Tea Tray at Gypsy's

It's always fun to have a reason to 'go to tea'; and Monday provided that reason! We attended the Mid-Atlantic Tea Business Association annual seminar which was held at Gypsy's Tea Room in Westminster, MD. We were first served a delicious fresh salad with a choice of two dressings, and then we each had a butterscotch scone with cream and jelly. After the salad and scone, this beautiful tea tray was placed center stage in the middle of the table, laden with scrumptious morsels and tasty treats! The bottom tier had an artichoke, feta, and salmon quiche, plus a cucumber sandwich, a tasty cream cheese spread on brown bread, and a cheese and turkey spiral. On the middle tier, a nice variety of fresh fruit surrounded little peanut butter parfait cups. The top held the cutest colorful decorated Easter egg cookies and a chocolate truffle. Beautiful! and Yummy! If you're ever in the area of Westminster, MD, a visit to Gypsy's Tea Room is a must. It is situated in a beautiful old building that has been transformed into a memorable tea room, each room more beautiful than the next.

Tea Bag Folding

Many years ago, on one of the tea related discussion groups on the Internet that I belong to, a couple from Holland requested tea bag envelopes. A unique way of making the world a smaller place, I was happy to oblige this request. Con and Gon sent a personal thank you note for the 'very nice teabag envelopes. It was a real surprise. The bags of St. John's Wort, Apsara (esp. original black), Wagner's and Lady Caroline's are completely unknown, and are very welcome in my collection.' In exchange for the teabag envelopes, they included a sampling of tea bag folding, basic instructions to make your own, and a few additional collage type cards made with some of the tea bag envelopes they have collected over the years.

Although I don't have a recent count, I do remember that they had an amazing number of unique tea bag envelopes, and were quite pleased to add the ones I sent them to their collection, noting that any duplicates would be exchanged with other collectors.
Colorful and creative, unique and unusual, I was as excited to receive these miniature works of art as they must have been to receive the teabag envelopes. I often wonder if Con and Gon are still collecting, counting, cutting, and folding teabag envelopes?

Lovage

Lovage, Levisticum officinale, is another of the mimic plants of the herb world. It looks like celery, smells like celery, tastes like celery but with one very distinct difference. It is much easier to grow in our gardens then celery. This herb is one of the last to go to sleep in the winter and one of the earliest herbs awake in the spring. A quite tall perennial reaching 3 to 6 feet, it can be used fresh or dried in soups, salads, stews, fish dishes, -- anyway that celery can be used. The stems are bitter except in the very early part of the year so we use primarily just the leaves in our cooking. The stems are hollow tho - making them useful as a straw for your bloody mary!

In days gone by lovage tea was made with seeds, stems and roots of the plant and used medicinally for pleurisy, quinsy, and the augue, as a gargle, an eyewash and to remove freckles!

Today we use lovage as one of our primary ingredients in our Love Bath Balls, the ultimate in perfumed bathing, both soothing and invigorating.

If you are interested in learning more details about growing lovage or about some of the other wonderful herbs and their uses, we recommend Herbs with Confidence. It is a basic how-to book of excellent gardening tips, tried and true recipes and crafts.

It's Contest Time - Week 6

Welcome to Week 6 of the Herbal Blog Contest! This week, enter to win a .15 oz. Healing Wand from Prairieland Herbs! These healing wands contain herbally infused certified organic olive oil, locally produced beeswax, vitamin E, essential oils of tea tree and lavender, and are the perfect size for your pocket, purse, or diaper bag. They work wonders on cuts, scrapes, rashes, burns, dry skin, hangnails, etc. To win one of these useful and natural healing balms, simply enter by posting a comment in response to this blog entry and take a chance at winning!!! Don’t forget to include your email addy so we can contact the winner! The following blogs are also participating, so stop over to enter with them for additional chances to win AND the chance to explore some cool blogs.
Prairieland Herbs
Aquarian Bath
The Rosemary House
Natures Gift
Torchsong Studio
The Essential Herbal
Garden Chick
SunRose Aromatic
Herbs from the Labyrinth
Patti's Potions
These blogs are all participating in this weeks contest. Visit each one to post a comment and increase your chances to win the herbal healing wand this week!

Keep coming back and keep entering. We have some great prizes coming up, and we'll be having the contests until the middle of May!
Congratulations to Jules @MoonCatFarms ~ she is our winner this week!

Egyptian Onions

Wow, our Egyptian Onions (Allium cepa viviparum) are up a foot high already!

This remarkable onion develops bulbs at the top of slender green shoots, bypassing the formation of flowers and seeds. It is a curiosity in the vegetable and herb garden. It also happens to be a superb onion - useful top, bottom and in between. All parts are edible. The little top bulbs make excellent small onions to be creamed or boiled with peas; the green stalks can be chopped into salads. They are hollow and make lovely onion rings for garnishing or frying. The bottoms are eaten as any other onion. They are very easy to grow and once you have them you will always have them. Absolutely hardy! Also called top setting onions, winter onions, multiplier onions, or walking onions. The name walking onions is because as the tops mature and get heavy they fall over and slowly creep around the garden. The top will set in July. Don't forget The Rosemary House sells the Egyptian Onions as well as a large selection of other herb plants. Shipping begins in Mid-April.


Onion Soup

1/2 lb. of Any or all parts of the Egyptian Onion
1/4 lb. butter
2 Tbsp. flour
2 Quarts consomme

Saute Onion in butter until wilted; add the flour and brown slightly, then add consomme, slowly while stirring. Simmer 1/2 hour. Serve, strained or not. In each steaming bowl, float a piece of toast, sprinkled with Parmesan cheese and thyme, made bubbly under the broiler for two minutes.

April Fool's Day! Have fun!

The earth laughs in flowers.
~e.e.cummings

What makes you laugh?

Butterburr

Butterburr (Petasites) is another of the unique plants that sends out their flowers first and then their leaves. Petasites will send out flowers beginning in late February - even through frozen ground! Historically used against plague and pestilent fevers currently it is receiving a lot of attention for migraine headaches. This large robust plant creates a massive presence in the garden and prefers moist shade and will spread by rhizome. Don't let the photo of the early spring flowers fool you. The leaves can easily reach up to 30 inches across! Large enough to use as a head covering during a rain shower!

The leaves were often used to wrap freshly churned butter and that is were the name Butterburr came from. This plant is a cousin to the coltsfoot plant we covered yesterday. They look similar I suppose, except that butterburr is taking steroids.....

Coltsfoot

Coltsfoot, Tussilago farfara, is one of those unique plants that sends out the flowers first and then the leaves. The flowers are popping up out of the ground now and look similar to dandelion flowers. The leaves in this photo are last years leaves yet to be raked off. Coltsfoot has historically been used as a cough suppressant and for other lung ailments. Originally from Europe/Asia it is now a common roadside weed here in the US and in some states it's considered an invasive species.

The seed heads resemble dandelion as well which contributes to its invasiveness.

The leaves of coltsfoot (doesn't it look like a colt's hoof?) are what is used medicinally and is often used in herbal smoking mixtures as well. Tomorrow we will look at a cousin of coltsfoot.

Burnet

One of the first herbs up very early in the season and ready to be used on tea sandwiches or in soups and salads is this charmer. Burnet, (Poterium sanguisorba), is one of the great mimic plants in the herb garden. The flavor of this pretty plant is that of cucumber but without the peptic after effects cucumber has on some people. A quite hardy perennial you can harvest burnet all year round, even under heavy snow, which is a good thing because it loses its flavor when dried. It reaches only about 1 foot in height and the flowers are long stems with a nondescript reddish oval. It might occasionally self sow but for the most part Burnet is a well behaved plant and will not take over your herb patch. We love to use the pretty leaves as garnish or on top of a tomato sandwich.

You can also use it to make a flavorful sandwich spread.

Easy Burnet Tea Sandwiches

8 oz cream cheese

2 Tbl mayo

1/3 C chives freshly snipped

1/2 C fresh burnet, chopped

Soften the cream cheese with the mayo(or a splash of white wine if you prefer). Add the herbs. Spread on 12 slices of thin bread. Top with 12 slices of bread, remove crusts, and cut into fancy shapes.

It's Contest Time - Week 5!

Featured this week are moisturizing Lip Balms from Patti’s Potions Natural Soaps, Ltd.
Did you know that most lip balms contain petroleum products that are NOT eco-friendly? This is your opportunity to experience fine natural oils in your lip care experience. Food-grade lip-safe flavorings and essential oils may be used to add flavor to the lip balms. No sweetener is added. Ingredients: calendula infused olive oil, shea butter, natural beeswax, jojoba, castor, & vitamin E.

To win TWO of these luscious lip balms, simply enter by posting a comment in response to this blog entry and take a chance at winning!!! Don’t forget to include your email addy so we can contact the winner!

The following blogs are also participating, so stop over to enter with them for additional chances to win this weeks giveaway AND the chance to explore some cool blogs.
PrairieLand Herbs

Aquarian Bath

The Rosemary House

Nature's Gift

Torchsong Studio

The Essential Herbal

Garden Chick

SunRose Aromatics

Herbs from the Labyrinth

Patti’s Potions

Good Luck!

Congratulations to Steph, the winner of this weeks contest from Rosemary's Sampler. For a list of all the winners, check out Patti's Potions blog.

Dandelion Fairy Clocks

How do Fairies tell the time?
Surely girls and boys should know.

First they find a dandelion
Run to seed, and then -they blow!

Poof! and it is one o'clock!
Poof! poof! that will make two!

Poof! poof! poof! and three is chiming!
What I say is strange but true

If, when you have counted twelve
And some seeds still remain,

Worthless is that floral time piece
Find another, -try again.

Thus the Fairie's tell the time
But a fact that you should know

Is that they are, when they're counting
Very careful how they blow.

Poem by E. Oxenford

Tea and Trinkets, MA

We had the delightful opportunity to visit Tea and Trinkets in Norton, MA several summers ago, before we began blogging, so today, we're taking a step back in time to revisit this fun afternoon, with a nod to the importance of keeping a tea journal! Every year we are invited to spend a week at our eldest sister and brother-in-law's beach house in Rhode Island. It has become a wonderful vacation tradition, reminiscent of the many summers we spent at Avalon, NJ when we were growing up ourselves. This summer vacation always includes a visit to an area tea room, with a gentle reminder to the kids that vacation is not just about them, but rather involves activities others enjoy also. They would much rather have Pirate's Dinner everyday where manners don't matter. Typically for any tea room visit, we review manners in the van before we descend upon a tea room. Every little bit helps in this ongoing attempt to keep manners alive.

Tea and Trinkets is a fun tea room, with a pretty Victorian look, small round tables, assorted chairs, lovely linens, silver, mismatched tea cups, and trinkets galore. Our menu included Cranberry Hazelnut Scones and Chocolate Ribbon Scones with Citrus Butter and Mock Clotted Cream. The Sandwich tray was served on a clam shell serving piece (collapsible to look like a clam shell, it opens to hold three serving plates) and included Chicken Apple Pecan Sandwiches, Cucumber Herb Sandwiches and Sun Dried Tomato and Bacon Sandwiches. The desserts included Boston Cream Pie, Key Lime Squares, and Lemon Verbena~Geranium Pound Cake. Everything was fresh and tasty, and generous portions too. It was a very enjoyable afternoon. Thanks Valerie for creating such a memorable afternoon for our family.