Teatime Giveaway #11 - Parisian teacup journal

The winner of last week's giveaway, "The Tea Deck," is Sarah of the Sarah Did It! blog. Congrats! And this week, I have something I hope will appeal to everyone but especially the writers and journal keepers among us, this cheerful looking Parisian teacup journal.

Aren't the teacups just completely oo-la-la?

Inside pages are simple, ruled pages, just as I like my journals to be. (I get too distracted if there's artwork or quotes and stuff.) If this is your cuppa tea too, just leave a comment between now and noon EST Friday, March 23, and you'll be entered to win. Good luck!

Dining with Chicago's Carson Pirie Scott

My research into the department store restaurants and tea rooms of yesteryear continues, and this week I received the latest vintage postcard to add to my collection, one from Chicago's Carson Pirie Scott department store in 1906!

I love the elegant columns shown on this card written Dec. 28, 1906. It reads, "Dear Meta, Do you see me at one of these tables lunching? I hope you had a fine Xmas. With regards, Dr. Patrick." (At least that's what it looks like to me.) The recipient was a Meta Pillsbury in Illinois. I wonder if she was related to those Pillsburys.

In related news, I also came across a well-loved copy of the 1962 cookbook "Look Who's Cookin' at Carson's!" compiled and published by the Carson Pirie Scott Women's Club. I've got to dig a bit deeper to see if any of the book's recipes were actually used in the restaurant or whether they were simply favorites of the women's club. At any rate, it has recipes for treats like $200 Red Cake (which sounds like Red Velvet), Hershey Bar Chocolate Pie (calls for six 5-cent Hershey bars), and something very intriguing called Broken Glass Torte. It doesn't call for any broken glass, thank goodness, but it does involve making three different colors of Jell-O and layering them in the torte. May have to try that one, and when I do you know you'll see it here!

My oldest teacup

You know how it is: You walk into an antique store looking for an old watering can, you walk out with a new teacup. Or in this case, a very old teacup.

It's dawned on me that I have a bit of a fetish for teacups with odd handles.

And interesting feet. (Even if I don't normally like feet on teacups.) Aren't these rope handles and feet interesting?

That rope design is just the darndest thing.

And of course I can justify the purchase of anything with pink roses on it, if I try hard enough.

The backstamp on this set was a mystery waiting to be solved. All those numbers and letters! A little surfing led me here, to a wonderful source of info from a woman named Janice Paull. If I've used the decoder correctly, my Mason's cup and saucer design was introduced on Feb. 1, 1869.

Welcome to the tea cabinet, old friend!

New tea towels from Kmart & Ross

Oddly enough, one of the few popular, everyday kind of stores I don't have easy access to is a Kmart. There has not been one in my town for years, so I probably don't visit a Kmart more than once every year or two. But when a random online search for tea towels one day revealed some new tea-themed pieces by Paula Deen were on sale at Kmart, y'all, I made a point of searching out a Kmart in a neighboring town!

All that Kmart had was the dishwashing cloths, so I got two packages of those. Isn't this design cheerful! And two for $2.99 was a good deal, I thought. Alas, the matching dish towels were sold out.

But whaddayaknow, I was at Ross this week and came across a set of the matching dish towels (2 for $5.99), so of course I scooped them up. If you happen to live near a Kmart, or a Ross, these kitchen towels might be something you want to look for as well!

The 25-cent display shelf

More than a year ago, I bought this wooden display shelf for 25 cents at a church yard sale. I got home and found there was nothing to hang it with (and at those prices ...), so it sat idly by for a year, waiting for me to one day remember to haul it over to Walmart, purchase a 97-cent package of metal hangers, and attach one to the back. Took about three minutes to attach.

Here's what the shelf looked like empty and before it went up in my craft room.

And when I was attaching the hanger, I noticed the shelf was "Made in Italy." Kinda cool to know!

All sorts of funky little things are going into my newly-hung shelf. Like pieces of a Barbie tea set my mom gave me.

A teapot pincushion is home to a teacup button that awaits a project that needs it.

A tiny metal jar cap holds more tea-themed odds and ends, and a tiny rubber stamp reminds me that I've had some tea-themed paper project ideas jangling around in my head for a while now.

Eventually I'd like all the compartments to house something tea-related, and in time I'll bet they will. Not bad for a 25-cent investment, eh?

Sandy Springs Garden Club English Tea Scones

Several months ago, I was in an Atlanta area antique mall when I came across an undated but surely vintage cookbook from the Sandy Springs Garden Club here in Georgia. Because the book, titled "From the Garden to the Kitchen," included a chapter on "Beverages and Tea Time," and because it had a unique recipe for what they called English Tea Scones, I got the book. Over the weekend, I decided it was a good time to try the "scones."

I say "scones" because, in reality, these are more of what I would call Baked Fried Pies. And boy oh boy, are they good, quite a fine little something to serve alongside tea!

Here's a picture of the original recipe, which you should be able to double click and read. Scones whose ingredients consist merely of butter, cream cheese and flour? Hmmm.

Still, I stirred up the dough into walnut-sized pieces and we all chilled for two hours.

Then came the fun part, adding the different flavors of jam and preserves. I started with strawberry jam, then moved on to blueberry, lemon curd and finally the one with fig preserves shown here.

My favorite part of making these was fluting the edges with a fork. I can't make most pies and pastries worth a toot, but so far these "English Tea Scones" were working up just fine, with one minor exception. Strawberry jam ran out of the first two scones I baked (I knew better than to try the whole batch at once), so although they were delicious, they weren't very pretty. I adjusted the amount of jam from 1 teaspoon to 1/2 teaspoon, and that worked out perfectly for the blueberry and lemon curd "scones" I enjoyed with a cup of Earl Grey.

What really surprised me was how flaky the "scone's" crust was! Can you see the little flakes? I am here to tell you that flaky crust + hot lemon curd = 2 die 4. So here's the recipe as I made it, just in case you're tempted to try these yourself. Enjoy!

Sandy Springs Garden Club English Tea Scones

1 stick unsalted butter
1 (3-ounce) package cream cheese
1 cup all-purpose flour
Small amounts of jam, preserves or lemon curd

Preheat oven to 450 degrees. Allow butter and cream cheese to reach room temperature or warm in microwave for a few seconds. Combine butter and cream cheese with flour and roll into walnut-sized balls. Place on waxed paper and let chill in refrigerator for 2 hours. Then, roll out each piece of dough into a circle about 3 to 3-1/2 inches in diameter. Add 1/2 teaspoon of desired jam or preserves to center of dough, fold over and crimp edges with a fork. Bake on parchment lined cookie sheet for 10-12 minutes, just until edges begin to brown. Slightly cool before serving. Yields 15 English Tea Scones.

Teatime Giveaway #10 - "The Tea Deck" by Sara Perry

The winner of the Irish Breakfast Tea and Irish recipe booklet from last week is Linda J. of Friendship Tea. I think it's particularly fitting she won because Linda is celebrating her birthday this weekend! So, congratulations AND Happy Birthday to Linda! And now, this week's giveaway is "The Tea Deck: 50 Ways to Prepare, Serve and Enjoy" by Sara Perry.

These 50 cards include information on 30 different tea varieties, followed by 20 recipe cards. They are smartly housed in this little cardboard box, and I have a set myself that's the one shown in this photo, though yours will be the unopened, brand spanking new one up top.

This week's giveaway prompted me to go back and look at all the cards myself ("The Tea Deck" was first published in 2008), and I started lusting over the Ginger-Spice Tea Cake, shown here, as well as the Buckingham Palace Shortbread, said to be enjoyed by you-know-who at her afternoon tea at Buckingham Palace. Don't have "The Tea Deck" yet? Want one? Just leave a comment to this post between now and noon EST Friday, March 16, and you may be the winner. Good luck!

Marshall Field Popovers

Last year I bought a mini-popover pan, and I was pleasantly surprised at how easy it was to make these delicious treats! I made popovers several times using the famous Neiman-Marcus recipe with strawberry butter, but this week I decided to try another department store's popover recipe, that of Marshall Field.

Again the result was a light, airy and super easy popover, only this time the spread was honey butter. May I just say that a) this makes an awesome breakfast treat and b) if this photo of the popover's melted honey butter doesn't have you drooling, then I haven't done my job. (Unless you don't like butter. Or honey. Or bread. In which case all bets are off!)

One other reason I wanted to make a Marshall Field recipe was so I could share with you the most charming dish I received earlier this year from Darlene of The Tea Enthusiast's Scrapbook. Isn't this a pretty shape and style of dish?

It's even prettier to me knowing that it came from Marshall Field via a tea friend! I thought it was most appropriate, then, to enjoy my little breakfast of popovers using this dish. According to The Marshall Field's Cookbook, "Welcoming guests with a basket of piping hot popovers—sometimes big and fluffy, sometimes bite-size minis—served with whipped honey butter is a long-standing tradition at many Marshall Field's restaurants. Some customers have even been known to sit down, fill up on popovers, order a cup of coffee, and ask for the check!" (We would of course order tea and then ask for the check!) The following recipe is from the cookbook, but I adjusted the directions a bit so I'm sharing the recipe as I made it.

Marshall Field Popovers

5 large eggs
1-2/3 cups whole milk
5 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
1-2/3 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon salt

Preheat oven to 400 degrees and let non-stick popover pan heat in oven for 15 minutes. Meanwhile, prepare batter. In bowl of electric mixer, add the eggs and beat for about 2 minutes until light and fluffy. Add milk and butter and beat again. Finally, add the flour and salt and beat just until combined.

When pan is finished preheating, fill popover tins about 2/3 full and bake for 30-35 minutes until golden brown. Remove popovers from pan and serve immediately with honey butter. Yields about 20 mini-popovers.

Teavivre's Iron Goddess Tea

It's always interesting to open a new packet of tea and see what the tea leaves look like. These tea leaves are some Iron Goddess tea I recently received from Teavivre.

I love Teavivre's packets, which tell me this oolong tea came from Anxi, Fujian, China and was produced on June 12, 2011. Nice to know! The foil pouch felt sort of thick and fluffy, and when I opened it, inside I found ...

... four of these packets! Now isn't this pretty? In fact, since these samples were individually packaged, I might be willing to share one or two in a future giveaway! ("Might," she said.)

Watching tea leaves unfurl is like magic to me, and these quickly rediscovered their shape and bright green color. The scent? Oh, my goodness. Yes, it had that perfectly yummy gardenia-like fragrance for which Iron Goddess is known.

And the resulting brew? A perfectly delightful oolong with a smooth, smooth taste and not a hint of astringency. I got several steepings from this one sample, and if you're in the market for some Iron Goddess, I can wholeheartedly recommend this one!

'Tis the season

There. Now grow!

My 17 newest teacups

Yes, I bought 17 new teacups this weekend. These ...

... and these ...

... and these.

Fortunately, the 17 were part of this picture I've been eyeing at an antique mall in Marietta. I first saw it back before Christmas, for $45. Now, it's a very large print, about 17 x 41 inches, but ... did I need it? When I went there on Saturday, the picture had been moved from its spot in the booth and at first I thought, "Oh no! My picture is gone!" but then I saw it, this time marked down to $35. I realized that if I really considered this *my* picture, I probably needed to go ahead and buy it. As I waited in line at the antique mall's register, two women asked to see what sort of picture I was carrying that was nearly as tall as I am. "How cute!" they said when I showed them. When I got out to the car with it, my mother said, "That's gorgeous!" and even she agreed the price was quite fair. My only problem—and one reason I hadn't bought it sooner—is that my living room and dining room both have a picture rail, meaning I couldn't hang such a tall picture above it. Was there a piece of wall in the house that could accommodate this?

Yes, at the foot of the stairs. And I must say now that it's hanging there, I love this picture even more than the first time I saw it! It's signed Patsy Pennington, and I think perhaps I've seen her name on something tea-themed before. Do any of you happen to have Patsy Pennington artwork? I'd love to know who else admires the artist behind my latest find!