Valentine's Week Giveaway #7

Happy Valentine's Day, friends! I can't believe the day is here already—I feel like I just got started sharing vintage Valentines and giveaway treats! Today I'll end with one of my favorite Valentine acquisitions of the last year, this red teapot design.

The inside says, Does "oo-long" for me? The grammar needs a little work, but the message is cute as can be! And since today is the last day I'll be sharing tea-themed Valentines this year, I wanted to answer a couple of questions I was asked about them. First, Mary Jane wanted to know, how do I display them? Well, I must confess that until that question, it had not occurred to me to display them! I keep them all filed in a little photo storage box, and I just wanted them for crafting and graphics inspiration. Now, though, I'm thinking maybe I'll be on the lookout for a nice collage frame and display new ones each year. Phyllis asked if I knew how many I have. Yes, 43. My goal is to find at least seven new ones each year so that I'll be set for the following year's Valentine's giveaways on this blog. You'll be happy (I hope!) to know that I've already got enough to do another week of posts next year! And I should mention that there are still plenty of tea-themed Valentines I do not have, but I like to get them for under $5 (with a few exceptions) and am willing to wait years to get them at a bargain price. Makes the hunt more fun!

And as our last giveaway for Valentine's Week 2013, I hope you won't think I'm nuts for offering two "Easter" tea towels, but when I saw these at T.J. Maxx I thought they'd be perfect for one of you! Besides, I don't see any Easter eggs or bunny rabbits on these tea towels, just a cute, cheerful design of teacups. The two tea towels are exactly alike, so you'll have one to keep and one to give away if you're so inclined. If you'd like to win them, just leave an "Enter me" to this post between now and 7 a.m. EST tomorrow. Hope you all have a very, very Happy Valentine's Day!

The Valentine's Week Giveaway #5 winner is ...

Beth! And this is the Beth who wrote yesterday at 9:36 p.m., "I would love to be entered to win the journal. I love your blog and look forward to it daily :). Thank you!" Thank you, Beth, and if you'll send me your snail mail address via the e-mail button at right, I'll get the journal headed your way!

Valentine's Week Giveaway #6

Now this vintage Valentine is interesting to me for several reasons. First, you'll see what looks like a scratch or tear at the bottom, a curve through the bottom two hearts. This is apparently a tab designed into the Valentine so you can stand it up if you like. The other thing that strikes me about this Valentine is that it's a little sassy: "You eat my food and drink my tea, Why don't you feast your eyes on ME?"

This card was actually sent to Gail from Sharon, so I'm going to assume they were friends and this was really just an innocent little greeting. If a grownup told me, "You eat my food and drink my tea," I'd think they were saying I was a hog! And if a child said that to me, I'd tell them they were being too sassy and ought to have their mouth washed out with soap. (Something that never happened to me, but probably should have!)

Speaking of soap, I have some! Actually, I have some for one of you, and it smells yummy, yummy, yummy!

It's one of those mammoth-sized Rose & Green Tea soaps, and I estimate this'll last you until about, oh, Halloween or so. If you'd like to win, just leave an "Enter me" comment to this post between now and 7 a.m. EST tomorrow. Good luck!

The Valentine's Week Giveaway #4 winner is ...

Ruthie Miller! Ruthie, if you'll send me your snail mail address via the e-mail button at right, I'll get the Blue Willow linens headed your way. Congrats!

Valentine's Week Giveaway #5

It has occurred to me that I might need to explain what a Valentine actually is to the younger generation. "This thing here, you see, was called a Valentine. It was kind of like a sweet, innocent, romantic text message you would send to the boy or girl you liked, only you wrote your name on it yourself, and you personally handed it to the recipient instead of hitting the 'SEND' button." They'd never understand it, would they?

Some of the vintage Valentines I've collected are blank, and some are signed with names like "Irma" and "Geneva." This one, clearly, was sent by Ronnie Giselman. Or at least Ronnie Giselman's mother. I've never seen a Valentine with the name stamped on the back before, and so I can just picture Ronnie's mother. She made the cupcakes for the class Valentine's party, had all the neighborhood kids over on the Fourth of July, and her Christmas cards were all written and in the mail by December 1. Or maybe the name was stamped because Ronnie just had so many friends. What's your story about why this is stamped instead of handwritten?

Sometimes it's fun to ponder things like this, and there's no better place to ponder than in a journal. Perhaps a tea-themed journal, like this one. I bought myself one of these cute journals earlier this year, and when I saw another I decided it should be a Valentine's giveaway treat for one of you. To be entered to win, just leave a comment to this post between now and 7 a.m. EST tomorrow. Good luck!

The Valentine's Week Giveaway #3 winner is ...

Loralie! If you'll send me your snail mail address via the e-mail button at right, I'll get this tea headed your way. Congrats!

Valentine's Week Giveaway #4

One of my favorite new tea-themed vintage Valentines collected over the past year is this little guy, a sweet old-fashioned blue teapot. Perhaps it's because I've been "into the blues" recently, at least color-wise!

At any rate, I hope you won't have the blues when you see today's Valentine's Week giveaway, a flour sack tea towel and matching pot holder in the Blue Willow pattern! If you'd like to be entered to win, just leave an "Enter me" type comment to this post between now and 7 a.m. EST tomorrow. Good luck!

The Valentine's Week Giveaway #2 winner is ...

Snap! If you'll send me your snail mail address via the e-mail button at right, I'll get the tea towel packaged up and headed your way. Congrats!

Valentine's Week Giveaway #3

"Pour out your love for me" is such a great sentiment that I decided to ...

... pour out my love for you, dear tea friends, with a box of English Tea Shop's Chocolate, Rooibos and Vanilla tea! Since we take Sunday off here, you'll have until 7 a.m. Monday to leave an "Enter me" comment to this post. Good luck!

Tea Room Recipe #6 - McDonald Tea Room (Gallatin, Mo.)

Friends, do I have a treat for you this week! Yes, yes, the yummy Strawberry Jam Cup Cakes are the edible treat, but if you like history and women and food and, well, let me just get right to it!

Clearly, this week's tea room cookbook, "How It Is Done!", is a bit older than most of those in my collection. There's no date, but it originally sold for $1.00 and reprints a number of articles from the late 1930s and early 1940s, so I'm guessing this book dates to the early forties.

The author is Virginia Rowell McDonald, and my-oh-my, what a fascinating story she tells! Virginia was "from one of the first families of old Texas," and she married a traveling salesman, Charles McDonald, who was a Missouri fellow and moved with him to Gallatin, Mo. Alas, the new bride got tuberculosis and dwindled down to 79 pounds! She spent 7-1/2 years in bed on her back in a little screened-in room built for her so she could get fresh air. Her husband spent every penny he made on trying to restore his wife's health, and indeed she got better. By the time the stock market crashed, Virginia felt she was getting better and told her husband she believed she could use some of those Texas cooking schools inherited from her mother to open a tea room. (Her mother's story is interesting as well. Virginia writes: "My mother was born in the South during slavery. She was the mother of three children when the slaves were freed. She did not know how to do anything except fine needlework, as all her life she had not known what it was to even fan a fly off herself. She made up her mind that she would teach her children to do everything, so that the lessons wouldn't come so hard as they had for her. … When I was ten years old, I could make a cake as good as I can now.")

Virginia's husband had been selling hot dogs across the counter of the hardware business he ran, and it was turned into the tea room shown here. When Virginia took over, no longer would there be food handed across the counter, and hot dogs were certainly out. She never even served plain old cornbread. "I was determined upon one policy, that everything here should be beautiful to the eye, everything served should be in the daintiest form I could shape it. My corn meal was made into dainty, attractive muffins, that would melt in your mouth. It was just such differences that have made my tea room distinct from all others." Her vision succeeded wildly, with as many as 350 routinely showing up for Sunday dinner, and her tea room would go on to be named one of the top 10 eating places in the entire country!

And here is a photo of the McDonald home built by Virginia's father-in-law. Please do yourself a favor and double-click to read the cutline printed on the page. Fun stuff!

And now, here's the recipe as printed in the book, followed by my own version. I must tell you these cup cakes — two words, Virginia-style — are quite different from the usual fluffy, yellow cake versions. When I saw that the ingredients included a cup of strawberry preserves, a teaspoon of cinnamon and also a teaspoon of nutmeg, I questioned the amount of the spices. I should have trusted Virginia! The result is a very grown-up, sophisticated tasting cup cake, perfect for any Valentine's baking you may have planned. I wondered whether it was appropriate to make a vintage recipe in my very contemporary, frou-frou baking cups, but then I read more advice from Virginia and felt sure of myself: "Don't try to do things like other people. Do them your way!" (Do you love this woman as much as I do?)

Strawberry Jam Cup Cakes

1 cup sugar
1/2 cup Crisco shortening
1/2 cup buttermilk
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 large eggs, beaten
1 cup strawberry preserves
2 cups cake flour (I used Swans Down)
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon nutmeg
1 teaspoon baking soda

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Cream sugar and shortening. Add salt, cinnamon and nutmeg and combine, then add eggs. In separate bowl, mix baking soda with buttermilk. To the creamed mixture add the flour and buttermilk in three additions each, beginning with the flour. Fold in preserves, then spoon batter into baking cups about 2/3 full. Bake for 18-20 minutes or until tops spring back when touched. Yields about 20 cup cakes.

Note: I iced my cup cakes with a simple cream cheese frosting consisting of 3 ounces cream cheese, 1/4 cup butter, 1 teaspoon vanilla and 2 cups powdered sugar.

The Valentine's Week Giveaway #1 winner is ...

... Amherst Rose! I believe I have two different addresses for you, so if you'll send me the correct snail mail address via the e-mail button at right, I'll get the cupcake skirts headed your way. Congrats!

Valentine's Week Giveaway #2

This little chick in her cup of tea is such a cute one! The tea-themed vintage Valentines often feature a child or animal in a teacup, and I've seen them with a little girl, a sailor and even a bunny rabbit before! These are definitely my cup of tea!

If you're into cups (and pots) of tea as well, perhaps you could use a new terrycloth tea towel? Here's the front, and ...

... here's the back. This one has cute teapots, coffeepots and teacups all over, and while I often save my "fancy" tea towels for display, I use and re-use the terrycloth ones until they fall apart! If you'd like to win, just leave a comment to this post between now and 7 a.m. EST tomorrow. Good luck!

Valentine's Week Giveaway #1

Longtime readers of this blog know I adore Valentine's Day, and so I like to have a week-long buildup to the day by featuring some of my vintage tea-themed Valentines and offering seven days of Valentine's giveaways! My favorite Valentine collected since last year is this large, 8 x 11-inch foldout card with honeycomb tissue accents. I love the sweet sentiment: "I pray that your Heart's Garden, May be set with Sweetest Flowers, That your Life be like the Dial, Telling none but sunny Hours."

And here's what the Valentine looks like in its three-dimensional pose. I'm puzzled there's not a tissue piece on the left front (I like symmetry!), but there's no glue or tape remnant indicating anything is missing. Odd, that, but I still love it!

Here's a close-up of the little girl taking tea in a flowerpot. That's my idea of a good time, taking tea and gardening all at once! (Don't you agree, Judith?)

I also have a good time giving away Valentine's treats, and first up are these cute pink cupcake skirts. I wanted to give them away first so the winner will have them in time for Valentine's baking, if desired.

Want to win? Just leave an "Enter me" to this post between now and 7 a.m. EST tomorrow and these could be headed your way! Good luck!

"The Tea-Time Recipe Book"

Old teatime booklets are always fun to come across, and I'll say just a little about this one today to give you time to double-click on the images so you can better read these pages, if you're so inclined! (The scans look a bit wonky here, but if you click on them they become quite readable.) The booklet promotes recipes using "Raisley," a sort of baking powder type ingredient. But what most caught my attention was the royal warrant on the cover, noting that this product is "By Appointment to His Majesty King George V." If it was good enough for King George, it's good enough for me!

Wild Maine Blueberry Green Tea

For some reason I've been sipping out of this Blue Willow teacup a lot lately, and it seemed the appropriate cup to use when a friend gave me a belated Christmas gift of some Bar Harbor Tea Company Wild Maine Blueberry Green Tea the other day.

The gift giver, my friend Ruth, is from Maine, and over the years I have known her I've heard lots of marvelous stories of her childhood spent on an island in Maine. She has often gifted me with blueberry-themed gifts over the years, and of course a blueberry tea is quite welcome! This green tea had a delicate but distinctly fruity blueberry flavor, and I loved that it had no grassy taste.

I also liked the fact I opened the box and found those nice silken teabags inside. It's always a treat to find some of those, and I was quite impressed with my Bar Harbor tea. This is a new brand to me. Have any of you tried Bar Harbor teas, and if so what did you think?

The weekend's tea finds

Over the weekend I went shopping with my mother and aunt, and as you can see here it was a fruitful "tea" day. The teapot and teacup are full-size, and I have them in the photo so you can see that this old tea tin I found at an antique mall is simply huge!

This is by no means my usual delicate little piece of bone china or silver, but the Daisee Tee Balls tin is just so huge, I had to have it! It's 11-1/2 inches tall, 7-3/4 inches in diameter, and I've already thought of quite a few ways I may use it: umbrella stand, craft room trash can, floral container, plant stand. I wish the lid had been with it, but since it's not I'll just be creative!

I was intrigued that the side panel reveals the tin contained 600 "fancy tea balls" which would each make from 1-4 cups of Fancy Orange Pekoe. So, this tin could have potentially prepared 2,400 cups of tea. Guess one tin a year ought to do you, eh? Actually, this tin also is marked "The Herman Co., Wholesale Grocers, Paterson, New Jersey," so I would assume they supplied restaurants or other large-scale users of tea.

Although I didn't find any teapots in the stores, my mom gave me an early Valentine's gift, this "Pink Love" teapot. And I do love it!

She also had found me a new teacup, this one marked Enesco Japan and "October-Cosmos." One of those flowers-of-the-month series? I may have to look for the other 11 cup and saucer sets!

Tea Room Recipe #5 - Miss Mable's Tea Room (Dickson, Tenn.)

One of my all-time favorite tea rooms was Miss Mable's in Dickson, Tenn. My girlfriend Beth and I made a special overnight trip to Tennessee just to go to the tea room, and it was definitely worth every mile we traveled to get there! The house was lovely, the food was scrumptious (an excellent heart-shaped scone glistening with sugar crystals stands out in my memory), and I particularly remember the gracious proprietress, Fay Davidson. I also remember a magnificent gift shop, a series of gift shops, really, and all that together made this a memorable tea room.

Naturally, I came home with a cookbook, and since Miss Mable's closed in 2009, I am most grateful for my book!

I seem to be drawn to comfort food this winter, and this recipe for Hot Chicken Salad greatly appealed to me. The funny thing is, it calls for a potato chip topping, and I almost never eat potato chips (my weakness is sweets, not salt), but the potato chips made this oh-so-good. I definitely recommend you serve this sometime when the hot, crispy-topped dish will be eaten up on the spot!

Hot Chicken Salad

3 cups chicken, cooked and chopped (I used boneless chicken breasts)
2 (10-3/4-ounce) cans cream of chicken soup
1 medium onion, chopped
3/4 cup celery, chopped
Salt and pepper to taste (go light on the salt; this dish has plenty!)
1/2 cup mayonnaise
1/2 teaspoon lemon juice
2 hard-boiled eggs, chopped
1 to 1-1/2 cups shredded Swiss or cheddar cheese (I used 1 cup of cheddar)
2 cups potato chips, crushed

Mix all ingredients except cheese and chips and pour into an 8- or 9-inch-square casserole dish prepared with cooking spray. Top with cheese, then chips, and bake at 375 degrees for 40 minutes. Yields 6 large servings. Would be great as a "ladies luncheon" entree!

Sampling some new Harney teas

This week I had the pleasure of trying some new Harney & Sons teas thanks to my generous giveaway win from Linda of Friendship Tea. The new (to me!) flavors are Earl Grey Supreme, Hot Cinnamon Spice, White Vanilla Grapefruit and Paris.

Earl Grey remains one of my favorite blends of tea, and I must be honest and tell you I've rarely tried an Earl Grey I did *not* like. Still, this one was extra smooth tasting, and it's unique in that it includes Silver Tips!

Had I tried Hot Cinnamon Spice tea before? I thought so, but I can't remember who shared it with me. (If you're reading, please forgive me!) But one sniff and one sip and I knew yes, I have had this before, because it reminds me of those red hot cinnamon candies! It's definitely the cinnamoniest cinnamon tea I've ever tried, and I do think it would be nice to have a tin of this around for occasional sipping.

This White Vanilla Grapefruit was the most intriguing sounding blend. Vanilla to me is a heavier, sweeter taste, while citrus is light and lively. Would the two marry well? Indeed yes! One sniff of the steeped tea and I got notes of both vanilla and citrus, and I enjoyed this flavor very much.

Have I tried Paris before? (The tea, not the city.) If I have, I don't remember it, and I think I would remember this delightfully caramel-ish tea. It also has currant and citrus flavors, but the caramel is what stands out most to me. It's always fun to try new teas without the "commitment" of having to purchase a full tin, so I am especially grateful to Linda for including these great goodies in my giveaway package!