Please to remember...

Super Nice People Talking About My Cards...

Just want to say a huge "Thank You" to some lovely people tonight!  

"Ecka and Pecka" tweeted me a few days ago that The Gossamer Tearoom had been mentioned in an interview they had done for their blog with Bev, General Manager of PulpDC, who was a friend of Mr. V's and mine when we lived in Washington.  Earlier this year, Pulp started to sell some of my silk pillow and glitter cards!  Today, they tweeted me again to let me know they had published the interview with Bev on their blog!  

You know, I am still pretty amazed by what Mr. V and I call "The Internets".  People get a chance to know each other who might have never otherwise had a chance to meet.  It really is pretty incredible.  And, now I know of the nice ladies who call themselves Ecka and Pecka (and Meream) too!

Sending love out to all of the nice people I have met through my blog, Twitter and Pinterest.  And thank you and big hugs go out to Bev and the crew at PulpDC!

Wishing you all a wonderful Friday evening!

Halloween news coming soon....new brooches and ornaments and cards...and how could we let the holiday go by without a party here at The Tearoom.

The End of Summer...

Dearest Dear Friends of The Tearoom,
Welcome!  Even though Halloween is one of my favorite holidays of the year and here at The Tearoom, happy scramblings have begun to happen to prepare for it, I DO so hate when summer ends!  I love spring and summer the very best and honestly, Halloween may be the only thing that keeps me from digging a hole and hibernating in it until spring!

But, nonetheless, there are treats for us (because we always deserve treats, don't we?)

I still think it is so fun to bring to you the newest flavors from our favorite Houses of Haute Patisserie in Paris!  And I like it even better that so many of the lovely things they make are made with citrus or tropical flavors!  Is it just me or are they like eating sunshine?  Which will you try first...?

Perhaps one of the new flavor for autumn from The House of Ladurée:  Orange Sanguine Gingembre (Blood Orange Ginger)...

Which of the flavors like stored sunshine would you choose from the macarons from The House of Pierre Hermé?

(from left to right)...This is the Metissé macaron with the surprising, but intriguing combination of orange, carrot and Ceylon cinnamon!  I would definitely give this a try!  I used to love drinking orange and carrot juice combined and the cinnamon could only make it better!

Or would you try Monsieur Hermé's Huile d'Olive à la Mandarine (Olive Oil with Mandarin Orange).  An unusual combination to be sure.  Would you try it?  I would!  I have been experimenting with cooking with olive oil and have been adding extra virgin, not the lighter sort, to many baked goods with fruit and there is an extra depth of flavor to them thanks to it.  Remember, olives are fruit too!)

If lemon is your favorite citrus flavor, perhaps the Médélice (Lemon & Flaky Hazelnut Praline) or the Infiniment Citron (Infinite Lemon) would entice you?

I find tropical flavors like passionfruit and pineapple to be just as cheery as citrus ones.  The House of Dalloyau has new flavors of religieuses each season and their newest sweet flavor is their Religieuse Exotique filled with a cream bursting with tropical flavors!  Oh yes, please!!

...and what tea to have with all this sunshine?  I think...yes...that's it...Thé Satine by Pierre Hermé, a black tea scented with the lovely flavors of passionfruit and orange....

Oh, won't you stop for a bit and have a cup of tea and a treat with me?

And just to prepare you for Halloween, may I share with you a poetry reading from one of my favorite poets, Edgar Oliver, reading his poem "The End of Summer"?  I just love his voice and I'm so glad to have discovered him, if only recently.  I learned of him, as many have come to know him, from the fun and creepy show Oddities on The Science Channel (it is not to everyone's taste, but perhaps it speaks to my boredom with the area in which I currently live.  I miss living in the city and seeing so many different kinds of people...)


Video of Edgar Oliver "The End of Summer" by straw2gold pictures.

There are many more videos of his readings on YouTube, which I will be posting as our Halloween season draws ever nearer....

And as for Halloween...

Are You In Need of Wacky?

Please take a helping here.



With hugs from me,

Betty

Nothing Short of Brilliant...

Dearest Friends,

This brilliant video is called "Le Flâneur" and I found it while burrowing into The Rabbit Hole Called Pinterest yesterday.  I know I am very late to the party, but it is so very addictive, isn't it?  However, I do find it very inspiring as well and find that more people are finding their ways to my shops!

Nonetheless, let me clear my head of Pinterest Fog for a minute!  The video is by a very talented young man named Luke Shepard, a student at The American University of Paris.  I watched the video a few times (We also LOVE the music of The xx and his images are perfectly timed to it!).  I was amazed to read that the video is composed entirely of photographs!  I also saw that he has a Kickstarter project where he is raising money to make another film, only this time to include other monuments in Europe, also filmed at night.  My friends here at The Tearoom know that I do love the night-time and when Mr. V and I visited Paris, we kept a very strange schedule indeed whereby we arose late in the morning and were some of the last to have our breakfast in the little breakfast room in our hotel (we hope we did not annoy our very sweet hostess too, too much...she was so very nice!).  We walked around the city for a lot of the day, but in the afternoon, we would come back to the hotel and have a long nap.  We would then arise again, have a late dinner and walk the streets until midnight...one o'clock...after...  Maybe because we lived in Washington at the time, we were always very aware of our surroundings, but I will tell you that we felt much more at ease walking in Paris at night that we did in DC.  We were enchanted by Paris after dark and I feel that Mr. Shepard perfectly captures much of what we saw and how we saw it.

Won't you please consider checking into his Kickstarter site and making a contribution to what I am sure will be another beautiful film?

ow.ly/dneLE

Luke Shepard

The Flâneur

If you are unable to make a contribution (life is so hard for so many at this time, Mr. V and myself included), won't you please help by chatting about his video on your blog, on Facebook, on Twitter, on Pinterest or just by sharing it with your friends?

In the great synchronicity of life, it no longer surprises me when similar references to many things stack up, one on the other, coming from random places and planting themselves at my doorstep.  Only yesterday, I finished reading "The Flâneur" by Edmund White.  On the dustjacket, he says "A flâneur is a stroller, a loiterer, someone who ambles through a city without apparent purpose but is secretly attuned to the history of the place and in covert search of adventure..."

Mr. Shepard and Mr. White have given us definitive examples of what it is like to just wander and be open to the grand surprises that await us in Paris, and in fact, everywhere...