Tag Archives: Traditions

Our New Princess

Our daughter Katie was the princess, the youngest grand-daughter and niece on my side of the family for 22 years. She was usurped this year in her reign by our new little niece and princess, Hope. Katie has given up her throne willingly for this sweet new cousin. Once they meet I’m sure they’ll love each other more and more…

Here we are meeting for the first time. Look she’s smiling. I think she likes us.

 

Boy all these new fangled toys they have these days. She really got them whirling!

 

In the Baby Bjorn with daddy. I love when she screws up her forehead, sets her eyebrows and really looks serious.

 

We got to witness her baby dedication. Here she is in the very same dress her mommy wore.

At the dedication service with mom and dad.

She had quite the long day and is ready to escape to dreamland…

Photobucket is holding all my photos from 2007-2015 hostage and they have blacked them all out. I’m slowly working at restoring my posts without their help. Such a tiresome bother!

Set the Table, Tea is On!

This weeks tea challenge for the Gracious Hospital-I-Tea Blog-a-thon is to share a creative afternoon tea table, linens, serving pieces, teapots and teacup, etc. This is your opportunity to show the world the fun you have when you create your own special tea experience.

I have 3 tea settings to share from previous posts. My first one I’m sharing is my Tea for One.

 

In the past I’ve collected napkin rings. This silver ring with the E on it is my personal napkin ring. The little tea pot is from Russia and has a huge matching pot that I’ll show during “The Pouring Teapot”. I have a couple little tea mugs instead of tea cups with saucers. The white/clear depression glass plates and creamer and sugar are from our handed down stash from Dear’s side of the family. The silverplate candy dish was a wedding gift.

 

The Tablecloth is one of several vintage ones I have from my MIL’s collection.

 

“Tea to the English is really a picnic indoors.”
Alice Walker

A beautiful afternoon for tea…

For more “Set the Table” posts visit Gracious Hospitality.

Photobucket is holding all my photos from 2007-2015 hostage and they have blacked them all out. I’m slowly working at restoring my posts without their help. Such a tiresome bother!

Japanese Tea ~ Matcha and Katie’s Yukata

Here is the second guest post from my daughter Katie. She has included photos of her Yukata and a little description of the type of tea used in her Art of Japanese Tea classes.

“I finally received my yukata! Here are some pictures of me wearing it down at the arboretum. Don’t judge my obi tying too harshly, this was the first week that I dressed myself without help from my friend Mika or my teacher.

 

 

In the class we have now done the full procedure for taking a sweet from a bowl with chopsticks several times, have begun doing the full procedure for taking tea, and just started practicing the procedures for purifying all the implements before whisking tea. I got complimented by some of my peers and by my teacher for my tea-whisking skill. 🙂 The tea we use is matcha, which is powdered green tea. It’s…an acquired taste, but I think I’m starting to like it. Mika insists that it is addictive. I guess I just don’t have an addictive personality, haha.”

Thank you so much Katie!

For more posts on Favorite Teas click over to Gracious Hospitality.

Photobucket is holding all my photos from 2007-2015 hostage and they have blacked them all out. I’m slowly working at restoring my posts without their help. Such a tiresome bother!

Hospital-i-Tea Blogathon ~ Favorite Tea

April 27 – May 3
Tell about your favorite tea. How do you prepare it and serve it? Milk and sugar? Plain? What are some of your best memories of serving or sipping on this tea.

Truth be told I generally enjoy tea steeped with a tea bag. If I am going to steep loose tea I enjoy a good Earl Grey or English Breakfast Tea. I always have to make sure I have good ole Lipton tea bags around for my family especially my brother Leonard. Some of my sisters have moved on to herbal teas. When I was younger I put lots of sugar and milk in my tea. These days I drink most of my hot beverages black with no sweeteners. In honor of this weeks assignment Dear and I went to Cost Plus bought a tin of Twinings Earl Grey Loose Tea and steeped ourselves a cuppa this afternoon. Lovely…

 

My best memories of tea are from my childhood when I’d have tea with my maternal grandmother. Also whenever we get together with my side of the family we enjoy tea at the end of our meals together. Sometimes I’ll have it black, sometimes with lemon, and sometimes with milk. Then the next best memory of tea is when I travelled to England for the first time in 1973. We were part of a Christian Rock band singing at local schools and churches. We would be housed by local families who were interested in our ministry. How very special it was to have a knock on the bedroom door in the morning, open the door and see a tray with a teapot steeping and tea cups and milk to get us started in the morning. What a wonderful treat and memory. I also love how when staying at Bed and Breakfasts in England we’ve been greeted with tea upon our arrival. This next photo is of our daughter enjoying a cup of welcome tea in our flat in Edinburgh.

 

I’d love that beautiful blue and white tea set! Tea is always a welcome refreshment when I am tired and after travelling a long way.

 

For more Tea Posts visit LaTeDah at Gracious Hospitality.

Photobucket is holding all my photos from 2007-2015 hostage and they have blacked them all out. I’m slowly working at restoring my posts without their help. Such a tiresome bother!

Mad Hatter Tea Bridal Shower…

On Saturday I drove 90 miles from Camarillo to Newport Beach to attend a shower for our future niece, Jessica, who is marrying my brother Steve’s son Timothy. Timothy’s lovely mother is my SIL Kelly.

 

This is a fun photo of 3 of my brother Steve’s sons. (Joe is missing) Timothy is the one in the middle flanked by his brothers Caleb and Levi.

Oh the destination and the setting and the beautiful ladies that we got to spend the afternoon with made the 180 mile round-trip so worth it.

 

 

The table was set perfectly for our Mad Hatter Tea. We gave thanks to the Lord for this wonderful occasion and began the festivities.

 

 

Michelle, the maid of honor,  was our hostess and the setting was in her parents gated community in Newport Beach. I can’t even begin to guess what the HOA fees are in this wonderful setting. Did I just say that out loud?

 

It was a Mad Hatter Tea which meant we were all required to wear hats. My SIL Letty and me.  Jessica, the Guest of Honor. Jessica opening her Samovar from my mother and a tablecloth that my mother made when she was 12 years old (that would have been in Tehran, Iran) The last photo is of the daughters and daughter in laws with my mom. Letty, Vera, My Mom, Kathy, Ellen b, and Kelly.

 

Jessica with her friends and most of these ladies will be her bridesmaids. Our hostess, Michelle, to the left of Jessica.

 

After we had our Tea/Lunch we walked over to the Rose Garden in the Community.

Some of my lovely nieces, Melissa, Debbee, and Michelle.

Ellen b. in a hat! You won’t see that everyday.

Well that hat won me a prize along with the great hat on the right that the mother of the hostess wore! I won a wonderful lavender scented candle.

 

We are having a very hot weekend in Southern California. See that 100 degrees for the outside temperature next to my odometer. That registered when I was driving home and reached the San Fernando Valley. Hot, hot, hot for Spring around here! (Looks like I need to dust off my dash!)

Made it home in good time praising our God for the blessing of family and friends to enjoy life with on this earth.

“May our Lord Jesus Christ himself and God our Father, who loved us and by his grace gave us eternal encouragement and good hope, encourage your hearts and strengthen you in every good deed and word.”
~2 Thessalonians 2: 16,17

Photobucket is holding all my photos from 2007-2015 hostage and they have blacked them all out. I’m slowly working at restoring my posts without their help. Such a tiresome bother!

Cherry Varenya ~ Russian Tea Sweetener

The Russian immigrants I grew up around would make and enjoy this Cherry Syrup made with whole pie cherries in their hot tea. They used this syrup in place of sugar to sweeten their tea. I called my mother this week to get the following recipe from her to share for The-Sweet-and-Savory-of-Yummy.

This is a very simple recipe for Cherry Varenya. This is a syrup made with Cherries to sweeten hot tea with.

Cherry Varenya

1/2 Cup Water
1 Cup Sugar
1 Cup Whole Sour Cherries (Pie Cherries)
1 Tablespoon fresh lemon juice

You would increase the proportions of this recipe according to how many cherries you have on hand that you want to make into Varenya.

Boil the water and sugar to make a clear simple syrup. When the liquid is clear add your cherries and let it boil for 10 to 20 minutes (depending on how hard the cherries were to begin with) At the end of the boiling add 1 Tablespoon of fresh lemon juice to help preserve the brightness of the syrup.

You may want to can it at this point. (I don’t know how to can anything so you are on your own here!) 🙂

You can do this process with sliced lemons, too, to make a Lemon Varenya.

Lemon Varenya

When I was young our family would go to a Cherry Orchard somewhere near Lancaster, California in July when the pie cherries were ready to harvest. It might have been in the Leona Valley. We would pick cherries all day and take home upwards of 40 pounds of cherries. That’s a lot of Varenya. When we picked this much my parents would give about half of the cherries away to other relatives and friends who couldn’t make the trek out to the Cherry Farm. Then it was a full day of preparing the cherries for Varenya. Washing, cooking and canning.

Tranquility Tea Room in Thousand Oaks, California

This week’s theme is Tea Venues. This is a previous post but I wanted to share it during this weeks Tea Blogathon theme since it’s about a Tea Room that I’ve experienced and recommend.

Oh what a delightful haven we found for Tea in Thousand Oaks. Willow and I had reservations for a mini tea on Wednesday Afternoon. We arrived at Tranquility Tea Room which is in an office space on the 2nd floor of a building set back off of Thousand Oaks Blvd. When we opened the door we were delighted with what we saw.

Lots of China, Antique furniture, Lace, hats, fresh flowers, and tea accessories.

 

We chose our table and settled in for a lovely time.

Willow decided it was OK if I took a photo of her at our table.

We enjoyed looking at so many pretty things and then our food started arriving.

Aprils menu included Blueberries ‘n Cream Scones, Orange laced Mini Swirled Scones with their homemade lemon curd and Tranquility cream. Then there was a choice of Gourmet Tea Sandwiches. I chose the Cucumber a la Provencale and Caramel Apple Brie with Pecans. Willow chose the Caramel Apple Brie and the Chicken-Almond Salad. For dessert I chose the Lemon cheesecake triangle and Willow chose the Strawberry Tart. It was all very fresh and tasty! The touch of fresh flowers that adorned the food and plates added such a visual treat. We found out that Candra’s mother does the flowers for her. Oh who’s Candra?

We met Sue (who graciously served us) and Candra (on the right). Candra owns and operates the Tea Room. We had a nice long conversation about Tea rooms and ministry. Here’s something I copied from her website about her and the Tea Room.

Tranquility Baking and Tea Room
Seven years ago, Candra Coogan began a baking business with a desire to help a local charity. She began delivering cheesecakes dressed in Victorian attire and donated 10% of her sales. Her business grew into a successful catering and baking business specializing in tea parties, and in December she took the next step, opening Tranquility Tea Room on Thousand Oaks Boulevard.

Tranquility Baking Company was created in order to help support a special recovery program
for homeless Moms, The Lighthouse Women and Children’s Mission located in Oxnard, California.
We currently support the Lighthouse Women’s Shelter through monetary donations and other types of support.

What a wonderful ministry. They have a vision to move this tea room into a Victorian house in the Ventura/Oxnard area. That would be such an ideal setting. Thank you Sue and Candra for your wonderful hospitality and your heart for service to the community. Can’t end the post without one more collage of the fun things around the tea-room.

We highly recommend the Tranquility Tea Room to anyone who loves Tea in a comfortable, beautiful setting, with expertly created delicious delicacies. Can you tell I was impressed!

“Come, let us have some tea and continue to talk about happy things.”
Chaim Potok

For more Tea Rooms and Ventures visit LaTeDah at Gracious Hospitality.