I have found the coolest coffee cup ever. Well at least for today. Decided to share it with you. Maybe I will do this on a more regular basis, I don’t know.

I love Shakespeare, and most of the kids have a tolerence for it, if not full fledged love. And, as happens with many big families, once in awhile good natured insults seem to fly back and forth.  Ethan, in particular, is the most likely one to break out the Elizabethan vernacular and taunt his siblings with unique descriptions of their characters.

This Shakespearean Insult mug has 30 Shakespearean insults. One for every day of the month. Take it to work. Take it to school. You will never be without a upper crust literary comeback.

image:via Amazon

I love sweet tea but sometimes it is nice to drink something a little different.

White tea has a delicate flavor and when mixed with fruit it really adds a nice dimension. The mint and lime flavors are cooling and refreshing as well.  Although key limes are preferred you can use regular lime if you can’t find them.

If you are looking for a refreshing drink to serve for your Fourth of July celebration check this out.

Lime, and Mint Iced Tea

• 1 quart of water
• 4 white tea bags
• 1  1/2 cups fresh mint leaves
• 1/3 cup sugar
• 1/4 cup key lime juice
• Lime slices for garnish

1. Bring the water and sugar just to a boil.
2. Stir until sugar is completely disolved.
3. Remove from heat and add tea bags and mint.
4. Steep for about one minute and remove bags.
5. Allow to come to room temperature.
6. Remove mint and add lime juice.
7. Stir well and refrigerate. Serve  in frosted glasses over ice

image:sxc

Starbucks has just released a news thingie (yes I know, very professionally put: thingie) that they are removing the artificial ingredients from their baked goods and replacing them with all natural ingredients.

Just remember folks, all natural is NOT the same as organic. However they are promising the following:

• No artificial flavors
• No artificial trans fats (LOL! ALL transfats are artificial)
  
• No artificial dyes
• No high-fructose corn syrup

I think that is a great step for them. They are even giving recipes for a couple of their items. You know what I would like to see them do? Seriously? I would like to see Starbucks and other large coffee shops that carry pastries and such begin to source locally. I realize that they would lose the continuity flow but the items would be so much fresher, so much tastier, and it would be good for local economies.

I don’t know how difficult that would be, how many government and corporate hoops they would have to jump through or anything..but to me it makes much more sense.  Let’s face it. Baked goods are their best within the first 12 hours or so of being baked. The longer they hang around the more stale they get. Having pastries delivered from a local bakery every morning at 5 am would solve the freshness issue for sure.

What do you think? Is it feasible? Should be hit them with a barrage of emails?

image: MaryeAudet

Do you fancy yourself a tea czar? A tea alchemist? The mad scientist of tea? You can win a $500.00 gift card to Teavana in their Tea Master’s Challenge.

All you need to do is come up with the wining blend of tea. The contest runs from now until August 16, 2009. You just need to go to the site, look through the hundreds of teas, and create magic.

That’s not so hard is it?

There are some seriously good prizes even if you don’t win the grand prize. Besides they will sell the winning blend in their stores. Now, how many people get to say that they created a tea blend?

We created out own signature tea for the tea room. We went to a local roaster/tea blender and told her basically what we were looking for. She blended and flavored and came up with our Cameo Rose Custom Blend, which we still buy. It is lemon, blackberry and rose in a long leaf jasmine base and it makes the best sweet tea ever.

It was great fun doing that, experimenting with different possibilities and all. And people kind of look at you funny when you say you have your own custom blended tea. That’s fun, too.

So…head over to Teavana, check it out and give it your best shot. And when you win, remember us little people.

image:sxc

I love the July 4th celebrations. The whole idea  of picnics, family get togethers, fireworks, and listening to the Star Spangled Banner just does something for me. Generally we open the house up to anyone who wants to come, put up the volleyball net, the horseshoe spikes, the hatchet targets (yes my kids throw hatchets at targets, doesn’t everyone’s kids?), and point people in the direction of the creek if they want a swim.

The house fills with flies as people run in and out and gallons of lemonade, tea, cokes, and other beverages are consumed. The only requirement is that guests bring food to share and control their children.

Seems fair to me.  I am not a fan of uncontrolled children. People assume because I have 8 kids I LOVE children. Not true. I like kids all right but I have no tolerance level for undisciplined, uncontrollable, disrespectful kids. They all seem to end up working at the local grocery stores but that is a whole ‘nother story.

Anyway, if you are looking for something a bit different to serve this Fourth of July take a look at this. Coffee coke float,with just a quick glug of Kahlua for some pizzaz. You can leave the Kahlua out if you want but it is just awesome with it.  Serve it in old fashioned ice cream parlor style shake glasses and top with a mound of whipped cream.

Coffee Coke Float

• 2/3 cup half and half (light) cream
• 2 1/2 cups espresso, or strong coffee, cold
• 4 scoops coffee ice cream
• 1 -2 liter bottle of Coke
• 1/2 cup Kahlua if desired
• 4 frosted glasses

Mix the cream and the cold coffee

Add 2 tbs Kahlua to each glass

Place a scoop of the ice cream in each of four glasses

Half fill each glass with the coffee then fill up the rest of the way with Coke.

Serves 4

Image;Wikipedia

Stash Tea is offering a free night at one of the 600 bed and breakfasts participating in this program. Basically customers will get one free night with the purchase of a night at the bed and breakfast. The inns that are part of this program can be cound through out the United States and Canada.

Stash has published a Guide to Bed and Breakfast Inns which is available for less than five dollars when you purchase three boxes of any Stash tea at you local grocers or with a ten dollar purchase online.

There are few things more romantic or luxruious than a weekend get-away. This might be an awesome way to do it. This offer is good, as for as I can tell, through June 2011. Even if you are not a spontanious type of person this gives you plenty of time to plan!

image:SXC

With various types of funding being cut and libraries being closed, Fargo, ND has come up with an innovative plan. They will rent space and help to open a coffee shop in their downtown library.

The library will contribute 10,000 dollars to get the coffee shop up and running and then the coffee shop with pay  rent every month. They will carry pastries, cookies and various coffee drinks.

Now, I ask you, how cool is that? I love libraries. Many times in my life I have used the library in the various places we have lived as a refuge. A place to enjoy quiet, the smell of the books, and recharge my spirit. The coolest library ever was the one near us in West Windsor New Jersey back in the late 1960s. We lived in a new, upscale housing development in the midst of fields and countryside. The library was about 3 miles away but I was allowed to ride my bike there because my mom could watch me the whole way thanks to the fields.

The library was old, I want to say it was in an old house but my memory may be foggy on that. The children’s section was upstairs and there were plenty of nooks and crannies to curl up and read a good book in. It was at this library that I discovered Edgar Eager’s books, Obscure writings by Louisa May Alcott, and other books that continue to by my favorites to this day. Books that I have shared with my children…books that my daughter shares with my grandchildren.

The idea of being able to go to the library, check out a few books and enjoy a latte or an espresso intrigues me. I think it is brilliant. Kudos to Fargo and all involved for thinking outside the government subsidy box.

image:SXC

Coffee fights bad breath. Yes it does.

See, I was always under the impression that coffee was what made my mouth taste like seven desert camels with incontinence had ventured through it with muddy feet. I mean, you get up, you brush your teeth, you drink coffee, and an hour later you need a breath mint…STAT!

Dude, YOU need some coffee, stat!

But according to this ever so cool study done by the Israelis coffee actually blocks a lot of the bacteria that are responsible for bad breath. There is even talk of a salve that would be made from coffee that could eliminate bad breath.

We have reached a pinnacle in coffee history. We are at the dawn of the age of coffee toothpaste. This could revolutionize the free world and give Starbucks a totally new venue for their greed.

Imagine if you will…you could go into your local Starbucks and order a tube of caramel macchiato toothpaste. You could forego coffee in the mornings and just brush your teeth for an extended period of time…

Caffeine junkies, desperate for a caffeine fix would be sucking down coffee flavored Listerine and squeezing the last few globs out of discarded toothpaste tubes.

Interesting thought. Coffee actually freshens breath. Wow.

image:sxc

One of the things that they make at the Landmark restaurant in Dallas is a fruit lemonade. The flavor changes daily; watermelon, honeydew…. The drinks are so refreshing, so good, and so unique that of course I wanted to be able to replicate them at home. Since it is lemonade I knew there would be lemon juice..but you know me..I wanted to take it a step further.

White tea. Adding the tea gives the flavor another depth and it is really good. White tea is very delicate so it doesn’t overpower the flavor of the fruit, in this case honeydew.

For an added intensity try this with Republic of Tea’s Honey Dew White Tea

Honeydew-Lime Iced Tea

• 6 cups cubed honeydew melon
• 2 cups water
• 1/3 cup sugar, more or less to taste
• 2 tea bags of white tea, or amount of white tea leaves to make 2 cups of strong tea
• 1/2 cup lime juice

1. Bring water and sugar just to a boil. stir until sugar is completely dissolved. Remove from heat.
2. Add tea or tea bags and allow to steep for 3 to 5 minutes.
3. Let come to room temperature.
4. Check to make sure there are no stray seeds on melon. Blend the melon in a blender with the white tea until it is a liquid. Blend in the sugar and lime at low speed, just until sugar dissolves.
5. Pour over ice and serve with a lime wedge.

Makes about 6 servings depending on size

image:marye audet

A new mall opened last winter not too far from me. It is basically and outdoors mall, not the closed in mole tunnels that you usually think of  when you hear the word mall…

Anyway, this one has water fountains and they are done in such a way that the kids can play in them in the summer. The grass is astroturf so it doesn’t get muddy. And, best of all, the mall provides towels for the guests. I took Kyrie down there a week or so ago and she had a blast playing in all of the fountains. The just shoot up from the ground.

We didn’t stay very long for a couple of reasons so K-Bug did not get too much sun… she DID have an awesome time though.

My oldest daughter, Erin, took her three kids to play in the water with different results. I guess they stayed a bit longer than we had but the kids ended up looking like lobsters, boiled lobsters.

My favorite home remedy for sunburn is black tea. If you have burnt a small area then just steep some tea and place the bags on the burn while you sip the tea. For more all over burning float tea bags in a cool bath. Use enough to get the water a good tea color and just soak while the tannins in the tea work on healing that burn. If the burn is especially bad it may take a couple of soaks but at the very least you will be feeling better.

I know it sounds weird, but it works. Use cheap, grocery store variety black tea bags. If you get a sunburn give it a try.