Archive for May, 2008
This guest post was written by Amy Puetz. A homeschool graduate, she loves history, sewing, and working as a computer graphic artist for her company A to Z Designs. In her spare time she enjoys traveling to different historical eras via books and movies! A columnist for Homeschool Enrichment Magazine, she also writes for her series of e-books, Heroines of the Past. Visit her website at www.AmyPuetz.com.
“You can ask Diana to come over and spend the afternoon with you and have tea here.”
“Oh, Marilla!” Anne clasped her hands. “How perfectly lovely! You ARE able to imagine things after all or else you’d never have understood how I’ve longed for that very thing. It will seem so nice and grown-uppish. No fear of my forgetting to put the tea to draw when I have company. Oh, Marilla, can I use the rosebud spray tea set?”
“No, indeed! The rosebud tea set! Well, what next? You know I never use that except for the minister or the Aids. You’ll put down the old brown tea set. But you can open the little yellow crock of cherry preserves. It’s time it was being used anyhow-I believe it’s beginning to work. And you can cut some fruit cake and have some of the cookies and snaps.”
“I can just imagine myself sitting down at the head of the table and pouring out the tea,” said Anne, shutting her eyes ecstatically. “And asking Diana if she takes sugar! I know she doesn’t but of course I’ll ask her just as if I didn’t know. And then pressing her to take another piece of fruit cake and another helping of preserves. Oh, Marilla, it’s a wonderful sensation just to think of it.”
This scene from Anne of Green Gables by L. M. Montgomery is a good example of the importance of Victorian Tea Time. Tea time in Victorian society was usually a light meal eaten between breakfast in the morning and dinner in the evening. The typical hour was four o’clock. Drinking tea was not limited to one meal a day. It was also consumed at breakfast and dinner. During afternoon tea ladies would have cold meat, bread (such as rusk, crumpets, biscuits, etc.) and some kind of fruit (either preserves, stewed apples, or jellys). Traditionally either green or black tea was served. It was common to offer both if the preferred beverage was not known. Victorian ladies also enjoyed afternoon tea parties. Friends would be invited and tea time would be shared with a group.
Tea would be served with sugar and milk. For many families tea was the final meal of the day. Breakfast was eaten early, dinner was consumed at noon and then tea was in the late afternoon. There was great variety among individuals when lunch, dinner, supper, and tea were taken depending on a person’s wealth and work schedule. Although tea was a popular beverage before the Victorian era we get many of our traditions from them, such as the practice of having afternoon tea! Here are some good cookbooks about Victorian food.
To end I must tell you about Anne Shirley’s tea party. Before the actual tea Anne served Diana some raspberry cordial and Diana soon became very sick. Apparently it was currant wine and not raspberry cordial that Anne gave her guest. Perhaps she should have supplied tea, instead!
Tea Party Girl’s note: At what age did you first read Anne of Green Gables? Did you have a bosom friend in junior high? My kindred spirit was also red-haired and now makes movies for a living, having married an Italian filmmaker. She was definitely the Anne Shirley to my Diana Barry, with her rich imagination. Tell us about yours in the comments below.
May 16th, 2008
- Measure and boil four cups of water.
- Measure out 3 scant tablespoons of looseleaf tea into large T-Sac Tea Filters.
- Brew leaves for four minutes.
- Remove leaves and pour hot tea over 4 cups of ice.
- Add 1/4 cup of sugar. (optional)
- Chill.
Friends, there is no reason to buy a powdered mix filled with chemicals or sweeteners. There is no reason to buy bottled iced tea (that’s expensive water and high fructose corn syrup you’re purchasing! Save your money to fill your gas tank.).I make a pitcher of blackberry
or peach iced tea almost every day through the summer and my children love it. It costs pennies a pitcher and even though I sweeten it, it feels like a good mommy choice. And I have it ready to offer at a moment’s notice when people drop by on hot days. I get compliments on my iced tea all the time!
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May 13th, 2008
You’ve been asked to host an event in your home. Maybe it’s a girl’s night out, direct sales party, or bridal shower. “We’ll take care of everything,” you’re told. “We just need a place.” And you think, “Great! I can do that. It should be a breeze.”
I have a question for you, Readers. Do you think this is realistic?
One of the reasons I have been unable to post to Tea Party Girl as often over the last few weeks is because I attended and helped host a number of events in real life. Each involved group efforts and I found myself asking this question off and on. Here’s my top three observations and it would be great to hear some of your perspectives in the comments below.
If you are hosting the event in your home people will use your bathroom, ask for your ice, and be afraid of your dog. In other words, there’s a certain level of prep, availability and clean-up that will be required of you. Unless you’ve hired a professional caterer, it is unrealistic to think that whomever is coming into your home to put on the event will remember everything and need nothing.
Because it is your home, you help set the tone. For various reasons, I assisted at two events in a row where at the beginning, everyone bunched together in a passageway and awkwardly stood around. It would have been a great help for the homeowner to direct people where to sit, turned on some music or even helped with quick glasses of ice water.
Someone has to be in the kitchen. Think of your warmest memories of events/gatherings that have taken place in homes. Whether it’s with friends or family, most likely someone spent a chunk of time in the kitchen. And they were relaxed about it. Maybe they poured you a glass of wine or cup of tea while you chatted with them from the breakfast bar. Usually the best home gatherings take place when the hostess is at ease sharing her role in the kitchen with others and conversations can happen while the food prep is taking place. If you are hosting an event in your home ask yourself how you can utilize your home’s center and heartbeat, the kitchen. If the kitchen is not a place you like to be, is it realistic to host events in your home?
Last Friday evening, my family and I experienced a home gathering that provided real refreshment for the guests. It was casual. People arrived at different times. Some were family, some were friends. The ages ranged from six-over sixty. Wine flowed, laughter erupted, and guests put their feet up. The kids swam and played basketball and hide-and-go-seek. Our hostess spent time in the kitchen making enchiladas and dishing up homemade ice cream. She seemed at ease with my husband constructing a huge salad for us all and her father’s wife making margaritas while her brother and I hung out in the kitchen discovering mutual friends and a fondness for classic literature. She even found time to sit and laugh with us on occasion.
But when all was said and done, she was the one who gathered up the abandoned drinks, discovered the muddy footprints in her guest bath from the numerous children, and swept under the table where we ate. I am guessing she and her husband didn’t calculate the financial cost, but willingly gave it. How I long to be a hostess like this to others.
So what do you think? What takes a home-based event from good to great? How much hinges on the hostess? Are you a realistic hostess?
May 12th, 2008
Remember, I don’t bake. But guess who brought the homemade cake to the bridal shower over the weekend?
May 5th, 2008
Can the elegance of the tea party mix with rural horses? It isn’t easy, but it can be done! I experienced it in action last Saturday at a birthday party for a friend of my daughter’s. With guidance straight from Let’s Have a Tea Party!: Special Celebrations for Little Girls (pictured above) anyone can combine two of little girl’s favorite loves: the teapot and the horse.
Not every horse tea party can start as this one did, with pony rides. But if you can pull it off, the girls will never forget it.
Even if you can’t offer real horses, most young girls own a horse or two you can use for decorations. Check out the simple centerpiece setup for this horse-themed tea table set up under a canopy outside.
The mother used blue ribbons for simple napkin rings. She served three different kind of tea sandwiches cut with a horse-head shaped cookie cutter, spinach pinwheels, and the highlight: chocolate-dipped strawberries.
And what girl can resist a pink teapot-shaped cake covered in Skittles? Notice the teapot lid, a simple round lollipop stuck in the top.
My daughter called it one of the best days of her life. I wish I had taken a picture of the darling favor bags the mom put together. She folded the top of simple paper bags and stapled them like the top of a teabag, complete with attached yarn and small paper square like the tabs on teabags. Darling! And the birthday girl loved hosting her guests, telling them to pick out their teacups and pouring the “tea” for them.
There’s only one thing I would have done differently, besides serve real tea, and that is to plan a short etiquette lesson. As the only adult around at the time when the girls sat down, I was slightly taken aback (though not terribly surprised) when one girl began to lead the others in a burping contest. What did surprise me was that when I immediately stepped in with some gentle correction and guidance, they didn’t all respond very quickly. As a homeschooling mom, I still believe young children (I don’t think any of the girls were over eight) expect adults to guide them. And I hate to think, truly, that any young girl may already be ruined for graciousness and gentility in certain situations.
Teach your children well, dear readers. Don’t assume they know how to act. The window of opportunity is often smaller than we think.
May 2nd, 2008
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