Lots to Say, Little Time

 Me, happy at the NW Tea Festival in Seattle

I spent last weekend at the NW Tea Festival and had an amazing time!  I have several days of pictures and content to share, but am currently on a work trip with limited time.  Let me just summarize by saying it was fabulous! 

One highlight was hearing James Norwood Pratt read from his upcoming book.  Other exciting moments include the many tea tastings, especially the aged Chinese teas and Korean teas, the visits to Seattle tea spots and especially spending time with other tea lovers.  More to come soon!

Tea Party with Garden Bounty

 I recently shared an evening with a colleague, and we had tea.  It was my first British-style tea in the new place.  Fun!  I was eager to use some of the garden's bounty.  

My friend brought these gorgeous hydrangeas from her own garden.  Thank you!  I will let them dry and enjoy them through the winter.

 To start, we ate these little golden tomatoes (from the garden) as appetizers.  They are very sweet.  The larger, round yellow items are lemon cucumbers (garden), to be featured in a moment.

 I used rosemary from the garden, along with dried tomatoes that I had soaked in olive oil, to make a goat cheese spread.  I topped the lemon cucumbers with this blend and then garnished it with a leaf of garden basil.  Yumm.  I will definitely use this recipe again.

I served the savory course with a tart citrus herbal tisane.  It was evening and we wanted to avoid the caffeine.

I also made an egg salad, and meant to add a spicy cress (from the garden), but forgot that part, and so we had the cress as a post-party palate cleanser.  ;-) 

Then we had scones, jam and cream, and finished with chocolate, pears (local) and cheese.  With these courses, I served a rooibos blended with herbs.

It was a great evening, and I'm reminded how much I enjoy these small tea parties for two or three. They are easy to plan, prepare and enjoy.

A Wow Moment

I had one of those "wow" moments today.  I ran in my company's annual 5K race and did very well (4th woman overall).  I was surprised and pleased.  But that wasn't my wow moment.

As I was walking back to the office, I realized - or a better phrase is that I fully internalized -- that my body is amazing.  Of late, I haven't been loving it as completely as I should.  In fact, I've been frustrated with it.  I've noticed that it works a little differently than it has in the past, that things have changed.  I have more wrinkles, etc. etc. etc.  (For context: I'm 37.) And yet, I ran this race and my body performed soooo well when I pushed it.  My wow moment was when I realized that I need to love my body more fully.  I need to stop obsessing over a line here and a sag there and dark circles.  Focus instead on all the really cool things this body does for me, like taking me on great adventures.  That's what I want to teach my niece, too. 

Dye Job

Inspired by this Martha Stewart article, I spent part of a recent Saturday dip-dying anything I could get my hands on including plain white stationery and this linen fabric.  After dyeing, I tore the linen into the width I wanted and sewed a boundary line about 1/4 inch from the edge.  Then I frayed the edges, as shown below.  I love it!  (And I had enough extra linen from the yard I had purchased to make a wrap in the same style.)

While I was at it, I also dip-dyed  this plain white cotton knit shirt.

The dip-dying is easy.  The hard part is not making a mess.  I used a dish pan in my bathtub, and set up the clothes drying rack right next to it (with lots of newspaper underneath).  When it was time to rinse the fabric, I transferred into a stainless steel bowl, then to my stainless kitchen sink.  System worked pretty well.  Follow Martha's tips, and those on the package.  I used 1/2 a package of Rit powder dye (Royal blue) for all of these things and had lots left.

To get the gradations of color, I simply did a double-dip.  This project would be great for a crafty tween.  Oh, and since I did have to sew the boundary line, I'll count this as a sewing project for the September sewing month.  ;-)

Helen Gustafson

I've been reading Helen Gustafson's Green Tea User's Manual and am reminded how much I enjoyed her other book, The Agony of the Leaves: The Ecstasy of My Life with Tea.

What makes these tea books appealing, in my opinion, is not so much the tea information (tho it's useful) - similar tea info is found in many other books.  Rather, it's that Helen's personality shines through. She tells stories about her evolution as the tea buyer for Chez Panisse, that famed Alice Waters restaurant.  She has anecdotes about her efforts to bring tea, well-made tea, into being amidst the challenges of fast-paced restaurant demands.  My favorite story is about how she negotiated to get fresh water added to the kettles so the tea wouldn't be flat. 

Helen died in 2003.  Read a NYT tribute here.  Her spirit and passion for tea live on through her books, and I'm sure at Chez Panisse.  I hope to make it there some day and have a cup in her honor. 

How the OR Garden Grows...

We are part of a community garden in Oregon.  It's a 10-minute slow stroll from the house.  We often walk over after dinner.  We started with this in June.  Oregon gardeners in general got a late start this year, due to rain that continued longer into the season than normal.

What you are seeing above  is the "before" picture, but it's actually after the DH spent all day pulling weeks (the pile in the middle).  It's a 20x20 plot. 

Here's the garden plot today - lush and fruitful!  We have onions, lettuce, lemon cucumbers, zukes, squash, patty-pan squash, radish, kale, green beans and small yellow tomatoes.  And flowers.  And spinach, basil, cress.  And other stuff I'm forgetting.

And b/c if one garden is good, then two is better...we secured another 20x20 plot for the fall garden.  Lettuce, spinach, turnips, beets, chives, oh my!

Note: The "we" above works like this - the DH grows it and I love it (and eat it).

Pleading the Case for Libraries

Two library cards are now in my wallet.  I'm so lucky! 

My local (county) library is an easy bike ride from our place.  Part of the ride travels along a multipurpose trail, next to a pine grove and past a pond. 

There are walking/biking paths around this lovely pond (in the middle of a high-tech/light industrial area).  That building in the background is the library.  The process of getting here is special, and the library itself is great. 

Good news for me, I can *also* get a library card for the big one downtown (tho it's in a different county).  Of course I wanted both!  Yesterday I picked up the second card for Central Library.  It's of the old, grande dame style.

Beverly Cleary (author of the Beatrice and Ramona books) grew up in Oregon and spent many of her school years in Portland.

One rainy Sunday when I was in the third grade, I picked up a book to look at the pictures and discovered that even though I did not want to, I was reading. I have been a reader ever since.

-- Beverly Cleary

Now let me plead my case, please...

I try to keep this blog my "happy blog" - and therefore I avoid politics (usually). However, I will make an exception for libraries.

The only true equalisers in the world are books; the only treasure-house open to all comers is a library; the only wealth which will not decay is knowledge; the only jewel which you can carry beyond the grave is wisdom.

- J. A. Langford

Libraries open doors for all people, offer far more than than they receive, and take us on thousands of journey.  Some of us will have ballot motions this fall, asking us to pay a little more to support our local libraries. Please vote in support of your library.   

Reusable Snack Bags

Sweetcakes made these reusable snack/sandwich bags to match my new lunch bag.  They are lined with ripstop nylon and they close with Velcro.  Pretty cool, huh?  See her post on the topic for more info.

PS - Sept is National Sewing Month.  This is a great project in case you needed one.  ;-)

A Jeweled Frog

A fun weekend project!

On Saturday, The DH and I visited the local old-timey "Pharmacy" that still has an intact soda fountain.  It has milkshakes, burgers, cards, gifts and a lot of cool history.  I came home with three of these flower frogs.

I added some color and sparkle. 

Zinnias from our garden, Queen Anne's Lace from the vacant field.  I'm very fond of this!

The Ladies Grey and Wallis and Edward

I guess I've been on a British kick lately.
Last night, I talked the DH into watching the Wallis and Edward DVD with me.  I enjoyed it (speaking only for myself here).  That's not a part of history (British and American) I'm much acquainted with, so it was interesting and educational.  (I find the British monarchy a historical curiosity and at the same time ridiculous.)

I also just finished the book, The Sisters Who Would Be Queen.  The book was well researched and showed that love, religious strife and ambition played as much a role in the 1500s as they do today.  Set among the time prior to and during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I, it tells the story of the Grey sisters who also had claims to the throne. I read it like a novel!

What are your favorite British works, either novels or historical pieces?

Fisher Fair Scone

Fisher Fair Scones

I had not heard of Fisher Fair Scones until I picked up the mix from my local grocer's aisle and read the info on the side of the box.  Apparently Fisher scones have been served at fairs and festivals in the NW since 1915.  Any of my NW friends out there have stories to tell about these?  I'd love to hear them!

The boxed mix turned out well.  All it took was the mix, some water and some extra flour for the hand work.  (Warning:  These make sticky dough!)  The scones were light and fluffy and sweet.  If you want to whip them up from scratch, check out the original 1930's recipe (from Labour of Love's blog).

What I'm Up To...

Enjoying some time exploring Oregon with Mom

A New Lunch Bag

Even though I'm no longer living in a college town, fall seems like a new start to me.  I've had fun donating school supplies to a local drive.  And I wanted (and needed) a new lunch bag.  I whipped this one up from a pattern in this book.  I love the way it works and the size. You can see below that I was able to carry a sandwich, cheese stick, yogurt and container of granola.

The way the bag works is cool - the handles allow you to tie it off and secure everything snugly.  This works great for my bike commute. 

Now for those of you with a focus on details, you might notice my raw edges are showing.  I messed up.  Nonetheless, it works fine!

Wildness in the City

The DH and I recently discovered a forgotten nursery, a wild spot in the midst of the city!  Roses escaping...reaching for the sky, the sun, the rain.  Up, up, out, out!  I love this bit of wildness in the city! A forgotten place of beauty that delights me.

Boxes and Tins of Tea

Boxes and tins of tea are so pretty and colorful!  I keep an eye open for the interesting ones.  Here are a few I've found...

Two spellings for tea, depending on which side of the tin you show. 
From Turkuaz in my beloved B-town.

An overwhelming number of choices at an Asian market

A marketing/art department with a sense of humor.
Found along the Oregon coast.

Tea Explorations

I've been having lots of fun exploring new (and old) teas lately! 

A few weeks ago, I had the chance to try some unusual matcha-styled (powdered) teas with Lindsey, of Vee Tea.  She's had special training in the preparation of matcha, and I loved watching her whisk up the fine powder to a froth.  These teas were non-traditional matchas, in that they were chosen for their high antioxidant levels and made into powder.  The thought is the powdered tea will offer even more health benefit when a person ingests the whole leaf.  I'm not able to comment on the validity of this claim, but I find it an interesting concept.  One of the teas, a white, made a lovely froth and silver-green color (reminding me of a silver artemesia plant).

We started with a high-quality matcha, Matcha Hekisui, then progressed to the non-traditional ones.  Here is Lindsey whisking up the first matcha.

The powdered white tea, after whisking

Today we had a puerh sampling session.  We tasted two special varieties, one packed in a bamboo stalk and the other in a pomelo rind.  These are the "old" teas I referenced above because puerh tea is aged.  It was fascinating to loosen the brick-like tea from its container and then notice the aroma of the dry leaf, the wet leaf and the flavor differences both within the same tea at different brew lengths, and between the teas.

Tea will continue to be a life-long study and passion.  There is so much to learn and explore.

A Temporary?? Pleasure

I recently had a very nice lunch at a local antique store/cafe near me.  When I shared my pleasure with the server, she let me know that there was a good chance the place would close in January.  My heart sank. 

I had a delicious lunch (sandwich, soup, heavenly marionberry scone with cream, well-made English Breakfast loose tea and milk and sugar).  I was excited about making this a regular thing.  It's very close to where I live.  I don't know the drivers for the closure, could be a victim of the economy...could be the owner has inspiring plans elsewhere.  Selfishly, I hope it stays open, but I know that my desires might not be for the greater good.  Nonetheless, I can hope and enjoy it while it's here! 

Note:  I'm leaving the restaurant nameless in case it remains open!  At that point I will celebrate and share the name!

Public Art, Tea Themed

I love public art!  Imagine my happiness when I found this gem in Portland, near PGE Park.  So cool!

1000 Layer Cracker

On a recent Trader Joe's shopping excursion, these "1000 layer crackers" caught my attention.  According to the package, they've been enjoyed in China for ages.

While there may not actually be 1000 layers, these are very delicious and simple crackers.  In fact, I was super impressed by the short ingredients list: wheat flour, palm oil, sugar, sesame, salt.

I really, really liked the sweet-salty-sesame mix of the crackers, and the texture was also fantastic.  However, each cracker is wrapped individually in plastic.  Excessive.  I probably won't buy them again because of that.  Dang it.

What Is Cobbler to You?

Blackberry Cobbler, Dear Hubby Style

What is cobbler to you?  To me, it's made in a rectangular pan, pie crust on bottom and top (the more the better; we fight for the corners!), and fruit filling in between.

To the DH, it's fruit on bottom with a biscuit topping that allows room for the fruit filling to bubble up.

Both are delicious.  Which style is yours?  (See Poll at right.)