Introducing: Dainty Dining

Dainty Dining: Vintage recipes, memories and memorabilia from America's department store tea rooms

I am incredibly excited to share with you a new book, released by a long-time blogging friend, Angela McRae of Tea with Friends!  I'm so pleased to be a part of the book release blog tour.

Angela sweetly sent me a copy of the book, and I devoured it in one sitting!  It's a fun way to learn about our country's history in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.  You'll read inspiring life stories and hear echoes from a time when ladies put on gloves to go shopping, and then to tea!  You'll see historical photos of what the stores and tea rooms looked like in their day.  You'll be tempted by delicious recipes from the luncheon and tea menus.  For example, find instructions to make Seafood Newburg, Chicken a la King, and many types of pie (chicken, rum, strawberry, and on!).

Dainty Dining chronicles the stories of these beloved department store tea rooms, how they came to be, their owners, unique atmospheres, and specialty recipes. 

Sadly, by the time I was born, the glory days were gone for department store tea rooms.  I have been lucky enough to take tea at the Rotunda at Neiman Marcus in San Francisco.  (This is a salvaged portion of the original beaux-arts building, The City of Paris Dry Goods.) I also visited the reproduction L.S. Ayres Tea Room at the Indiana State Museum.  Now, with Dainty Dining in my hands and a cup of tea at my side, I fill my head with visions of a time gone by.

Do you have stories about department store tea rooms?  I'd love to hear them!

More info:

• The Dainty Dining blog, with purchase information
• Find recipes from the book at this newspaper article