A trip to World Market

Designs with a tea bowl and saucer always catch my attention, so naturally I was drawn to this tea towel during a visit to World Market over the weekend.

This time I didn't notice any new teas I couldn't live without, but they did have a couple of tea towels I thought were nice at an extra sweet price, just $3.99 each.

A lot of gift stores are now charging $15 and up for tea towels, I've observed, but these World Market versions suit me just fine!

I was also interested in the new baking supplies, including silicone mini muffin cups and heart-shaped regular size muffin cups. These were just $2.49 a package, and I'm already wishing I'd gotten more!

This week I have to finalize plans for our magazine's Christmas issue, and I'm seriously hoping these red and green baking cups will put me in the mood. It's kind of hard to get all fa-la-la in the heat of August, but my little trip to World Market certainly helped!

Small (tea) blessings

Recently I had an unexpected gift in the form of an extended lunch date with my dear friend (and fellow writer) Kathy, who came to Newnan for a family visit and had a little time on her hands. We are kindred spirits in a hundred different ways, and when she reaches in her bag (as she often does) and says, "This is just a little something I picked up for you," you know it is going to be completely wonderful!

Ever since I started writing my Easter adventures featuring the tea-loving Peep sisters Emma and Matilda a few years ago, I have kept an eye out for tiny tea sets. Alas, I've come across only one, so I was extra excited to receive this sweet set from Kathy. Emma and Matilda are going to love it! This tea set is sooooo tiny, the boxed set measures just 2 x 1-3/4 inches.

The teapot, for instance, is just 1-1/8 inches tall. This was a great gift, but it was made all the more special because it came from a dear friend -- and it's so lovely to be ahead on the Easter blogging for 2011! This gift also made me think about the fact I don't come across tiny little tea sets any more. Do you? If so, where?

A different kind of floral teapot

Back in the spring I picked some flowers for future crafting, and for months now I have been drying the petals between the pages of a book. This weekend, I decided it was time to try my hand at the craft I had in mind, and this was the result. I'm not sure what I'll do with it (scan the design for notecards, maybe?), but I'm pretty happy with my inaugural effort!

It seemed like I spent hours separating and pressing those violet buds and other pieces and petals back in the spring. Naturally, I realize now I should have collected about 10 times as many pieces if I truly wanted to have a good supply of "materials" to work with. Next year!

My teapot was traced in pencil on a 5 x 7 inch blank canvas, and then I lightly outlined the teapot with the edge of a glue stick before arranging the pink petals. The other pieces I arranged and glued individually. So far everything still seems to be adhering pretty well. I'll eventually need to frame this under glass so the petals don't crumple and blow away. Any pressed flower crafters out there? I'm always open to instruction!

Tea & Books Saturday #33: "Mariage Frères French Tea"

Mariage Frères French Tea
By Alain Stella
Flammarion, 2003/2009

Lots of women who've never been to France dream of going one day, but I'm not among them. I've simply never had a desire to go. When I went to England a few years back I could have signed up for an optional trip to Paris, but I said no thanks. It just didn't interest me. And I say all that just so you'll know that I approached the book "Mariage Frères French Tea" not as some starry-eyed Francophile but simply as someone who wanted to know more about the company's tea. Now, I'm so smitten by what I learned about French tea that a visit to their Rue du Bourg-Tibourg location in Paris is on my Bucket List and I can hardly believe it myself!

When I got a generous Barnes and Noble gift card as a Christmas gift last year, I knew I wanted to save it for one big, pricey volume, and this was it. I just got around to reading the book during some quiet hours this week, and wow, what a book this is! The packaging and book design of this slipcased volume are just so lovely (the book is on the left), the book itself was fun to read, and the photography -- well, more on that later.

I steeped a cup of Mariage Frères' Eros tea, the only one I've ever tried, and settled in for the adventure.

If you're like me, you never see the word "Mariage" without wanting to drop an extra "r" in the middle. I'm so glad the author got that issue out of the way early on by describing the genesis of the company name. "Contrary to expectation, the name has nothing to do with marriage or nuptials of any kind. It comes from the old French verb maréier, 'to run the seas,' mer being French for sea. In a nautical context, a maréage was a sailor's contract for the run, that is to say a set wage for a given voyage regardless of how long it lasted." The family's name was spelled different ways over the years -- Marage, Maroige, Mariage, Maraige -- and eventually Mariage became the permanent choice.

The book tells how the company evolved over the years, beginning with brothers Pierre and Nicolas Mariage, who were first to trade in "exotic goods." The author says that "in the 1660s, Pierre was sent to Madagascar on a mission for the French East India Company, while Nicolas made several trips to Persia and India before being named part of an official deputation sent by Louis XIV to sign a trade agreement with the Shah of Persia," and it is likely they were already interested in tea. Fast forward through a few centuries and you come to Marthe Cottin, born in 1901 to Léon Cottin and Marie Mariage. Marthe Cottin, who had no children, was the last member of the family to run the business and retired in 1983. I was fascinated to learn about her hand in the company and her selection of the two young men she found to serve as her successors and the company's new owners, the Dutchman Richard Bueno (who is now deceased) and Kitti Cha Sangmanee of Thailand. I was quite impressed to learn of the many tea customs and conventions for which we must thank these men. The categories of white tea, red tea, blue tea? Mariage Frères was first to designate those. The use of tea as an ingredient in cooking? Mariage Frères was first to try it (and the book includes a few of their recipes). Tea-scented candles? Mariage Frères was first to create some.

Because this book is larger than the usual volume on tea (about 10 x 9 inches), the wonderful photography is shown to great advantage. When I got to page 37 and saw Francis Hammond's magnificent photograph of a Thai Beauty tea leaf, I literally sat and stared in amazement. I've seen (and taken) so many bad photographs over the years, I am extra appreciative of good photography. How on earth he got a single tea leaf to pose so brilliantly, so seductively against that black-black background I'll never understand. Bravo!

I ended my reading of this truly amazing book with, of course, an armchair visit via the website of Mariage Frères. Until I can get to Rue du Bourg-Tibourg, it will have to do. I mean, really, who *doesn't* want to go to France one day?

A final note: I do have one beef with this book, and it's not with the subject or the author -- it's with the publisher, Flammarion. Now I am truly a "gentle reader" of my books, taking care to handle them properly, not wanting smudged or crinkled pages or broken spines. So I was not happy to find the poorly-sewn and glued pages of this book separating from the spine as I read it! For a brand new, $50 book, this is totally unacceptable, so if I had it to do over I would buy the book on the used market rather than assuming I'd get a quality book by purchasing it new.

In praise of Sweet Tea

One of the best parts of my day job of editing a small city magazine is that I get to read so many other magazines for inspiration. I especially enjoy finding magazines from other cities and states, and one of my favorites is Our State: Down Home in North Carolina. The August 2010 issue is no doubt my recent favorite, and I hope they get an award for that wonderful cover! Those Mason jars of sweet tea are just incredibly inviting, and I know from experience that styling a food photo like that is not easy. Ice melts. Bugs land. Lemons shrivel. And yet they pulled it off just beautifully.

Every few years or so, I seem to come across in a southern magazine a particularly fine essay on the virtues of a well-made glass of sweet tea, which in the South means iced sweet tea. This essay, by Tommy Tomlinson, is one of the best ever. Here are a few of my favorite lines from his piece:

• "This tea is the color of a baseball glove, but clear enough to see through."

• "... at its most basic, sweet tea is a cold blast on a hot day, like a dip in a river from the inside out."

• "What we're talking about, when we talk about sweet tea, is something brewed that morning, stirred by hand, served by a waitress who calls you darlin', poured out of one of those special pitchers with the spout on the side, or better yet, sitting in the fridge at your mama's house."

Doesn't that just make you want to go pour yourself a big glass of sweet tea? If you can't get homemade, the word around here is that the best sweet tea comes from Chick-fil-A (for drive-through dining) and Golden's restaurant in downtown Newnan (a cafeteria). My favorite sweet tea, however, is made by ... me! If you're a sweet tea fan, not just from the South but anywhere, I'd love to hear who *you* think makes the best sweet tea!

Estate Sale Stories

Once again, a local estate sale has resulted in a lovely addition to my small but growing collection of tea trivets. This one came from an estate sale at 92 Greenville St., and today's the last day of the sale for any of you locals who may need a few teawares, linens, old books and records, Victorian furniture, or perhaps the wonderful Victrola I heard streaming music through this great white-columned home as I browsed. I was amused that one of my town's more colorful characters walked up to me as I was carrying my tea trivet, ignored my "Hello" and simply said "How much was that?" "Five dollars." She walked off without another word. Odd!

This cutwork and lace runner was in wonderful condition. Love the design on this piece, and it can be used in lots of places.

I also found a small dish created in honor of Queen Elizabeth's Silver Jubilee. Got to love the Queen!

This vintage pincushion charmed me with its remnant of an old flag. I also think I could copy this simple felt design myself.

This vintage face powder box will join a few other vintage cosmetics in my bathroom.

I've long wanted an old, tattered songbook for crafting purposes, and I plan to have fun with this one. I got tickled at the misspelling of "Autumn Song" which becomes "Autumn Snog" on the opposite page. Sounds like a great Irish beverage, doesn't it? "Just pour me a cup of Autumn Snog, waiter!"

And the salmony pink vintage hatbox will make for pretty storage in the craft room and also gave me a great way to lug all my stuff home!

The Tea Lovers Eco Cup

It was supposed to be just a simple in-and-out trip to Books A Million in Peachtree City to pick up a copy of one of the few magazines I can't find in Newnan. I would dash in through the café, cut to the back where the magazines are, check out and be on my merry way. But no. The café just HAD to have a display of these Tea Lovers Eco Cups in cute patterns with teapot-shaped doodads on them. I mean, really. I've resisted buying one of these ceramic mugs mimicking the look of a to-go cup every time I've seen them so far, even when I spotted pink ones at T.J. Maxx.

But with roses? What rose-crazy tea lover could resist that, I ask you?

And the teapot-shaped doodad? So that bit of $8.99 cuteness was going home with me, no two ways about it. I got home and was getting ready to photograph my new cup when I realized the string of the tag was tangled behind the teapot. That's when it dawned on me the "doodad" is designed to wrap your teabag string around! It was a "duh" moment if ever there was one! If you have a BAM nearby, these come in lots of great patterns, including stripes, funky flowers and even one with a floral pattern reminiscent of Blue Willow. But I'm quite happy with the roses and green teapot design. What a fun find!

The write stuff, teapot-style

Recently I relocated an antique writing desk from my craft room, where it had been crammed with all sorts of things that don't belong there, to a corner spot in the living room, where it now is home to pens and papers. Although I do have a pile of homeless craft items awaiting relocation in the craft room, it is so nice to open a drawer of that writing desk and find the stationery and note cards it was meant to hold. One of the things I rediscovered was this Mary Engelbreit pen in a design I absolutely love!

The cheery cherry teapot on top is just the sort of ME design that makes me smile when I reach for it, perhaps because I like pens *almost* as much as I like tea!

A pretty red tin houses the pen and has no doubt kept me from banging it around and losing the teapot top, and I'd sure love to see Mary come out with more teapot pens-in-tins!

Teacup cobblers

Last week when I wrote about my new Teacupcake baking molds, I got some very helpful (and inspiring!) reader comments. One idea was to bake cupcakes in regular paper liners and then serve them in teacups (how easy!), and another comment was about actually baking in teacups. I'd forgotten that could be done as well, so I pulled out some glass teacups and punch cups from the thrift store and decided to bake cobblers.

I really like how the cobblers turned out, and here's mine halfway through eating! The teacups made serving and portion control super simple, and the fresh blueberries I picked at my parents' house last weekend cooked up beautifully -- and so yummy!

We had some family visiting so I served them these cobblers, and here was the happy result! If you're interested in baking these for yourself, here's the recipe.

Easy Blueberry Cobblers

1 stick margarine, melted
1 cup self-rising flour
1 cup sugar, divided
1 cup skim milk
2 cups fresh blueberries

Preheat oven to 350 degrees and spray six glass teacups/punch cups with cooking spray. Bruise the fruit slightly with a fork or spoon, add 1/4 cup of the sugar, mix well and set aside. Mix remaining sugar with flour. Add milk and melted margarine and blend. Spoon batter among the teacups about 2/3 to 3/4 full. Then spoon blueberries with sugar and juices atop each teacup. Bake for 35-40 minutes or until cobbler is just beginning to brown. (Note: I had a little batter and blueberries left over, but no more glass teacups, so I believe this recipe would make 6-8 cobblers, depending upon the size of the teacups and how full you prefer to make them.) Enjoy!

Tea and Books Saturday #32 - "Tea: East and West"

Tea: East and West
Edited by Rupert Faulkner
V&A Publications, 2003

In 2000, the Victoria and Albert Museum in London staged the exhibition "Ten Truths About Tea," and this book of essays by various authors was published as a result of the exhibit. The chapter on tea in Japan includes a passage from a 1692 "History of Japan" by the German physician Engelbert Kaempfer. Three different methods of infusing tea are described. The first is simply infusing the leaves in hot water. The second is grinding the tea leaves into powder and then mixing this powder with hot water. The third is "a perfect boiling, which goes further than a simple infusion, and is used by the vulgar and Country people, who drink of it all day long." I don't imagine the "vulgar and Country people" cared what that author thought about their method of tea preparation!

In the chapter on tea in Russia, Iran and Turkey, I learned that in the 1900s tea was grown on domestic tea plantations in Georgia, which of course caught my attention since I live in a different Georgia. And in the 1920s, Turkey's tea industry was started with seeds imported from Georgia as well. That's fun stuff to know!

The book does a good job of presenting an overview of tea growing and tea drinking around the globe, but forget all that. The real reason to get this book is the amazing photographs and illustrations it contains! There's a photo I don't believe I've seen before of tea hunter Robert Fortune, and there are great photos of tea being enjoyed in various settings around the world. It's really amazing to see photos of tea in production in 1891 in Sri Lanka, photos from the V&A's collection. There are also lots of teaware photos which I bet will make you, like me, sorry you never saw this exhibit for yourself: 12th and 13th century Chinese tea bowls, a copper and brass Monastic teapot from Tibet, a green tea caddy I never would have guessed was a caddy (looks like a bottle to me), and THE most exquisite tea caddy I've ever laid eyes on, featuring rolled paper (or quilling) designs and embroidery on wood. My, my, my! There is much to admire in this book, and the combination of history and great images is one you really don't want to miss.

Tea for your tootsies

It finally dawned on me I've had a new-tea-products theme going this week, totally coincidental, but hey, why stop a good thing? So today I have to share a treat recently delivered by my new Avon lady, this Green Tea & Mint Cooling Moisture Lotion from the Avon Foot Works line. I've shopped with Avon as long as I can remember, and in college I was briefly an Avon lady myself, so I have great fondness for their products and those cute little brochures you get every two weeks.

Now I don't know about you, but my feet take a beating in the summertime. My heels haven't seen the backside of a shoe in months, so I decided this adorable pink high heel-shaped pumice stone in the recent sale flyer was something that was definitely needed!

The lotion, I am happy to report, contains camellia sinensis leaf extract and is a pleasant-scented lotion which is non-greasy and absorbs quickly. My feet felt softer the first time I used it. The only bad thing is, it was in the sale flyer, not the regular catalog, so I don't know how much longer this product will be available. So if your heels need a little TLC like mine did, look for your nearest Avon lady, and fast!

Mountain Farm Smokey Salt with tea and lavender

You really shouldn't read a food magazine when you're hungry. Actually, it wasn't *technically* a food magazine I was reading, it was the food issue of North Carolina's Our State magazine. They came up with the brilliant idea of featuring a food from all 100 counties in the state, and one of the featured foods was the culinary lavender from Mountain Farm in Burnsville. Marilyn Cade, who is described as "obsessed with lavender," makes "lavender vinegar, lavender-infused honey, and a lavender smokey salt — salt imported from France mixed with lavender and lapsang souchong tea." Naturally, I had to go online and order some. I don't like to drink lapsang souchong tea, but I do enjoy cooking with it!

This view of the inside of the jar shows the chunks of salt interspersed with the lavender and tea. The tag on the jar recommends different ways of using the salt.

I decided to experiment on half a tilapia fillet at supper last night. I used a little too much of the salt because the fish was a bit too salty. Still, I have to say I was very pleased with the faint taste of lavender and the smokey but pleasant dry lapsang souchong tea, which has a whole different character when baked in the oven instead of steeped in a cup of tea. Count me a happy customer of this delicious salt blend, and now I can't wait to try it on oven-roasted vegetables!

New "Tea Therapy" products

It was a product I was desperately in need of and could not go one more day without. I wasn't near my usual grocery store, so I had to settle for whatever was handy at another grocery store I happened to be driving by. And then while looking in the appropriate section for the items I saw this: Tea Therapy. Hmmm. Two different kinds were offered, so I got them both.

One of the "therapies" included green tea, which, I hate to tell the marketers, has a graphic which looks very much like black tea and not green tea to me! (Don't even get me started on what those green leaves are doing floating around in the cup!)

The other? Chamomile Tea, and it too looks black. Interesting!

And the products? Albert VO5 shampoo and conditioner, both of which contain camellia sinensis leaf extract. Now to be honest with you, I really prefer Pantene's shampoos and conditioners above all others, but I had forgotten to restock so I decided to spend the $1 each on the VO5 products, which I normally find a bit too thin for my hair. The shampoo lived up to its package claim and indeed it did have richer lather than I've seen with them in the past, which made that a dollar well spent. The conditioner and I did not get along well, however (it's much too thin), so it will be going to the DH, whose hair is not as high maintenance as mine. Still, a fun experiment for $2!

Candy counter find: Chai Tea Cordials

One of our popular downtown Newnan shops, The Vintage Flea, has a great little candy counter provided by a woman who used to have a shop in Sharpsburg that I liked, Legacy Too. This summer, I've really been enjoying her Chai Tea Cordials. They're displayed in glass jars along with various "fancy" malted milk balls in flavors like Peanut Butter, Cookies and Cream, and Maple. I pretty much like all of them, but the Chai Tea Cordials are definitely my favorite, and a bite or two is quite sufficient if you need a little sugar buzz!

Here you can see the inside of a Chai Tea Cordial. Since lots of gift shops are now stocking candy, I thought some of you might want to be on the lookout for these in your neck of the woods.

These really do taste like chai tea, and to find that inside a glorified malted milk ball is pure magic. Just two or three is all I need for a sweet treat, and at just 60 cents an ounce they're rather a "cheap luxury," as the marketers say.

I like the way the shop has been adding more and more antique booths and consignors, and the past few times I've been in I've found goodies to take home with me. They have great things for the garden, some teawares, and my most recent find was this set of six white ceramic teapot napkin rings for $8. I might have to watch it on the candy, but I can never have enough tea-themed napkin rings!

Teacupcakes

As soon as I first saw these Teacupcake molds on the very cool Fred Flare website (fredflare.com), I knew I had to have some! Unfortunately, when I tried to place an order I learned they were sold out. But fortunately, I found them on eBay and they were much cheaper to boot!

My only beef is that I wish the package contained at least 8 or 12 molds, because really, you can't make *four* cupcakes, can you? (I can't.) So I guess I will always have extras to decorate, but for tea parties and a fun entertaining idea in general, I just love these silicone Teacupcake molds! I was glad I read the package instructions before using them, as I learned it is best to grease them with oil and not cooking spray, since the spray can discolor the molds. (The saucers aren't ovenproof, so it's only the teacup-shaped molds which go in the oven.)

I made chocolate cupcakes using a favorite recipe, one I know is a good make-ahead cupcake which is extra moist even two days later, and I will be surprising three girlfriends by showing up with these at my Tuesday night Bible study. I can't wait!