Slow down everyone, summer isn't over yet! There is still plenty of delicious seasonal produce in the markets, the air is still warm and the nights are still long. Now is the perfect time to throw an All American Summer Tea Party. Inspired by traditions across the land, I've put together a tea party celebrating what our summer has to offer. Menu: Iced Black Tea Blend Sweetened with Local Raw Honey Lavender Lemonade Egg Salad Sandwiches on Farmhouse Bread with Tea Pickled Veggies Northwest Summer Salad BBQ Chicken Rillette with Homemade Toast Points Blueberry and Apple Tartlettes with American White Cheddar Pastry Let's start with the drinks. Summer time is all about thirst-quenchingly cool beverages, and what is more American than iced tea and lemonade? I used a mixture of English Breakfast and Earl Grey to form the base for my tea, then added a heaping spoonful of local honey to sweeten. This iced tea is fragrant, sweet, and bracing, but still drinkable from sun up to sun down. Lavender and lemon is a pairing made in heaven, and they shine when turned into lemonade. Steep the lavender blossoms in boiling water until it reaches desired strength, then strain and cool. Use this instead of water when mixing with the lemon juice and sugar. If you're feeling extra festive, fill your glasses with ice cubes that have lavender blossoms frozen inside and garnish with a lemon twist. Beautiful, delicious, and reminiscent of blossoming fields beneath a hot sun.
What would a summer party be without a potato salad? It is virtually unthinkable to not include one, but if you're tired of the same old globs of mayonnaise version, this is a wonderful replacement. Red potatoes are tossed with fresh sweet corn, green onions, smoked salmon and sour cream. If you are lucky enough to have an ocean (or lake, or river) view, you couldn't find a better dish to enjoy while soaking it in. The final savory of the menu was my tribute to the chicken traditions of the South. Chicken thighs are braised in a bbq spice rub with golden ale and Lapsang Souchong tea, then beaten into a spreadable delight known as rillette. Slightly smoky and with an incredible depth of flavor, this is a treat that could grace any table, not just a picnic one.
Summer needs to be cherished, especially now that everyone has Autumn in their sights. So grab a few friends, a couple of blankets, and a lawn game of your choice and enjoy the rest of summer's bounty.
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What do you see when asked to picture a witch: green skin? Warts? An old hag? I see an ageless woman living alone in a picturesque cottage in the woods. Her hearth is lit, her walls are covered in books and jars of spell ingredients, and her table is set with spooky delights. She is a healer, a dabbler, a scientist; she is feared but respected, for there are few women like her. Since Halloween is right around the corner, I used the classical character of a witch as the inspiration for this autumnal tea. I strayed away from the comical and cackling stereotype, however, and chose to highlight the creepier arcane witches instead.
What's a witch's cabin without a few spider webs in the eaves? This beauty here is a blueberry pie with a simple web-lattice top crust accompanied by a pie dough spider. I hand-cut the crust, but there are multiple ways you could achieve this look. If you own a large number of round cookie cutters, you could easily create much thinner and more numerous circular strands, then simply intersect them with the vertical ones. The pie dough spider was also formed free-hand, using the leftover dough from the top crust. I made the head, body, and legs all separately then smushed them together, brushed on an egg wash, poked holes for the eyes, and baked. A witch needs all sorts of tinctures, tonics, elixirs, and extracts in order to supply villagers with the sundry potions they need. These bottles were all saved from the recycling bin and their previous labels removed. Most of them were once olive oil bottles, but one was balsamic vinegar and another was from vanilla extract. Any interesting bottle will do. You can use any manner of liquid to fill the inside: olive oil, food-colored water, soy sauce, apple cider vinegar, whatever gives you the color and texture you are going for. All of the bottle labels and food cards were handmade, using coffee-stained paper and india ink. True paper would have been hard for a witch to procure, so I made them look as though they were the scrappy bits, too valuable to throw away and just the right size to be pasted onto a potion. One of the focal points of the tea table was the gingerbread house. I designed it to resemble the outside of the house that the tea was taking place inside of. The roof was shredded wheat with dragon's beard moss, the grass was matcha coconut, the path was coffee grounds, and the fence was black licorice. And of course there had to be a little black cat sitting inside the window. Please click through the gallery to see more of the unique decorations and food served at this witchy and weird party. I hope this BeWitching tea party has inspired you in delightfully eerie ways. If you have any questions about what I served or how I styled it, please let me know in the comments!
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