Angela Webster McRae's Blog, page 116

Valentine's Week Giveaway #3

Today I'm sharing another new addition to my collection of tea-themed vintage Valentines, this sweet little giraffe guy. And I'm not tea-sing — isn't he cute?


And of course, it wouldn't be a week of giveaways if I didn't have at least one book in the offerings, so today that will be a copy of the lovely paperback book Afternoon Teas by Valerie Ferguson. If you'd like to be entered to win, just leave an "Enter me" to this post by 7 a.m. EST Monday, February 11, making sure that I have an email address or some way to contact you if you're the winner, and you'll be entered to win. US only, please. Good luck!

The GWTW tea and bookmark winner is …

Vernona! And I've just sent you an email so I can get your snail mail address and have this package headed your way. Congrats!

Valentine's Week Giveaway #2

One of the newer additions to my tea-themed vintage Valentine collection says, "Dear Teacher, Please be my Valentine!" What little boy wouldn't love a pretty dark-haired teacher pouring him a cup of tea?
And I love how the back of it reads "To Miss Bickle From Marvin Shaw." I have no idea who Miss Bickle was, but don't you love her name?
For our Day Two giveaway, I'm offering some more of the I Love Tea! stickers that were such a hit last year. I've been through a couple of these little sticker booklets already myself and really like them.
They're great for dressing up a letter or package when you know the recipient is someone who enjoys tea. If you'd like to win them, just leave an "Enter Me" to this post by 7 a.m. EST tomorrow, Feb. 10, and you'll be entered to win. As always, please make sure to include an email address or some way that I can contact you if you're the winner. US only, please. Good luck!

Valentine's Week Giveaway #1

It's time to count down the days until Valentine's Day, and as usual, I'll be sharing vintage Valentines and offering a small giveaway each day from now through February 14, so feel free to play along! Today's Valentine is a cute Valentine postcard I found, and I love the pretty roses on the front too.
But this card was sent to a man, Mr. John McKenzie, and not a woman. And it's "From A Friend, Guess Who." Do you think John knew who the sender was? I sure hope so!
I know a lot of us love Gone With the Wind, so I decided to share some of my new India Wilkes blend tea from Adagio teas as one of this year's Valentine's Week giveaways. These small tins are perfect for sharing, and I'm so glad I caught them on sale at Ollie's a while back. They also give me another excuse to use tea stickers.
And along with the tin of tea, I'm offering a GWTW bookmark from the Alicia Rhett tea, a collectible from the 70th anniversary celebration. (Gone With the Wind the movie turns 80 this year, incredibly enough!)
Here's a detail of the bookmark. If you'd like to be entered to win the tea and bookmark, just leave an "Enter me" to this post between now and 7 a.m. Saturday, February 9, and you'll be entered to win. (US only, please.) Good luck!

India Wilkes Tea from Adagio

As I conclude my week of posts about the recent Alicia Rhett Tribute Tea in Lone Oak, Ga., honoring the actress and artist who appeared as India Wilkes in Gone With the Wind, I wanted to be sure to share some information on the wonderful tea we enjoyed at the event, the India Wilkes fan blend from Adagio Teas. In addition to serving this tea, organizers also offered a large tin of the tea as one of the silent auction items, and I was so pleased that I had the winning bid.
This India Wilkes tea is a blend of their Blackberry, Cream, and Assam Melody teas, accented with cornflowers. It's a wonderful brisk tea with a lovely and almost sweet taste, and I've been happily sipping it all week long. And you know, I just might be willing to share some with a friend sometime soon…

The Alicia Rhett Tribute Tea celebrating "Gone With the Wind" - Part Two

Isn't it funny how what we remember most about a tea is the people we enjoyed it with? On Saturday, I had so much fun  catching up with my old colleague Winston, and I also enjoyed meeting local artist Nita McFarlin, whose fur-trimmed jacket just made me smile! (My friend Lynn Stanier also attended the tea and has kindly allowed me to use some of her photos from the event.)
The drop-style scones were delicious, and the raspberry jam made by a member of the church was some of the best jam I've ever had. It's the first time I ever remember going back for seconds on the jam at a tea! At right are some of the sweets, including the Danish wedding cookies and the shortbread cookies.
Handcrafted serving trays were called into service and provided the perfect touch for the pimiento cheese triangles and the tiny cucumber sandwiches (I ate three cucumber sandwiches, always my favorites!).
Each attendee received a goodie bag with lots of great treats, and we also got a commemorative booklet and a copy of the menu for the tea.
Here's a fun picture Lynn took of Terry Lynn Crane sharing about her late husband, Fred Crane, who played Brent Tarleton in Gone With the Wind.
Here Terry Lynn visits with a GWTW fan after the tea. Do you see all those collectible GWTW pins on her denim jacket?
And check out the back of the jacket!
I failed to get photos of our desserts, individual slices of some delicious buttermilk pie and coconut pie, but I did manage to get a copy of the cookbook containing the recipes, Fiddle Dee Dee Recipes: A Taste of "Gone With the Wind" by Terry Lynn Crane. (Copies are available here.)
And Terry Lynn graciously signed it for me afterward, so now I have a wonderful memento of the time I took tea with the wife of a movie star from Gone With the Wind!

The Alicia Rhett Tribute Tea celebrating "Gone With the Wind" - Part One

On Saturday, I had the pleasure of serving as a hat contest judge at the Alicia Rhett Tribute Tea at the Lone Oak Community Center in Lone Oak, Georgia. Held as a tribute to the actress who played India Wilkes in Gone With the Wind, the tea was a benefit for Allen-Lee Memorial United Methodist Church in Lone Oak, Georgia, the church attended by my friend and former colleague Winston. The tea's proceeds are being used to make the 1840s-era Allen-Lee handicapped accessible, so I was pleased to help (I made teapot-shaped shortbread cookies), and the tea was sold out and resulted in a packed community center. One of the highlights of the day for me was getting to know my fellow hat contest judge, Terry Lynn Crane, above. Her late husband, Fred Crane, spoke the first lines of GWTW and appeared as Brent Tarleton, one of Scarlett O'Hara's suitors in the film's opening scene (click here and you'll see Fred at left). Fred was quite handsome even when he passed at age 90 in 2008, and Terry pulled out her phone and showed me lots of photos of a still-dashing Fred in his later years.

We made a great judging team and immediately agreed on the top three winners in both the costume contest and the hat contest. The first two ladies in this photo won the hat and costume contests, respectively.
There was also a silent auction at the event, and I bid on and won the delicious India Wilkes fan blend tea from Adagio, which was actually the tea served at the event (more on that later in the week).
Terry won the blue pitcher …
And a lot of GWTW fans went home happy with a great array of memorabilia they won.
The actress who played India Wilkes, Alicia Rhett, appeared in only one movie, GWTW, and she later made a name for herself as an artist. When I was a young newspaper reporter in the late eighties, my friend Winston  and his wife, Lynn, were excited about traveling to Charleston so Alicia Rhett could create pastels of their daughters, Sallie and Jane. I was surprised to find that they still have the actual dress Sallie wore, shown here on display at the tea next to the Alicia Rhett portrait of Sallie. (They may have Jane's dress as well, but she lives in California now and wasn't at the tea.) I've always thought this was so amazing, because how many people have portraits of their daughters that were created by an actress in Gone With the Wind!
Here are Sallie and her own daughters, Quinn (who was a little bashful) and Clair Lynn. Fun to see them as the little girls that I once knew their mom and aunt to be!
Other artwork displayed at the tea included this lovely painting by local artist Nita McFarlin, whose son is the pastor of Allen-Lee UMC.
And Mrs. McFarlin also painted this portrait of Scarlett O'Hara at what many agree would have been much more likely to be the real-life Tara than the grand mansion that Hollywood created for the movie. 
Coming Wednesday: More scenes from the Alicia Rhett Tribute Tea … and a bit of Fiddle-Dee-Dee!

Some teapots of distinction

Have any of my tea friends ever visited the World's Largest Teapot in Chester, West Virginia? I've seen pictures of it on the internet for years, like this public domain image I found on Wikipedia, and I'm rather surprised not to have seen photos of any of my tea friends across the country posing there. (Have I missed a visit by someone I know?)

The history of this teapot is here and here, and of course I am thinking this would be the perfect spot for a pop-up tearoom!

Speaking of unusual teapots, I was looking for something else on eBay this week when I came across a fascinating history-related teapot. Curious? Check it out here . I've never seen such a teapot before, but I'm very intrigued by it and its patriotic message to the English people in 1939.

Whittard of Chelsea's English Rose Tea

I'm a sucker for a prettily packaged tea, and I saw a new one at T.J. Maxx the other day that was just irresistible for a number of reasons, but largely because it was English Rose flavor!
I love the way the box is clasped, and since I've enjoyed the relatively few Whittard of Chelsea teas I've tried, I felt pretty confident in giving this one a try, especially for just $3.99 for 25 tea bags.
It's always a plus with me when tea bags are individually packaged, as these are. The great thing about this tea, however, was its smooth, light rose flavor! I've heard complaints that rose-flavored teas are too perfumey for some tea drinkers, and I get that. But this one was much more "black tea" than "rose," and the lovely combination is one I will happily look for again. I'm just curious, though … would you/do you drink rose-flavored tea? I'm wondering whether I'm in the minority in liking this tea!

Melville Candy's Lavender Honey Spoons

I like discovering new teas to try, and I also enjoy finding new tea accompaniments to try. This weekend, that meant some new flavored "honey spoons" to enjoy with tea!
I've seen these Melville Candy spoons at Barnes & Noble before, but at T.J. Maxx in Carrollton, I found these new Lavender Honey Spoons, and for just $3.99, much less than I seem to recall paying at B&N.
"Enjoy with tea," they say, and who could resist that? They also come in a few other flavors, but these are the ones that most appealed to me.
Each honey spoon is individually wrapped, which would make these great favors for tea parties or tea-themed goodie bags. I definitely tasted the honey and only a hint of lavender, but the combination was just lovely in my black tea. Have you tried any of the honey spoons yet? If so, what did you think of them?