As we come around the corner, you are almost there...
(As always, please feel free to click on the images
in order to see them larger.)
We love the wildness of our little yard this year!
Welcome back to the porch!
It's almost time again for a Teeny Tea!
We hope that all friends of The Gossamer Tearoom are well. We know that isolation has made things difficult for many folks. We come to you today in a positive spirit and hope our get-together brings some sunshine to your day.
Here is Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle, as always, working hard to make everything look its best.
In our last post, she was trying to decide which colors of dishes to use for today's tea. Since this is the "Tea of Cheer", she thought it was best to use all the colors! In our minds, more color equals more cheer!
Here comes Eadwig through the flowers, as usual!
Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle has been very excited to see him, as she has a new dish she wants him to see (one that did not arrive in time for our last post, so you'll get to see it for the first time too!
Just look, Eadwig! A beautiful antique dish, with bugs on it! This lovely dish was made in France, probably in the 1890's, by a company called K & G Luneville. Eadwig approves of this addition to the dish collection wholeheartedly!
He carries one of the prettiest cherries over and places it on the new, lovely bug dish. Very nice, Eadwig!
Everyone is looking forward to having these beautiful, juicy
cherries as part of our dessert course today!
Here comes Brownie McNutt, waving in his friendly way!
And Eggsy and his friends as well!
I think Eadwig is trying to play a trick on Eggsy!
Where did he go???
Brownie is doing some practicing while we all wait for the tea to begin.
Let's take a peek at the menu, while we wait!
I did something a bit different this time for the menu and made a collage from some bits and pieces I found in my art supplies. The nasturtium background is the back cover of a book of Art Nouveau papers I have had a long time. The lovely pansy paper was the last piece I had ferreted away from a small packet I had bought in the gift shop of The National Gallery in Washington, DC, when I lived there. It was made in Paris by a company called G. Lalo, which has been making stationery there in Paris since 1919.
This is the storefront of G. Lalo., looking very Parisian, of course.
All roads lead back to Paris for me.
I've become an armchair traveler once again.
But, for today, we are here, with our loved ones, in the sunshine.
It is a good place to be.
What does Hyacinthe see?
We seem to have had an uninvited guest!
(Not to worry. Mr. V very gently released him
onto the lawn unharmed.)
Here comes Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle, with our luncheon!
We start out today's luncheon with tiny heirloom tomatoes, baked with egg and sour cream mixture, and topped with pesto.
I was inspired by a recipe for Egg-Stuffed Tomatoes from "The Vintage Tea Party Book" by Angel Adorée, adapted, of course, for Teeny Tea size.
If you haven't seen this book, I highly recommend it, along with the rest of her books. They are so creative and charming.
We'll be plating ours with the microgreens and edible flowers that we grew on the porch!
Here are the two kinds of hand-made cheese crackers we will be enjoying with our baked tomatoes.
The round ones are Parmesan Shortbreads, a recipe from Nigella Lawson, which you can find here.
The long crackers are Cheshire Cat's Cheese Whiskers. The recipe is from the sadly, long-out-of-print "Alice in Wonderland Cookbook". Please let me know if you would like the recipe. You can easily reach me by leaving a comment below, or on Twitter or Instagram.
Both of them are so easy to make and lovely to snack on by themselves or with a glass of wine.
May I offer you some cheese crackers?
Mr. Bear is always very appreciative of what we make for our teas!
When I made the Cheese Whiskers, I sprinkled smoked paprika on some of them and some I left plain.
The tiny yellow flowers garnishing the plates were some that grew from one of the varieties of the lettuce growing in the containers on the porch!
I'm happy to see Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle relaxing and enjoying her luncheon, after helping out so much!
Here are Eadwig and Tulip, about to enjoy their luncheon, while listening to Brownie play the toy piano.
What is, for some, a small entrée is an entire meal for others, you know!
As usual, here is Brownie, entertaining us on the toy piano!
Plinka-plinka-plink!
He gets bites of cracker and tea in between songs, you know!
One of our favorites, from our favorite movie,
"Amélie"
Here's one called "The Broken Music Box".
The dogs think the crackers are yummy cheese dog biscuits!
They even have a little glass dish of tea to sip!
Today, our iced tea is an Iced Ginger-Plum Tisane, from Kilogram Tea in Chicago. It contains hibiscus, rose hips, ginger and essence of plum. We love it with just a splash of orange juice and a few sprinkles of raw sugar. (Because the tea is an herbal one, we feel fully justified in calling it a "tisane" this time, but mostly because we like the word! It makes us think of when Hercule Poirot says to Miss Lemon, "My tisane, if you please, Miss Lemon!"
Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle likes a bit more raw sugar in her tea!
Speaking of sweets, it's time for dessert!
Today, we have lovely slices of strawberry-almond clafoutis,
a recipe we got from our friend Jill, from the blog
Dessert is always Hyacinthe's favorite part of our teas!
Mr. Bear asked to just have cherries for his dessert!
He and his friend Parsnip have waited for these all day!
Now that our luncheon is finished, we will move to this sunny corner of the porch for some fun activities. I don't know about you, but since our isolation began, we have tried to keep busy with various things to keep our days from resembling one after another. The Doll and Animal Family are just the same and they have been doing many fun things to pass the time. Let's take a look!
The Whipped Cream Ballet was first performed in Vienna, in 1924, and this books shows not only photos from the recent production by The American Ballet Theatre, but also photos and sketches from the original performance.
If you are familiar with the work of Mark Ryden, it will come as no surprise that his artistic influence lends a sweet but creepy air to the ballet.
You can learn more about the Whipped Cream Ballet here.
While we look at our books, we are listening to our radio. It's a special radio, you know and we can listen to our favorite music, but also to podcasts. Here are some of the one we like the best:
-Holding Up the Queue, from Benjamin Pollock's Toystore in London. It's a very fun podcast where they chat about toys, art and creativity.
-On warm days like today, we think we feel cooler listening to Nigel Slater's lovely voice on his podcast called "The Christmas Chronicles"!
Both of these are available on Apple Podcasts.
We also like to listen to music on our radio.
We like all kinds of music.
Here are some of our favorites:
Erik Satie
Claude Debussy
Django Reinhardt and Stephane Grappelli
Ödland
The soundtracks of Amélie and MicMacs
Here's another of our favorite books to look at! It's Alice in Wonderland, illustrated by another great pop surrealist, Camille Rose Garcia. We love reading this story over and over, but Camille's illustrations really bring another aspect to how we think about it.
In addition to looking at books, we also love to play games!
Here, we are playing Tea Party Ludo (which is quite similar to Pachisi).
This lovely game came all the way from Benjamin Pollock's
Toy Store in London!
Concentrating very hard on the game!
Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle's turn to roll the dice!
We don't really mind who wins!
We just enjoy playing!
And finally, as it becomes a bit cooler this evening, we play croquet!
We don't really pay a lot of attention to rules when we play.
We just like to have fun.
Mr. Bear is plotting his strategy, nonetheless!
Perhaps, if he holds the mallet this way instead!
Sometimes watching is just as much fun as playing.
Teddy says, "My turn next, please!"
We are so happy that you have joined us again today and we hope we have brought some cheer to your day!
(A very boring note: Blogger has changed its format, making the composition of blog posts much easier, and, I hope, resolving the problem about being able to leave comments. Please feel free to try and leave a comment again now, and if you are not able, please feel free to do so on my Twitter or Instagram. If you indicate that you would like it posted here, I will post it myself. Thank you, as always, Betty)
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