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lydamorehouse
Image: Jasmine Tea with the leaves unfurling
As some of you already know, my family is pagan. Even though Ostara/Spring Equinox isn't until the 20th, we decided to celebrate early since Mason is home for Spring Break right now (and it's all Pagan Standard Time, anyway. We have never worried about celebrating at the EXACT right time). On Sunday morning, we set out Mason's usual Ostara basket. I was a bit worried that he'd feel "too old" for it, being a college student now, but I was grateful to see that even as an adult, the first thing he did was put the bunny ears on his head. The basket had jelly beans, Dove chocolate eggs, the classic chocolate bunny, and two books: The Dungeons & Dragons Official D&D Cookbook: Heroes' Feast and The Necronomnomnom: Recipes and Rites from the Lore of H. P. Lovecraft.
Image: Necronomnomnom might be the best title for a cookbook since Apocalypse Chow. (And now I own them both!)
Then, we set to work laying out a fancy High Tea.
As you can see, my family loves cookbooks. Shawn (my wife) has been collecting all sorts over the years, including several specifically about tea and tea time foods. We pulled all of those out last week and planned out a menu. We actually started some of these treats the day before, on Saturday, while waiting for Mason's flight to come in. But, I did a TON of the cooking yesterday morning, so most of what you'll see here was made fresh.
Image: Table setting that shows off the egg and water cress sandwiches, the finger pierogi, grapes, cheese straws, jams, scones, orange juice, and a lovely bouquet of spring flowers.
Shawn ironed the linen table cloth and we pulled out ALL of the fancy dishes--most of which we've picked up at estate sales over the years or thrifting.
Image: Fancy place setting
We had way, way too much fun getting it all together and even more fun eating it.
Image: Orange marmalade and custard tarts, looking like little sunshine pies.
Image: Flower jam cookies and lavender-lemon shortbread.
I think the flavor that surprised me the most were the egg and water cress sandwiches. First of all, we had to drive all over St. Paul to find water cress. I was pretty sure it was NOT an exotic ingredient, having sworn that I'd seen it at various grocery stores in the past, but it was nowhere to be found until we grabbed the very last (bag!) of it at Whole Foods (a place I've mostly avoided since they've been taken over by Amazon.) At any rate, the recipe called for the water cress to be chopped into the chopped eggs along with Dijon mustard, mayo, and dill. I had kind of assumed that it was going to taste like a slightly more mustardy egg salad, and it did, but it was also surprisingly zingy.
Shawn even made a jelly roll for the table, but the recipe she used was a bit softer than her usual one and so it ended up sticking to the towel in a way that made her disappointed with the shape of it (hence it not really appearing in the photo evidence.) However, I can tell you, misshapen or not, it was DELICIOUS.
I will close with a rather dark photo of the whole table spread.
Image: When I said I like my tea dark this is not what I meant!
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Date: 2022-03-14 08:11 pm (UTC)