my first attempt, and I was on a macaron kick for a while. I bought magazines with macaron recipes, tried the macarons everywhere I saw them, and even bought a macaron cookbook. Then my interest waned, and when I saw this pretty cookbook that had come out at about the same time, I decided I didn't need it.

But when the Salvation Army in Carrollton had their 5-for-$1 book sale, I quickly decided that 20¢ was not too much to pay to check out a mint-condition copy of Les Petits Macarons. Since I haven't made (or eaten) macarons in a while, I'm practically drooling over all the offerings in this book, and I was surprised to find quite a few tea-flavored macaron recipes, including these flavors: green tea, green tea and white chocolate, chai, and lapsang souchong with whiskey (variation: Earl Grey). There are also some flavors I consider tea-related, such as chamomile and lemon curd.

And in what I think is a super-smart move, authors Kathryn Gordon and Anne E. McBride offer tips on recipes you can make with any less-than-perfect macaron shells that you end up with, things like tarts and trifle. There's also a section on trouble-shooting tips, so even though I've had macaron-making luck in the past, I'm please to see tips on how to resolve any issues in the future!

"No Good Tea Goes Unpunished" by Bree Baker

It’s always nice to come across a great new cozy mystery series to check out, and for those of us who have a hankering for camellia sinensis, it’s extra nice when the mystery involves tea. Having read several different cozy series centered around tearooms, I was so pleased to find a new series about an iced tea shop and seaside café, and my first intro to the series is actually the second book, No Good Tea Goes Unpunished.

Bree Baker’s Seaside Café Mystery series centers on one Everly Swan, who has opened a seaside restaurant and iced tea shop in the coastal town of Charm, North Carolina. As befits a cozy mystery town, Charm is utterly charming, and it’s not surprising when one of Everly’s childhood friends decides to hold her wedding on the beach there. It is, however, surprising when the groom is found floating in the surf on his wedding night.

While solving the mystery of who killed the groom is the focus of the story, No Good Tea Goes Unpunished also has some thoroughly entertaining subplots. My favorite of these concerns Everly’s great-aunts, two elderly women who run a honey shop called Blessed Bee. The aunts are determined to enter a video application in a contest whose winner gets to appear in a documentary on “the plight of the American honeybee,” and the aunts' bee-themed antics are quite entertaining.

How Everly manages to juggle a murder investigation, her aunts’ bee obsession, a tea-shop-and-restaurant operation, and dueling romantic interests is quite the feat, but we’re cheering for Everly every flip-flopping step of the way.

Tea-loving readers will also enjoy the recipes included in the book, and if you’re like me and missed the first installment of this (truly) charming new series, you’ll turn the last page and immediately order the first book, Live and Let Chai, to see what you’ve missed!

Review copy courtesy of NetGalley

"Hissing Cousins" … and some tea tidbits of note

One of the best things about being in a book group is being inspired to read books you otherwise might not have delved into. I do enjoy history, though, so I was pleased when my online book group decided to read Hissing Cousins: The Lifelong Rivalry of Eleanor Roosevelt and Alice Roosevelt Longworth.

Eleanor and Alice were first cousins. Alice was the daughter of a president, Theodore Roosevelt, and Eleanor Roosevelt married a man who became a wartime president, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who was her fifth cousin. The family tree is a little challenging to follow at first, but once you get that straight, the book offers some quite entertaining portraits of two very different women on opposite sides of the political aisle. Alice—or "Princess Alice," as she was known when she was younger—comes across as a devil-may-care woman who liked to have a good time and be right in the middle of all the action. Eleanor, on the other hand, comes across as the more serious cousin and devoted to serving those less fortunate, although she wasn't without her flaws. I like that authors Marc Peyser and Timothy Dwyer paint neither woman as a saint, showing them both warts and all, which makes the book quite believable.

And while I was certainly not looking for any tea references in this book, I was surprised to find quite a few. Such as:

• Theodore Roosevelt was not happy when he saw advertisements in his morning newspaper noting that the First Daughter would be in a "portrait show" benefiting a hospital in New York. He telegrammed: "They distinctly convey the impression that any person who wishes to pay five dollars may be served with tea by you and Ethel Barrymore. I cannot consent to such use of your name and must ask you not to serve tea." Alice didn't listen to her father, and she did serve the tea.

• As a young girl, Eleanor spent much time at her Aunt Bye's house, "drinking tea and nibbling cookies in the maid's sewing room."

• While married, Alice had an affair with Idaho Senator William Borah, who was once offered a cup of tea by a hostess and replied, "Do I look like a man who drinks tea?"

• Franklin and Eleanor were secretly engaged for a year before they made their engagement official. During this time, while he was out Christmas shopping in  New York one day, he dropped his mother off at her apartment "so that he could duck out for tea with Eleanor at 3:30."

• When King George and Queen Elizabeth came to the US and visited Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt, the royals visited the Roosevelts at the family home in Hyde Park, NY. Before dinner one night, FDR pulled the king aside and said, "My mother does not approve of cocktails and thinks you should have a cup of tea." The king replied, "My mother would have said the same thing, but I would prefer a cocktail." (And the king got his cocktail.)

Isn't it fun when you're reading a book for one thing but learn something else at the same time?

"The Southern Living Party Cookbook: A Modern Guide to Gathering"

In my early twenties, I was introduced to Southern Living magazine, and I've been reading it pretty steadily ever since. Southern Living is always a source of high-quality home and garden articles, excellent photography, and delicious recipes, and they currently feature a monthly column by one of the South's greatest writers, the incomparable Rick Bragg. So I was delighted to have the opportunity to review a new cookbook from this magazine, The Southern Living Party Cookbook by Elizabeth Heiskell.

The original Southern Living Party Cookbook came out in 1972, and this new edition, subtitled "A Modern Guide to Gathering," is a beautiful book that's just brimming with recipes begging to be tried. The book also includes a brief "Hosting Handbook," which would make this book a great wedding gift for a new bride setting up her home.

The book is divided into sections titled Teas, Coffees, and Receptions; Brunches and Lunches; Come by For a Drink Y'all; Cookouts; and Celebrations and Dinners. As a tea lover, I especially enjoyed the first two chapters and found plenty of goodies I want to make, including the Puff Pastry Chicken Salad Ring, Lemon Drop Cookies (they're made with crushed lemon candies), and the Quick Petits Fours. There are also several tea sandwich recipes I'd like to try, including the Salmon-Cucumber ones, and something that sounds like a real possibility for teatime, the Cream Cheese-and-Pecan Rolled Grapes (with bacon!). And since I've never had a Southern Living recipe fail on me, I'm most eager to give these new ones a try. Now if Southern Living would just shoot for an entire book of teatime recipes, I'd be in heaven!

Review copy courtesy of NetGalley

Tea Lovers' Book Club: "The Harlequin Tea Set and Other Stories" by Agatha Christie

Summary: A colorful tea set plays a pivotal role in the short story given star billing in this collection by the woman considered the queen of mystery, Agatha Christie.

My thoughts: For women who write and/or read mysteries, I think it's important to have at least a nodding acquaintance with Agatha Christie, and since I'd read only a couple of her books, I decided this short story collection with "tea" in the title would be a good place to start. It did not disappointment, and I was impressed by the brevity with which she was able to lay the groundwork and effectively create a mini mystery with each story.

The judgment: I liked "The Harlequin Tea Set" just fine, but it was not my favorite short story in the book. I liked "The Edge," "The Actress," and "The Lonely God" much better. I noted that the old mistaken-identity device was used in her stories several times, but I always enjoy that one. I once heard it said that there are only seven different plots in the world (don't ask me to name them!), so if that's true, it stands to reason that some of them will be repeated. And if the story's interesting, I don't mind that at all. I thoroughly enjoyed reading this collection of stories and think other tea lovers would too, as tea is mentioned in almost every story.

For discussion:

• If you read the book, did you have a favorite short story? If so, which one? (Or have you ever read Agatha Christie? Or watched the TV and movie versions of her stories?)

• In "The Harlequin Tea Set," there was a passage I found myself nodding along with. The narrator is commenting on the hostess: "Continually offering people cakes, taking their cups away and replenishing them, handing things round. Somehow, he thought, it would be more pleasant and more informal if she let people help themselves." I certainly agree with that assessment, and it made me wonder whether perhaps most of us prefer a hostess who doesn't hover. Your thoughts?

Next month's read is a bit of history that sounds intriguing: The Imperial Tea Party: Family, Politics and Betrayal: The Ill-Fated British and Russian Royal Alliance by Frances Welch

An absolute must-read: "Jane Pettigrew's World of Tea"

To my great delight, a copy of Hoffman Media's lavish new tea book, Jane Pettigrew's World of Tea, showed up unbidden on my doorstep recently, and friends, I have to tell you that I am absolutely in love with this book!

I've never seen such a lovely tea book before, especially one so large (10 x 12 inches and an inch and a half thick) and with two (count 'em, two!) ribbon bookmarks. Splendid design on someone's part. And those aren't even the book's most impressive features in the great scheme of things. The real treasure in this book is all of the fascinating information, ranging from sections on the history of tea to its harvesting, oxidation, and fermentation methods and more. I was familiar with some of this information, but in reading this book, I learned there is still a heap more I have to learn about the wide, wide world of tea.

The lush, colorful images are a delight to behold, but this is much more than a picture book, and I was stunned by the amount of new information I came across. I shouldn't have been surprised, but it seems that most tea books give an overview, at best, of the world of tea, and this one goes into so much detail that my inner tea nerd was just beside herself. Are you one of those who likes to know about the chemical composition of tea? How it best grows? How the terroir (natural environment) of the tea affects its flavor? I adore that stuff, and this book is jam-packed with tea teachings I've never read anywhere else. Note the image at upper right, above. It's illustrating how the tea plant on the left has a weaker root system than the plant on the right. Why? The one on the right was grown from seed, the one on the left from a cutting. Fascinating!

And while I've seen differing lists for the various categories of tea, Pettigrew says there are six:, white, green, yellow, oolong, black, and dark. "Dark" teas include puerhs. "Dark tea" is new terminology to me, and I'm happy to have it, along with Pettigrew's extensive explanations (with charts, above) of how each category of tea is processed.

The book includes maps of all the tea-growing regions of the world, and I was happy to note that here in North America, the South is well represented. (We ought to get *something* in exchange for all this heat and humidity, right?) And see that little tea leaf graphic in northwest Georgia? Do you know where that is? Well, I'll tell you. It's at Dunaway Gardens here in Newnan, a historic property just 12 miles from my house, and while I knew Dunaway has been growing tea for a while, I was surprised and oh-so-proud to see it included in the book!

Of course, North American tea growers are only a small section in the book, and the larger tea-growing regions (Guangxi Province in China is shown here) get their due as well.

I felt as if I were opening a surprise on every page as I came across treats like this image showing machines that make matcha. Some more of my favorite tidbits from the book:

• In Taiwan, Oriental Beauty tea gets its unique flavor from some "leafhoppers" that bite the leaves, "causing the plants to produce enzymes to defend themselves and provoking oxidation in the leaves before they have been plucked."

• While I'm familiar with bricks of tea, I'd never before seen "logs" of dark tea like some attributed to Hunan Province in China.

• In Chapel Hill, North Carolina, Camellia Forest Nursery grows a pink-flowering camellia sinensis plant. (Yes, I want one!)

• I wish I'd known this when I was in Italy a few years ago, but there is an experimental camellia plantation in Tuscany that has been growing tea since 1760!

• The section on Darjeeling tea in India was especially intriguing and indicated that the tea industry there is much larger than I had imagined (52,000 permanent employees, 15,000 during plucking season!). I also found it interesting that "local knowledge is crucial [to Darjeeling's tea plantations], and expert tea makers tend to remain in a particular region for the duration of their working life because the skills required to produce good teas there are unique."

Jane Pettigrew's World of Tea is now available through Hoffman Media and on Amazon, and if you don't have it yet, or at least have it on your wish list, I highly recommend you get a copy and settle in with the biggest cup of tea you can find!

A visit to Quail Ridge Books in Raleigh, NC

Whenever I'm out of town, if there's time, I love to visit a local independent bookstore. In Raleigh over the weekend, that was Quail Ridge Books, and I absolutely loved this store!

I've seen this particular C.S. Lewis quote in a bookstore before, but not nearly as well done as it was here.

And look at this little reading nook near the magazine section. I would like to transport that to a corner of my home! I'm crazy about the clear chairs too!

And I should have taken a photo of it, but they had a cute vignette dedicated to the recent Royal Wedding, complete with Harry and Meghan paper dolls, tins of tea, a book about Prince Charles's gardens at Highgrove, and this book, National Trust Book of Afternoon Tea by Laura Mason, which I asked if I could pluck from the table (it was a bookstore, after all). The employee smiled and said yes, and she thanked me for asking so she could reshuffle things on the table. I knew I wanted this book because Linda recommended it here. I'm a lazy tea book collector these days, so I sometimes wait for one of my fellow tea bloggers to recommend a book before I purchase it. Besides, I know I can trust anything Linda recommends!

I've already made one very simple and quite delicious recipe from the book, for Moroccan Mint Tea. It's simple. In a teapot, add three teaspoons of green tea, three tablespoons of sugar, and a handful of fresh spearmint leaves. Fill the pot with boiling water (I used "just under boiling" water), and let steep for three minutes. I can't remember the last time I actually added sugar to a cup of tea, but this was absolutely delicious!

"The Cosy Christmas Tea Shop" by Caroline Roberts

This month’s selection for the Tea Lovers’ Book Club, The Cosy Christmas Tea Shop by Caroline Roberts, wasn’t quite what I'd expected. The book was a bit edgier than I’d imagined, and it had some serious moments I didn't expect because of the book’s chick-lit cover, but overall I thought it was an enjoyable read.

Summary: Fall is on the way, and castle tea shop proprietress and wedding caterer Ellie Hall is busy trying to drum up more business at Claverham Castle, which is owned by her curmudgeonly father-in-law, Lord Henry. The book begins as Ellie is faced with a real Bridezilla who has suddenly decided she’s intent on a unicorn-themed wedding. It sounds perfectly ghastly, but Ellie manages to make the best of it, pulls it off, and explores even more ways she and her husband, Joe, can help keep the cash flowing to the old castle. As Christmastime approaches, she and her staff decide to hold a Christmas fair at the castle, and the baking and entertaining ramp up once again—especially when there's a Christmas wedding for a favorite couple who’d experienced a near tragedy and had to rebook.

My thoughts: While the author has a nice descriptive writing style, the book caused me to stumble at times because it contained so many grammar and punctuation errors and typos. I got the impression this was a book no one bothered to proofread, and that’s a shame, because the author clearly has the potential to be top-notch with some very basic cleanup of the text. When I forced myself to focus on the story itself, I found the tale quite enjoyable.

The characters: I very much enjoyed getting to know Ellie and Joe and found their relationship genuine and believable. I was surprised to see the early focus on their troubles getting pregnant, but that struck me as a very real plotline, and it didn’t overtake the coziness of the book. Of the other characters, one of my favorites ended up being cranky old Lord Henry, never more than when he got roped into performing as Father Christmas and was kind to a little girl with Down syndrome. Kindness—especially to children—scores you a lot of points in my book!

Questions for discussion:

Food. In a tea-themed book, I expect to see lots of great descriptions of the food and beverages, and this book did not disappoint in that regard. I was happy to see a few mentions of Garibaldi biscuits (or "cookies," to us) since one of my Christmas gifts was a British cookbook that has a recipe for them. I also enjoyed reading about the stacked cake made of cheeses and thought this would be a wonderful treat to have at a wedding or other large social event. Do you like to read about the food in a book like this?

UK differences. While reading a book by an author in the UK, I enjoy noting the differences in some of our terminology, such as the fact that they say "biscuit" instead of "cookie." And I could not even type the title of this blog post without first typing "cozy" instead of "cosy." Did you note these differences? Did you enjoy spotting them?

Sense of place. The author did a fine job of creating a real sense of place with the descriptions of the old castle and its advantages (history, beauty) and disadvantages (the wiring, the plumbing). When a deep snow falls right before an important wedding, I could truly picture the magnificent scene. Did you have a vivid picture of the setting in your mind?

Our next book: Now that we’ve read two novels in a row, I think it’s time to go for some nonfiction, so I’ve selected Darjeeling: A History of the World's Greatest Tea by Jeff Koehler. I'd love to have you read it and join in the discussion on Friday, January 26!

"A Scone to Die For" by H.Y. Hanna - Oxford Tearoom Mystery - Book 1

If you are a reader of e-books, do you subscribe to BookBub? That's a service that notifies you of free and discounted deals on e-books in your favorite genres. It was through BookBub that I learned of the delightful cozy mystery "A Scone to Die For," first in the Oxford Tearoom Mystery series by H.Y. Hanna.

Twenty-nine-year-old Gemma Rose, an Oxford grad, had been climbing the corporate ladder in Australia when she realized she wasn't enjoying life and decided to move back home to England to create a new life for herself. There, she sinks her savings into the Little Stables Tearoom in the Cotswolds village of Meadowford-on-Smythe. Assisted by her talented baker, Fletcher, and her dear friend Cassie, Gemma seems to be making a go of it, earning favor with the locals as well as the many tourists who pop by.

One day, a group of American tourists visit the tearoom, and one American guest nearly drives her to distraction with his rudeness. He snaps his fingers to call for attention, is loud and obnoxious, and even makes a grab for Cassie before leaving the tearoom. The rude American—and Gemma is quick to note he is the exception and not the rule—is found the next morning sitting outside the tearoom, dead. Naturally, Gemma finds herself right in the middle of the search for the man's murderer, an investigation that is further complicated for her when one of the detectives turns out to be an old flame.

Like the best cozies, this one kept me guessing who the killer was, with plenty of red herrings thrown in to keep things interesting. Hanna is particularly adept at crafting likable characters and a strong sense of place. I learned some new things about Oxford, and I could practically taste the Chelsea buns as, under the tutelage of Fletcher, she "kneaded the sticky dough and then spread it out and sprinkled the cinnamon, raisins, currants, and rich muscovado sugar across the surface."

While I've visited several English tearooms, I've yet to visit the Cotswalds. Until I can get there, I'm quite happy to have discovered a charming new cozy mystery series that will allow me to take tea in the Cotswalds at my leisure. If you decide to read the book for yourself, I'd love to hear what you think!