A Dear Friend Brings a Special Guest . . .

Dearest Friends,
Have I told you lately how happy I am that you visit with me here in The Tearoom? I have met such lovely friends here!

This morning, my lovely friend in Paris Marie-France has brought us a special guest. It is my deepest honor today to be hosting a special tea in honor of Our Queen Marie Antoinette!

The collage above is one Marie-France created for me! It really is perfect, isn't it? Our Queen sits here in The Tearoom in such beautiful colors! She created this for a post she has very graciously written about me and The Tearoom on her gorgeous collage site NigéArt! Merci beaucoup, ma chère ami! C'est incroyable!

And just when I was beginning to wonder what to serve my friends and honored guests today, I checked my e-mail again and what did I find? This lovely dessert from Monsieur Pierre Hermé! I'm sure some of you will remember that spring is the time of year for the emergence of his fetish flavor Montebello. And so thank you, Monsieur Hermé for providing me with something wonderful to serve my guests today! For tea, I will be serving the Quatre Fruit Rouge tea (Four Red Fruits) scented with the essences of strawberry, raspberry, cherry and currant from Betjeman & Barton, brought to our attention by Vicky at the lovely French Essence.



(In the meanwhile, Miss LuLu is ill, so we will leave a cup of Earl Grey next to her bed! Note to Fur Babies:
This tea is for Mommy. Do not drink it please!)

Mademoiselle Moon in the Spotlight...

Dearest Friends,
I am so very pleased! I have just received an Etsy convo letting me know that Our Dear Mademoiselle Moon is having her 15 Minutes of Fame in a very fun Etsy Treasury tonight! There are so many beautiful and unusual items (you know how much I do love the combination of beautiful and unusual!) Along with my Mademoiselle Moon card, there are purple watermelons that look like the night sky, pink peppercorn lollipops and many other very sweet things! Thank you so much Tamera, for including me in this Treasury!

New Blog Candy

Dearest Friends,
Inspired by watching The Duchess, starring Keira Knightly, I have a new-found fascination with Georgiana, the Duchess of Devonshire. I have long included the wonderful blog Marie Antoinette's Gossip Guide to the 18th Century in my list of must-read blogs and I am now very happy to include its sister site Georgiana's Gossip Guide to the 18th Century as well! If you have not already, indulge and immerse yourself in this delightful blog devoted to this fascinating woman. No other excuse is needed to include this excellent blog in my list, but I was intrigued by these connections:

-She and Marie Antoinette were great friends and the Duchess remained her friend for the rest of her life.

-The Duchess had a very famous affair with Charles Grey, also known as the 2nd Earl Grey. It was after him that one of our favorite teas, Earl Grey, was named!

Soon, I will have more new blog candy coming up to entice you...

New Etsy Items

Dearest Friends,
Please won't you take a moment to take a look at the new items I have made for the Etsy shop (also called "The Gift Shop" because if I went to a place like The Gossamer Tearoom, I would want to take home souvenirs!)



Some while ago, I started to make tags that I thought would be used as gift tags. I gave some to friends and the first thing they did was use them as bookmarks instead! Clever them! So, they can be used as tags or bookmarks and just maybe you have even more ideas for them! Please let me know if you do! I called them the "Chapeaux des Gateaux" Bookmarks/Tags (that's Cake Hat in French!) because with my handy computer, I stacked desserts, teacups and fruits on top of these ladies heads (and they wear them very gracefully, I might add!). The two pictures above are close ups of these lovely, glittery tags!

I have also been hard at work on another item. It is a note card/gift tag set called "Midnight in Paris". All the images are rubberstamped on black cardstock and then embossed with metallic copper embossing powder, so they shine just like new pennies! There are three cards and four gift tags per set, plus the set comes packaged in a small portfolio with a metallic pen for writing on them (and then using on other correspondence when you have used all of these!). The cards include an eye and the word "Bonjour", a strawberry and the word "Merci" and Cupid asleep in a comfy chair with "Je t'aime" underneath! The gift tags are an art deco hotel sign, a vintage French postage stamp, a bottle of champagne and a teacup with the words "Tea Party" dangling from it. All of the tags are tied with pretty metallic copper twine. A close-up of the Merci card is shown below.


Thank you so much, dear friends, for taking a look at the things I have fun making!

Betty

Another Thank You . . .

Dear Friends,
Today, I would like to thank my very dear friend Marie-France from Paris, who has been so lovely as to have given me a blog award!!! Thank you so very, very much! Once again, I am humbled and honored! This dear friend has several wonderful blogs of freebie images and an Etsy shop! I first met her through her blog Marie's Freebies, about which I have blogged before. Then, she started Croquette a Du Bol, with many of beautiful images of cats. Now, she has started Il Etait Une Fois Toi Mon Chien, with many beautiful images of dogs (including the one above)! She is really such a nice lady and I am so lucky to have met her through the blogging world!

(Note: Sadly, she has now closed all of her blogs and I have disabled the links because others have now taken the links to lead to things that were NOT so nice as her blogs were!)




So, my duties are as follows: List 10 things that make me happy, 5 unusual things about myself and name 5 friends to pass to award to. I am still deciding who I will pass it to next, but the following are my answers for the questions:

Ten Things That Make Me Happy
-My dear husband Mr. V!
-Waking up and seeing the sun shining (not always a common occurrence here in New England)
-Greeting the moonbeams creeping in our window at night, courtesy of our friend Mlle. Moon
-Blogging or doing art work in the middle of the night when everyone else is asleep
-Creating digital collages with vintage images
-Wearing my favorite pair of barefeet (which I do most of the time)
-Being completely absorbed by a really fun book
-Listening to music I haven't heard in a while and finding myself transported to a time in the past when I first heard it
-Experiencing food in every way (cooking, eating, reading about, dreaming about)
-Moxie, a soda that is generally only available in the northeast. I had just about given up drinking soda and then I moved back here and I'm hooked again!

Five Unusual Things You Might Not Know About Me
-I am phobic of butterflies! I love the way they look, but if they fly at me, I duck!
-I love thunderstorms!
-My least favorite part of most sandwiches is the bread and I have a habit of disposing of it halfway through the sandwich and only eating what's inside (unless I'm eating tea sandwiches)!
-My taste in music ranges from Sade to Tricky, from The Blue Nile to Bat for Lashes, from Everything But the Girl to Eddie Money, house to 16th Century harpsichord, Scritti Politti to Sting. It's not that I listen to everything, but I have a VERY wide range of musical tastes.
-Everyone knows my favorite color is purple (although I love working with a lot of black in art and design). But my second favorite color is chartreuse green and I use it in collages and photos probably more than you have noticed!

I have decided to build a new "wing" of the Tearoom for the blog awards I have received! If you click on the strawberry in the right hand column, it will lead you to a brand new Gossamer Tearoom page with links to the lovely people who have honored me with awards.

Wishing you all a splendid rest of your day!

Betty

Even More Signs of Spring. . .

One of the most memorable parts of our trip to Paris was looking longingly in all the shop windows as we walked along the streets. There is a reason that the direct translation of "window shopping" in French means literally "licking the windows"!! I was so impressed by the fact that not only desserts were beautifully prepared, but so were the "traiteur" (savory) items. I would look into a window and think I was looking at all desserts, when what I was really looking at was lunch! So much thought, creativity, respect and passion are put into so many aspects of life there and most certainly this applies to the food and its presentation.

And this being The Gossamer Tearoom, where no yummy thing goes un-nibbled, I am so happy and excited everytime I discover something new to share with you! The House of Dalloyau has published their new menu of wonderful spring and summer items and each item just sighs "Spring". . .

Here are some gorgeous, fresh-looking items, all of them paying respect to the freshest foods of the season. . .


Salmon gravlax wrapped in pea pods (gravlax is fresh salmon, which has been marinated in a combination of salt, pepper, sugar, dill and vodka or aquavit)




A gorgeous fresh vegetable basket including petals of tomatoes, asparagus and zucchini and a watercress sauce



And, as to be expected, on to dessert, ranging from classically beautiful to a few surprising new twists. . .

Beautiful fruit tartlettes (simple, elegant, the perfect showcase for beautiful, delicious fresh fruit)




Religieuse de Rêve - This is a Dalloyau signature speciality. Many places make beautiful and delicious religieuses, but only Dalloyau makes "The Dream Religieuse"! New flavors are developed for the seasons (this one is strawberry), but whereas they are usual an individual dessert for one person, Dallayau makes this version which serves six to eight people!!




Insolent Framboise Melba - An extra indulgent version of a macaron! A soft, yet crispy macaron garnished with Madagascar vanilla flavored fondant cream and a compote of red fruits.




Bulle de fraise (strawberry bubble)- A pastry cocktail to be drunk with a straw composed of strawberries, vanilla flavored cream and whipped cream with strawberries under a "to go cup lid" made of crisp Breton shortbread (!)




Mirifique (Wonderous, and they are not kidding when this is what they named it!) - A drinkable, eatable pastry, a delicious temptation in two stages...
The first stage is a dessert cocktail to sip with a straw under a lid of whipped cream and a macaron. The second part is the edible container made of chocolate, flourless chocolate cookie and vanilla cream, to be eaten with a spoon! And they come in so many yummy-sounding combinations (pistachio-cherry, strawberry, raspberry, mango-passionfruit, caramel or apricot!)

My friend Marie-France in Paris tells me that it has rainy and windy in Paris, as it has in many parts of the country here, but that the weather is starting to break and "Now some trees are blossoming, it's an enchantment!"

Thank you, my friend, for your encouragement and reminder that spring is well and truly on its way!!

Happy Easter to everyone!

Big hugs to you all,

Betty

Happy Spring and a Thank You...

My Dearest Friends,
Thank you so much for your patience between visits. My real life keeps me away from The Tearoom more often than I would like. But we won't speak of it now for I am here to escape and visit with you, my very dear friends.

Spring is creeping closer and closer by the day now! Soon, we will be able to fling open the French doors and have our tea on the lawn again!

Spring makes me so happy and there are just so many reasons...


I love animals and rabbits are some of my favorites! I love to see rabbits everywhere around Easter-Time, even that very silly Cadbury Bunny, who clucks like a chicken! And what better time to re-visit (or introduce yourself for the very first time) to my friend "Harvey"! This beautiful and funny movie was made in 1950 and stars James Stewart. I do highly recommend this film and if we were all together on one of those days when the weather was having a problem deciding to behave or not, I would show it in the Tearoom while we sipped hazelnut hot chocolate from big mugs (a change from tea doesn't hurt anyone, does it?).

I also love all the images of little fluffy chicks and found this lovely one posted on my dear friend Marie-France's freebie image site (Unfortunately, her lovely site is now closed.)


And no matter how dismal the day has been outside the house or inside your heart, spring flowers are just the thing to cheer you up! First the snowdrops and crocus, next the daffodils and hyacinth and tulips (not to forget the sweetest mini iris that used to bloom at the same time up the street from where we lived in Washington).


Also, I just wanted to let you know that I recently had the loveliest surprise! Another dear friend, Anya of Couture Millinery Atelier, has given me a blog award!!! Thank you so, so much Dear Anya! It is such an honor to receive this award from her! Her lovely blog is so fascinating! Please do yourself a favor and visit her often!

(Thank you, Dear Anya, for your patience while I got things under control here before posting your lovely award.)

...more lovely news of spring to come!

Cherries and the Opera. . .

(The background for this collage is called "Cotton Candy" and it is from a great blog called Shadowhouse Creations where a gentleman named Jerry posts backgrounds to use and all he asks is that you leave a "Thank You" or a smiley for him if you use one.)

Dear Friends,
Above is my submission for the challenge on the blog "So Artful Challenge". The challenge this week is "Life is a Bowl of Cherries". It features cherries (of course!), cherry blossoms (please hurry Mademoiselle Spring!) and one of my favorite subjects, the divine opera diva Mademoiselle Lina Cavalieri.

And speaking of the opera, I spotted the strangest sign while riding through the town in Maine where I now live. On the side of the abandoned opera house, there is a sign advertising "Phantom Flowers" and a phone number. And I would be remiss if I failed to mention there is also a Gothic Street in Paris, the next town over. Hmmm...

Lastly, please do yourself a favor and look at the sweetest blog I have just discovered! Bardot in Blue comes to us by recommendation of Judith of Paris Atelier! Between the two of these ladies, there will be enough Parisian eye-candy to last you for days!! (You are welcome!!)

Wishing you a lovely evening!

Betty

Happy Saint Valentine's Day!

Very Dear Blogging Friends,
I would like to wish you a most happy Saint Valentine's Days and invite you to my virtual tea party! Won't you please have a seat? As you can see, The Tearoom is decorated just for the holiday!



Won't you please have a piece of something delicious to celebrate? I have scoured the Houses of Haute Patisserie for lovely things for us for today!

Of course, our very favorites have out-done themselves again! Pierre Hermé has an Ispahan creation for us, in his ever-romantic combination of rose, litchi and raspberry.



Dalloyau has brought us "Petit Chou", which is a large Saint-Honoré decorated with cream Chantilly and raspberries ("petit chou" is a term of endearment in French).



Also, from Dalloyau (for all the chocolate-lovers here with us!), "Mon Macaron d'Amour", a heart-shaped chocolate macaron filled with creme praliné!



And what is waiting for you in the samovar? After all the beautiful teas from everywhere, today I hope you will allow me to serve you my very favorite black tea that I have for everyday, Tazo's Earl Grey.



As for that question I asked you...what person would you bring to this celebration? Of course, my first answer would be the love of my life, My Most Beloved Mr. V! But if you will indulge me, I would also love to invite two ladies that I have always wanted to have tea with! First, I would love to invite Sade. I have been listening to her newest CD "Soldier of Love" non-stop since we received it and would have to say that her music perfectly sums up the mood of the day. My second special guest would be another great lady of British music, Tracey Thorn. For many years, she and her partner Ben Watt created the amazing music of Everything But the Girl. In 2007, she released an amazing solo album "Out of the Woods" and this spring, she will release her next solo album, this time on Ben's label Strange Feeling Records. We cannot wait! Please welcome our two very special guests to the party!

Sade


Tracey Thorn


I wish you a very happy rest of your day. May you be spending it with your very dearest ones.

Valentine hugs to you all,

Betty

The Pear of Pairs!

Greetings to you, Dearest Friends!
I open my doors again to The Gossamer Tearoom with a silly collage I have made! It is a rather late submission to Itkupilli's and Elegia's Challenge Blog, Collage Obsession! The challenge word this week was "a pair". Now you know being a food-obsessed individual, I hear the word "pair" and my brain hears the word "pear"!!! So, why not have fun with both words! So, I turned their picture into a pair of pears, or just because it's funny to me, a pear of pairs!!!

I am so very happy to be back with you, my dear blogging friends!! Thanks so to all who had such nice thoughts for us during our move! I am planning a special virtual tea party here in The Tearoom, to celebrate my return, just for us! I think it will have to have something to do with Valentine's Day, considering we are so close! And please ponder this...what person, imaginary or real, dead or alive, someone you know or someone you don't, would you invite to come along with you to this party?

Wishing you all a very lovely evening and a wonderful weekend!

Betty

Some Sweets for You While You Wait...

Dearest Friends,
Thank you so very much for your recent comments and kind thoughts for our new life. While you wait for me to return to The Tearoom full-time, I do have some lovely sweet things for you. . .

First of all, I submit to you a temptation from Monsieur Pierre Hermé. . .his Satine cheesecake. It is the ultimate indulgence, and it's only being offered in his shops until February 14 (when I'm sure the singular pleasures of Valentine's Day will appear). Satine is one of his fetish flavors and in case you are new to the pleasures of the tearoom, his creations in this delicious flavor combination include cream cheese, orange and passionfruit. In this case, this is a creamy passionfruit cheesecake covered in orange marmelade. This is the description, in his words, translated from French:

It is the fruity taste that comes first in this completely re-invented cheesecake. This cake plays on the association between the pastry, the cheese cake, the passion fruit and orange marmalade. As each component is working in a completely different texture, all these flavors are found successively to be harmonious but distinct.

As I was contemplating this post, another Satine made her way to my mind: Nicole Kidman's character from "Moulin Rouge". Here is a gorgeous picture of her in that role:



And what could be more natural than telling you about a beautiful website that sells sugar for your tea? And of course, this not just any ordinary sugar! From Belle de Sucre, these bits of sugar are flavored and made into pretty little shapes!! How clever is that? I would so love to try them at our next tea party, dear friends! Their gorgeous website is here. (The beautiful blogs French Blue and Madame Sucre have brought this to my attention and if you haven't yet, please pay these ladies a visit too!) If these pretty little bits of sugar were served at tea, how could you ever resist? Not only are they pretty, but some of them come in different flavors, as well as colors! One of the combinations is shown below, containing violet, rose and raspberry flavored sugar in such luscious shapes and colors!



I miss you all and can't wait to check in and say "Hello" to you later this week!

Wishing you all a beautiful day!

Betty

First Entry

Dear Friends,
This is my first entry in Itkupilli's and Elegia's brand new challenge blog "Collage Obsession"! Their first topic is "Worn Out", so using the image they have provided, I created a collage which seems to illustrate my current state of mind! This is our last week in Washington. After organizing endless amounts of stuff and herding dust buffaloes out the door everyday (there is just too much dust to call it "bunnies"!), I am just dropping into bed everynight!

I Am Very Honored!

Dearest Friends,
I am so very honored to have received my very first blog award! The very divine Duchess of Tea from The Rose Tea Cottage has named me one of the "Honorary Nobles of the Most Excellent Order of the Blog Empire". And to add another sugar cube to the cup, my dear, dear friend LuLu of Coastal Sisters has also been honored the same way! What a very nice surprise!! Please go visit my friend The Duchess in her beautiful world filled with tea, pastries, flowers and all things royal and beautiful!

Thank you so very much to The Duchess of Tea for her continued interest in and appreciation of The Gossamer Tearoom!

Wishing you all a lovely evening!

Betty

A Night Visit...

Here is a poem I wrote while gazing at the night sky one cold winter night recently...

A Night Visit

In the fragrant, black rose garden of the night sky, our dear friend Mademoiselle Moon and her darling crimson cousin Mademoiselle Mars hover near our window tonight.

Bee angels and dragonfly ghosts float about them, spinning their webs in the cold winter night to keep our friends warm.

Inside this chilly night, they sip night-thistle tea, cream of clouds and extra squirts of ghostbee honey .

Small clouds of milky-tea steam warm their faces and lighten the sky.

Closer and closer now, their webs of glittery moon-light and rosy mars-light creep in our window, across our floor, up to the foot of our bed as they reach to tickle our toes and wish us good-night!

A Happy New Year...

Dear Friends of The Gossamer Tearoom,
Once again, I would like to thank everyone for joining me here this year. When I started this blog exactly a year ago tomorrow, I had no idea that I would meet so many nice people and there would be such a nice reaction to what I do here. I am sincerely grateful and hope our friendships through the aether continue for a long time!

Tonight, my dear Mr. V and I will be having a special New Year's Eve Tea! Here is the menu...

tea sandwiches:
egg salad with dijon mustard
cucumber with watercress spread
smoked salmon with wasabi mayonnaise

fresh raspberry tarts
chocolate madeleines
french nougatine with almonds

earl grey tea
sips of champagne


...and the reason for our special celebration tonight? It's not just the beginning of a new decade, but the beginning of a new life for us soon. Late next month, we will be moving from Washington, DC to Maine! It will be a big change for us, but one we look forward to.

So, if it seems as though my time here will be scarce for a while, there will be a reason. Please be assured that I will miss you all, my dear friends, and will be back having our lovely salons in our imaginary tearoom just as soon as I am able.

In the meantime, I will still be blogging, in between packing everything we own for the move!

Bonne Annee and Happy New Years to you all, Dear Friends,

Betty

Don't Forget to Treat Yourself!

Dear Friends,
I have made the nicest discovery! I have found a wonderful Etsy shop called 5 Dollar French Market! These ladies make very sweet glittered, rubber stamped and tea-stained handmade items and everything in the shop is just $5 (plus a small amount for postage)! This is what I got from them . . .


. . .Five yards of gorgeous ivory seam binding, hand rubber stamped with French text. It comes on a tea-stained, hand-stamped tag. There were also very sweet surprises in the package and each item was packed in stamped glassine bags! In addition, the order was shipped very quickly! What fun!

I think that the next time you are not having the best day in the world (or even to celebrate if your day is going great!!), I would recommend ordering a little something for yourself! The prices are great and the minute you open the package, you can feel the love these ladies must have for making things!

Look for another post later today with my big news . . .

Happy Christmas Night

(I started this collage with an image from my new friend Marie-France's blog)

Dear Friends of The Blogging World,
I do hope you are all having a wonderful holiday weekend! I am so grateful for every person who comes to read my blog!

Christmas hugs for you all,

Betty

A Post from Outside The Gossamer Tearoom...

Dear Friends,
Today, I ventured outside The Beloved Tearoom in my mind to take tea in the real world with a very dear friend of mine, one who I don't get to see nearly as often as I would like. We went to Teaism in Penn Quarter, here in Washington. There, they serve a rather eclectic, Pan-Asian menu, which includes a really lovely traditional afternoon tea (with some slight Asian twists). Here was our menu:

Tea-Smoked Salmon Tea Sandwiches with Miso Mayonnaise
Cucumber and Watercress Tea Sandwiches with Wasabi
Ginger Scones with Jam
Two Tiny Lemon Mousse Tarts topped with Strawberries
Vanilla, Chocolate and Matcha Tea Shortbread Cookies
Chocolate Truffles
A Pot of Tea (mine was Earl Grey, of course and hers was the Berry Tisane)


Very lovely. Also, there was a beautiful koi pond with huge orange, white and black koi!

Recently, I have been particularly interested in all the delicious looking Christmas teas from all our favorite Houses of Beautiful Tea in Paris. Which one would you pick if we could all have a lovely toasty afternoon in front of the fire, back at Our Tearoom of the Imagination?

-Soir de Noël (A Christmas Night) from Fauchon - with flavors of caramel, pineapple, sweet orange and marachino cherry.
-Any of the Christmas teas from Dammann Frères - Noël à Londres, Noël à Paris, Noël à Pékin, Noël à Prague, Noël à St. Petersburg, Noël à Venise, Noël à Vienne, Noël à Alsace, Noël à Provence (Christmas in London, Paris, Peking, Prague, St. Petersburg, Venice, Vienna, Alsace and Provence, respectively)
-Kusmi's Christmas tea (Chinese black tea flavored with orange, almond, vanilla and spices) or Ginger Lemon tea



The snow is falling outside.
Inside, all your favorite friends, the fireside and a delicious cup of steaming tea are waiting for you...

We Should All Have Treats...

Dear Friends,
Christmas is a time when we treat our loved ones and ourselves with delights that we save for just this time of the year. The image above is a digital collage that I have made for some very special cards this year. Doesn't the doggie look so happy to see the tree full of treats? Inside, it says, "My Mommy and Mr. Santa said I was a very good dog, so I may have treats! We hope you get all the treats you are dreaming of this Christmas!"


And speaking of treats, please go visit Karen at The Graphics Fairy! She is having a great giveaway! On top of all the beautiful images and project ideas she gives away on her site everyday, one lucky person will win a package of soap and lip gloss from the amazing company Tokyo Milk! They not only make very nice quality items, but their packaging is just beautiful! You can leave a comment everyday on this post of Karen's site until this Friday (December 18) to make yourself eligible to win these pretty things! And while you are there, be certain to browse through all the lovely images on her blog!

Fête des lumieres (Festival of Lights)

Happy Holidays to you, Dear Friends!

Each year in Lyon, France there is a beautiful, creative spectacle of lights! Here is a taste from the last 10 years!

Fête des Lumières 2009
by ville-de-lyon

Hoping your holidays so far are full of beauty and light!

Betty

PS - More fun holiday news to come!