English ‘High’ Tea…

Last week, I paid a long overdue visit to a friend, Peggy, whose daughter, Jasmine, was my son, Jacob’s debate partner last year. You see, the kids did extremely well and we knew it was their last year. They had become top debaters and traveling around the country for the bigger National tournaments was really non-optional as far as we, two moms, were concerned. So Peggy and I spent quite a lot of time together on the road.  We talked a lot! Can you believe it? I had once been the featured speaker at her local home school group, 300 in attendance, when I gave my first ‘FlyLady’ workshop?  I’ve known Peggy for several years and didn’t know until this spring, that she was sitting in the audience that day. That was only one of the many fun little revelations that came up during several days on the road between New Mexico, Colorado, and Houston.

Before we left, she asked me to consider doing a trade with her to help with the trip expenses. If I would come over to her house and do some consulting and organizing help, she would pay for a ski trip between the two tournaments and hotels..and gas… all the way home from the Colorado tournament. Well..I could hardly say ‘no’ to such a generous offer! 

But until last week, I had not been able to squeeze out the time to go over to her house. She lives over an hour and a half away. Last week, I decided that it was ‘now or never’. My son went with me to help give some coaching assistance for the upcoming debate tournament to her younger daughter, Sarah,  and I came prepared to lend my ‘expertise’ such as it is. (I’ve never quite figured out where people have gotten this idea that I can help?! But I must say, it’s a lot of fun. :o)

It didn’t take me too long to pin point where she needed the most help—the office.  I’m saving that makeover for Thursday’s post.  We finished up about 3pm. The office looked great..and what was even better, Peggy felt confident that she had a system in place that would help her process the daily mail without losing anything important. It was time to celebrate!

How else would two happy women celebrate than with a nice cup of tea?! Peggy was telling me all about her family’s recent trip to England and how they were served ‘high tea’ at a very nice restaurant. She brought home a gorgeous set of English china so she could hold ‘high tea’ at home.  I honestly didn’t know what high tea was, but her explanation was that it included lots of goodies to eat like cake, scones, jelly etc. She suggested that after we were done for the day, we could pull out the china tea set and have our own ‘high tea’. Well, you know what I said, “You bet!! Break out the china!”

She loves to cook and had already set out the nicest snacks like homemade pumpkin bread and chocolate kisses to ‘sustain’ us through the long day ahead. Not only that, but she served me the most delicious ‘Mediterranean’ style lunch with Beef Curry and a spicy salad. She certainly does have the ‘gift of hospitality!”. During tea, she wrote out the recipes for me. I’m planning to share these later this month after I try the recipes out on my family. Her husband is from the middle east and works for an oil company so she’s learned how to make a lot of unusual and delightful dishes. She pulled out her china set, and enthusiastically started the pot of hot water, sliced her pumpkin bread and arranged it on her tiered dessert plate. Then she spread out the tea bags with a flourish for me to pick from. What a lovely treat!

Of course, I told her how much I’d love to share our little impromptu tea party with my readers so she let me take photos.  I’m now convinced that the best tea times are the ones we don’t plan. What do you think?  The moral to this story, ladies, is to keep those tea sets ready, and pull them out when any likely looking female happens by! Isn’t it a lovely day for a nice warm cup of tea?

I’d love to share tea with you too…so join up for my linky party..Tuesday Tea.  Thanks again, Rayanne, for starting this lovely tradition for our bloggy friends to get to know each other better.

Amy of Exquisite Grace, and the daughter of Rayanne of A Lovely Thought, who is an excellent photographer wrote a beautiful tea post last week about tucking the children in bed and then drinking her favorite tea..Tazo. You can read it here. Amy is a fantastic photographer--I just can’t get enough of her artistic photos!

Her mother, who started the whole idea of 'Tuesday Tea’, also did a gorgeous post when she linked up. Rayanne had a cup of Masala Chai with us last week..and gave me a bit of an education when it comes to tea as I had never heard of that before. :o) Like her daughter, Rayanne is another incredibly talented photographer…It’s hard to believe she’s a grandmother because she’s so beautiful!

And Ela, from Life in My PJ’s (gotta love that name!) shared her favorite tea too which is Passion tea by Tazo. I have to say that Starbucks makes the absolute best tea ever! I have it iced…and I always make sure they don’t dilute it too much.  Ela has a darling blog and loves to sew. She said the nicest things about me in her tea post! Thanks Ela! I’m so glad to have a new bloggy friend!

My favorite tea? Oh my goodness, I don’t know that I can answer that. I must say though, that although Earl Grey tea is my very favorite hot tea, that I drink good old Lipton for iced tea. But when we want a really special treat, Rebekah and I splurge for a tin of Blackberry Sage from Republic of Tea. There is nothing that even comes close in flavor—it’s heavenly!

I do hope you will join my tea party and share your favorite tea with us!