April 13, 2012

The fourth day she reduced the teabags inside the pot to one

“The fourth day she reduced the teabags inside the pot to one, and he commented the tea had gone very weak, as though it was being controlled by the weather or an outside force. He did not lift the lid of the pot, because he was not accustomed to doing such things for himself.” –from Anakana Schofield’s Malarky

July 13, 2011

The world was upside down

“‘I don’t know why you’re laughing,’ said Aunt Irene. ‘I don’t see anything to laugh about. Everything strikes me as rather worrying.’

‘I’ll make a cuppa tea,’ said Mrs. O’Connor. She made terrible tea, very slimy, strong and tooth-stripping, but there was no denying its restorative powers.

‘If it does this to one’s cups,’ said Aunt Irene when Mrs. O’Connor had gone home to make tea for her boys, ‘what must it be doing to the lining of one’s stomach?’ She rubbed at the stained inside of the porcelain teacup. ‘I can’t be too rough,’ she said. ‘All its little gilt flowers will come off. They were designed for China tea. No one ever imagined Mrs. O’Connor would cross their path.’

The world was upside down. On the whole, this pleased Aunt Irene as much as it angered Mrs. Mason. It was more interesting that way, but it was hard on the porcelain.”– from The 27th Kingdom by Alice Thomas Ellis

April 30, 2011

Project Tea Party

The best thing about being married to me is that you get to spend whole mornings up to your elbows in marzipan. Because I was determined that we would make a battenberg cake for our royal wedding tea party. And today we discovered that just how Queen Victoria got so fat– it’s because you have to trim top and sides off the cake before you ice it, and it takes inordinate willpower to not eat the scraps–they were delicious! The marzipan too, even though it was too sticky. I got Stuart to construct the cake once I’d baked it, because I’m terrible at things that require attention and patience. He did a bang-up job, and the cake was delicious (then devoured). We also served these strawberry jam tarts, which were incredible (and easy). And scones shaped like teapots, which is the best thing I have ever imagined. This photo was taken before we took the sausage rolls out of the oven, and they were delicious too, although store-bought. Tea was served in the big, beautiful teapot I received as a wedding gift and that spends most of its time getting dusty on the shelf because I fear breaking it. So it was nice to use it. I also liked an excuse to pull out my teapot table cloth from Honest Ed’s, and I think the Queen probably has one similar.

And then Nathalie Foy took the (battenberg) cake for hostess gifts, bringing me actual perfume scented like a Barbara Pym paperback: “sweet, and a bit musty, a lot like Pym’s world come to think of it.” I read in the papers that the Duchess of Cambridge was wearing an identical scent yesterday.

April 1, 2011

A teapot for Harriet

Our friend Genevieve Côté sent us this picture today, to satisfy Harriet’s love of teapots. (Harriet is a teapot tyrant. She will hand you a crayon and say, “Teapot, happy” and you have no choice but to comply, to draw that teapot, and don’t even try to forget the happy smile.)

We were excited to see Genevieve’s new book yesterday at Book City. Without You is the sequel to her acclaimed 2009 book Me and You, and I will be buying it for Harriet for her birthday. Genevieve has a thing for teapots too, and Harriet loves finding them in her gorgeous illustrations.

February 28, 2011

We love Ilkley. Thank you, Jackson Brodie.

Today Harriet stayed home with her grandparents, and Stuart and I drove to Ilkley in Yorkshire (which is very close to Burley Cross country). I wanted to go to a Bettys Tea Room after reading Starting Early Took My Dog (which should probably receive a commission for our visit). Jackson Brodie certainly did not mislead us: if the Bettys girls ran the government, indeed, there would not have been recent economic disasters, or disasters of any kind. Tea was completely delicious, definitely the best we’d had since Saturday, and I was particularly in love with the woman having her breakfast at the table across from ours’ (“Anything else for ye, Vera?” they asked as she was preparing to go, as she tied a kerchief around her hair).

We had fun exploring the town afterwards, visiting the best butcher in Britain, and the Grove Bookshop, a fabulous independent bookshop whose business was booming. We got a steak and kidney pie at the former, and at the bookshop, I got a Penguin 75 tote bag, and Old Filth by Jane Gardam (which I’ve had out of the library twice, but have always had to return before I’ve had a chance to read it).

January 6, 2011

A Poem: Tea words as appropriated from Oxford Canadian Dictionary

tea. tea bag. tea ball. teaberry. tea biscuit. tea bread. tea break. tea caddy. teacake. tea ceremony. tea chest. tea cozy. teacup. tea dance. tea garden. tea house. tea lady. tea leaf. tea party. tea plant. teapot. teapoy. tea room. tea rose. tea service. tea shop. teaspoon. tea strainer. tea table. tea time. tea towel. tea tray. tea tree. tea trolley.

September 18, 2010

Dear Graphic Designers

Dear Graphic Designers,

If you would like to buy your product solely based upon its packaging, please create a package that looks like the Clipper Tea tea box. I will buy it. I don’t care what you are selling, but I will buy it. And then I will bid you a “Well done” for creating a cardboard box that makes me feel like a better person for simply possessing it.

Love, Kerry

August 25, 2010

Hardly a good advertisement

“I’ve just made a cup of tea,” said Miss Caton, who was crouching near the gas-ring. “This will do you good– a strong cup of tea with plenty of sugar. I learnt that when I was doing first aid during the war– treatment for shock.”
Humphrey glanced distastefully at the tan-coloured liquid in the think white cup and waved it aside. “No, thank you, Miss Caton– I really couldn’t drink it– and where did you get that terrible cup?”
“It’s the one I have my elevenses and my tea out of every day,” she said briskly.
Humphrey took his mid-morning coffee elsewhere if he was not at a sale and was seldom on the premises in the afternoon either, so he had probably never noticed his typist drinking from the thick serviceable cup.
“Well, Miss Caton,” he said. “I can only hope that nobody has ever seen you drinking from such a monstrosity. It would hardly be a good advertisement, would it?”
“I take my tea in the back,” she said, on the defensive, “so no customer could have seen me.”
“And you, James– do you drink from such a cup?” asked his uncle sternly.
“I don’t know,” James mumbled. “I suppose I may have done on occasion.”
Humphrey exclaimed in horror.
“Perhaps a cup of China tea,” Miss Caton persisted, “though it wouldn’t have the same reviving effect, and without milk or sugar it might be too acid for you in your present condition.”
–from Barbara Pym’s The Sweet Dove Died

August 22, 2010

Cups and saucers

Today we not only hopped in the car, but we went to the mall, both of which are novel experiences for mall-hating folks such as ourselves, who don’t even own a car. But it was raining outside, and Harriet needed new pajamas, and our dinnerware also needed replacing after more than five years of being chipped and broken. Due to financial reasons, I couldn’t get the dishes I really wanted, but I do like the ones we settled on instead. The teacups in particular, and how lovely to have a saucer for each one to rest upon.

August 20, 2010

If all else fails

So it turns out that I have a motto after all, because surely I’ve been saying this for years, but then Barbara Pym had been saying it for longer, so I read in her collected letters and diaries. The motto is (and it’s a good one, I think): “…if all else fails, we can always start a teashop.” Indeed.