It is always interesting to look at the top posts of the past month and see what you all were most interested in.

I am still trying to get my brain wrapped around the fact that July is gone. Over. Kaput. History. Soon we will be sitting here chatting over steaming chai lattes watching it snow..Big drifts…here in Texas….

Yeah, not likely but use your imagination, o.k.?

Anyway.

The top posts were:

1. Homemade Caramel Frappuccino
   
2. Celebrate with Me Giveaway
3. How to Make Tea; Hot or Sweet Iced
4. Twix Releases a New Candy Bar
5. Tea Sandwich Recipes

I think my favorite post was Sweet Tea and Graciousness

As far as the poll results?
How Much Coffee and/or Tea Do You Drink in a Typical Day?

Three or four-12 people

One or two-7 people

Five or six- 4 people

None- I just read your blog because you are so cool- 2 people….AWWWW! Thanks.

More than ten- one person was able to hold still long enough to vote for this one.

Nine or ten-1

Seven or eight-1

So, there you have it.  I will be putting up a new poll later so be sure and vote.

And really, thank you so much for reading. This blog has grown by leaps and bounds.  I am blessed.

Image:Marye Audet 

Post from: Kettle and Cup

This week is all about sharing about teapots. Do you have one? two? or three? maybe more? Is it for display only or do you use it for tea? What is the tea server you use most? Your favorite teapot (or is it something like a quart jar?). Tell your teapot story, give it’s history, and tell what it means to you. You can share more than once if you’d like. Antique, new, Asian, English, or something in between — we’d love to know!

So the blogothon goes on.  I am loving these posts! You can find more teapots at Gracious Hospitality. 

There are so many blogs that I have become aware of that it is competing with my food blog addiction! Seeing other people’s images, and reading thier thoughts about tea has been inspiring. Having those very talented bloggers come and comment here has been humbling…

I will need several days to go through my tea pots.  I thought I would start with the one I find most interesting and most mysterious.

I know nothing about it other than my mom picked it up in a antique store in Bucks County Pa. in 1966.  We lived there at the time.  The tea pot is pewter, and has an H inscribed in the back

It is very finely detailed with a band of flowers around the rim…and stipes on the tip of the spout.  The knob at the top is a bit like a shell.

There are two pegs on either side that poke out and the lid is hinged.   I think it is beautiful!  I have tried to find something about it but it has no marks and I am not familiar with pewter antiques so much. I think it must be Victorian, and I am guess 1880s because of the monogram..but still..I don’t know.

Anyone have any ideas?

Images:MaryeAudet 

Post from: Kettle and Cup

Post from: Kettle and Cup

Back then Marc drank his coffee at the base, and I just drank Dr. Pepper. By the gallons. Daily.

I was addicted to Dr Pepper. I was a size 4. I was married. Life was good. Well, it was good until I got pregnant with my first baby and totally lost my ability to even smell Dr. Pepper without gagging. My daughter, Erin, the one that caused my Dr Pepper divorce, is now a Dr Pepper addict. THAT was a slap in the face.

The early 80s were still echoing with the looks and sounds of Star Wars…Check this out…

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Just when I thought I was going to lose it my friend Juanita came by and said, “Hey, Iw as praying for yout oday and the Lord told me to come get you and take you to Starbucks”.

Yay God. I am glad He is looking out for me because honestly, I need it. So we went and I cried and drank coffee.

Things seem a bit better coming home caffeinated but not better enough to actually be able to write at this keyboard. Anne of Green Gables needed just a certain kind of nib on her pen to write letters, and I apparently need just a certain kind of keyboard to blog properly.

There is just something rejuvenating about coffee, though. When the quilting bee went out of vogue kaffe klatches came in. I can remember my mom, and the other neighbor women (I feel like I should write it, wimmin) sitting in the kitchen in the afternoons, snacking on a piece of fresh coffee cake and drinking cups of fragrant coffee. It was a time for them to give each other support, and empathize with each other..a time to renew themselves and receive counsel. They went home to begin dinner and their evening chores refreshed.

Maybe that is what Starbucks provides for us now. A place to renew and refresh, to consider who we are and how we got that way. Our homes don’t seem to be the refuges that they once were, maybe the internet, working at home, and t.v. took that away, but look around any Starbucks on any day and you will see people kaffe klatching along with those making business deals.

I kind of miss the warmth and comfort of the kitchen. I wonder how it would be to invite neighbors to a kaffe. What would it be like to serve aromatic coffee from a percolator with a big slice of homemade cake? To sit in a shiny kitchen and watch the red checked curtains blow in the breeze?

We have gained alot with our modern lives. The ability to work at home, to blog, to shop on the internet…but we have lost the smell of sun dried sheets, the sounds of the percolator as the coffee perks to perfection. We have lost the sense of community we once had as the small neighborhood became global.

Eh, nothing earth shattering today. No cool links. Just the thought that somehow our lives are much less rich than they once were and it has nothing to do with gas prices or the economy, with the president, or the war. We have given up the freedom of simplicity in our quest for bigger and better, and more important. And maybe it is gone forever, with no way to get it back.

So I am left wondering, is Starbucks a good replacement for the kitchens of the past? Or is it just another way of keeping our distance, or not letting people see who we really are? Ideas? Thoughts?

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Since we did not have things like dvds and video games, watching coffee perk was fascinating.And then, Mom would pour the coffee into a cup, stir in some evaporated milk from a can, some sugar….take a sip…. and… Oh GLORY! She would head off to do something and leave the coffee on the counter.

It was a matter of time. I would head up to make my bed or whatever and thirty minutes later, when I came back into the kitchen the coffee would be room temperature and ready to drink as far as I was concerned.

Never enough to make a noticeable difference in the level of the rapidly chilling brew, but enough to know that I preferred my mom’s cold coffee to my dad’s martini olives hands down.

As I was cleaning the pantry the other day I came across the coffee pot. No cords. No gadgets. No touch-pad. Just the brutal honesty of stainless steel “guts” and smooth exterior…and of course, the clear knob on top.

Later I am going to make some 1960’s style coffee. I am going to listen to the sound of the coffee pot and smell the aroma as it begins to waft through my kitchen. I am going to get my mom’s old, Stuckey’s Coffee Club mug (these things are selling for like 100.00 each on ebay!) and pour some coffee. It may be that I find that my tastes have changed and matured…..and then again it may taste just as good as it used to.

So..what are the memories that you have associated with coffee?

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I struggled greatly the last couple of days before Christmas with missing my parents, and my childhood…reliving too many Christmas’s past. I remembered so many things about Christmas at my childhood home with mixed fondness and regret. Always the picture of my dad sprawled out on the floor playing with my toys with me, and my mom sitting with her coffee cup…

And I realized with a laugh that coffee cups are part of so many of my own Christmas memories, and definitely part of my children’s Christmas memories. Even this Christmas the smell of coffee enticed me out of my warm bed and down the long stairs…

My granddaughter wanted to make sure that we left cookies and milk for Santa. I tried to tell her Santa preferred hot coffee but she would not be dissuaded. It must be cookies and milk. My youngest daughter, whom we fondly refer to as Chef Kyrie or Little Chef, was all for leaving some thing more substantial..she thought Santa might tire of cookies and lukewarm milk…but cookies and milk it was..and Santa did not complain, although I suspect he washed the cookies and milk down with a large mug of Bourbon Pecan Coffee.

I hope that your Christmas was full of fond memories, past and present and hope for the future. And I hope that it was infused with gallons of really good coffee.

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I just want to invite you on a Christmas Tour of my house…I posted the pictures over at Baking Delights so check them out!

I just want to stop for a moment and wish everyone a very Merry Christmas, and thank you for your comments and your presence here. May the New Year bring you abundant blessings (and lots of coffee).

Post from: Kettle and Cup

Charles Dickens, David Copperfield

I have about a million vintage cookbooks. I love them and I pick them up whenever I get the chance. It is fun to see how people’s ideas of food, health, and sophistication have changed over the years.

I thought that I would like to start doing vintage menus once a week or so…to reintroduce some of the past to the present. This week’s vintage menu is from Better homes and Gardens, 1959.

The tea suggestions are mine, as the book states only broad categories of tea. I have chosen only one or two things from each list in the book for the sake of space. Put on your Donna Reed apron, and your high heels and pearls, and enjoy this little meander through time.

Teas:

Adagio Christmas Tea- orange, spice with deep notes of clove

Numi- Black Vanilla, black tea with intense Tahitian vanilla taste

Stash-Holiday Chai, rum and ginger chai

“Go glamorous and skip the forks. Offer dainty cookies, canapes, and hors d’oeuvres, each no bigger than two – or three- bite size.”

Shrimp Crescents- combine cream cheese with chopped chives; spread on  buttered bread crescents and  top with a whole shrimp.

Stuffed Olive Canape-  Spread mayonnaise on bread rounds. sprinkle with chopped, stuffed olives. Stack hard cooked egg slice, mayonnaise and slice of stuffed olive on top.

Walnut Sandwiches- Put walnut halves together with creamed bleu cheese

Ham Roll-ups- Marinate cooked asparagus tips in French dressing; roll them in  ham slices narrower than asparagus; toothpick.

Pastry Star tarts- Roll out plain pastry. Cut 1 dozen 2 3/4 inch rounds. Pinch sides together to form 5 pointed stars.

Bake on cookie sheets in very hot oven (450) 10-15 minutes. Cool. Fill with jam, jelly, or sharp cheese spread

Chocolate Crinkle Cookies

I would add to this some mints, some thin slices of orange and lemon, and some red and green grapes, some frosted and some not, draped here and there for garnish. I f y ou want to carry out the retro theme then have your guests come as characters from the family t.v. shows; Mrs. Cleaver, Donna Reed, The mom on Father Knows Best…etc. If you want to give door prizes make them also retro themed. You might grab some vintage women’s  magazines from the local used book store, or a cd of Christmas music with 50s era singers. You might get a dvd of the original Rudolf the Red Nosed Reindeer, or a dvd of one of the sit-coms.  If you are really lucky you could turn up a vintage tea set in the thrift shop…

Anyway..hope you enjoyed this little blast from the past for this week. Next week I am planning on sharing a Victorian Coffee from the Christmas 1910 issue of  Ladies World. Yeah, I have that. It goes with my decor! LOL!

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This is a vintage tea set from the 1930’s.  I have to tell you that I love this thing.  One just like it sat on a shelf at Gramma-Great’s house. Now, she was not MY gramma-great, she was my cousins’.  She was my aunt’s mother and she was, I think a little over 100 years old when she died.  Most of the years I was growing up I spent summers in the Michigan “thumb” , bouncing from relatives farms in Howell, Lapeer, and Five Lakes.

Each morning I would walk across the road, up a dirt road that wound through a cornfield, stopping at Uncle Ray’s (her brother’s) house to chat with him a moment, and then on up to her house to have tea with her in her very country, very victorian,  very welcoming kitchen.

The tea consisted of hot milk with a few dips of a tea bag in it and a quarter cup of sugar, and it was usually accompanied by two gingersnaps.  It was the best tea I ever drank.

Now in the years since then I have developed a taste for tea, real tea. But  the grown up pleasure of sitting at the wooden table, sipping the milky tea, and nibbling on gingersnaps while having an adult all to myself created in me  the desire to make tea a part of my life.

And, so, I have started a tradition of tea in my home. An afternoon ritual, where the kids and I sit down, try new teas, nibble snacks, and chat about what ever we like because I hope that in doing so I will create those same types of memories in them.

Post from: Kettle and Cup