Angela Webster McRae's Blog, page 136

Fortnum & Mason's "The Cook Book"

As longtime readers of this blog have heard me say quite a few times over the years, the tea- and teaware-filled Fortnum & Mason department store in London is my idea of the perfect store, so when my husband asked for suggestions for Christmas gifts, I told him I'd like Fortnum & Mason's The Cook Book by Tom Parker Bowles. (And yes, he's the son of the Duchess of Cornwall.) I love everything about this book, from its gorgeous cover in eau de nil, the signature blue-green color of Fortnum & Mason, to its beautiful photography and witty narratives. The recipes aren't bad, either!





I was delighted to see inside the book some of the whimsical archival drawings I've seen in Fortnum & Mason advertisements before. I was especially delighted when I flipped through my new book and realized it has chapters on both Morning Tea and Afternoon Tea! Were you aware of Morning Tea? I was not, and this is apparently a cup of tea served with a cookie (or "biscuit," to use their terminology).


And I was irrationally happy, I suppose, to turn a page and discover a photo, preparation advice, and recipes for the very tea sandwiches I've eaten and loved at Fortnum & Mason! Here's an excerpt from  "The Art of the Sandwich" page: "The process is as strict as it is unbending. Fresh bread, obviously. Fillings mixed fresh every few hours. Not too soggy or wet, as this would stain and sully the bread. And just the right amount of filling, about a quarter to half of the sandwich. Then they lose their crusts, and are sliced into soldiers of exactly the same proportions before being gently pressed, for 30 minutes, beneath a light wooden tray. Nothing is left to chance." Who knew!
These are the sandwiches I had at Fortnum & Mason on my 50th birthday in 2014, and indeed, they look as uniform as the ones in the book. The sandwich recipe I'm most pleased to have is for F&M's Coronation Chicken, as I plan to make this when Prince Harry and Meghan Markle wed this year!
And I'm suddenly interested in ordering a Battenberg cake pan so I can make one of these beautiful cakes! I can see I'm going to have a lot of new recipes to try out in 2018. For fellow Anglophiles interested in some new "Morning Tea" and "Afternoon Tea" recipes, I highly recommend this book!

January 2018 Giveaway: Bake from Scratch magazine's British Issue

Happy New Year, friends, and welcome to the first giveaway of 2018! I'd intended to start this year's blog posts by sharing some of the great books and teas I received for Christmas, but then I came across this wonderful magazine and wanted to tell you about it so you can be on the lookout for a copy before it sells out—but only if you don't win the copy I'm giving away here!

And oh, do I love this magazine! It's one of those pricey ($12.99) ones from Hoffman Media, but this one is definitely worth every penny. The issue is guest edited by Edd Kimber, who won the first season of The Great British Bake Off. I so enjoyed reading about him, and the magazine also takes us to places like the Pump Street Bakery in a Suffolk village and a cooking school in rural Lancashire. But my absolute favorite feature was "Baked to a Tea," and I'm just drooling over some of these tea-infused recipes, from this incredible Battenberg cake baked with matcha to a tart made with Assam tea to a Lady Grey Tea Jelly.

The photos in this issue are stunning, including this one of English Breakfast Orange Marmalade Roly Poly, a roulade. And with my newfound love for Harney's Victorian London Fog tea, I'm also intrigued by the recipe for London Fog Cake with Salted Caramel Drizzle. The issue discusses scones and English muffins, and there's a most helpful glossary that lists British baking terms and American equivalents, which will be welcome to anyone who's ever picked up a British cookbook and been puzzled by some of the ingredients.

If you'd like to be entered to win a copy of the magazine for yourself, just leave an "Enter me" to this post between now and 7 a.m. EST on Monday, January 8, 2018, and you'll be entered to win. And you can enter from anywhere in the world! But to save me some time, I do have a few new requirements for giveaways this year. First, you *must* include a way for me to contact you if you're the winner. (If you've been emailing me and commenting for years, you may safely assume that I know how to contact you!) Second, to save me some time in tracking down winners, you'll have 48 hours after  my notification to "claim" your prize by sending me your snail mail address, and after that I'll award the prize to someone else rather than sending repeated emails asking for a reply. So please enter away, and good luck! I can't wait for other tea lovers to discover this great magazine!

Happy New Year!

"The Cosy Christmas Tea Shop" by Caroline Roberts

This month’s selection for the Tea Lovers’ Book Club, The Cosy Christmas Tea Shop by Caroline Roberts, wasn’t quite what I'd expected. The book was a bit edgier than I’d imagined, and it had some serious moments I didn't expect because of the book’s chick-lit cover, but overall I thought it was an enjoyable read.

Summary: Fall is on the way, and castle tea shop proprietress and wedding caterer Ellie Hall is busy trying to drum up more business at Claverham Castle, which is owned by her curmudgeonly father-in-law, Lord Henry. The book begins as Ellie is faced with a real Bridezilla who has suddenly decided she’s intent on a unicorn-themed wedding. It sounds perfectly ghastly, but Ellie manages to make the best of it, pulls it off, and explores even more ways she and her husband, Joe, can help keep the cash flowing to the old castle. As Christmastime approaches, she and her staff decide to hold a Christmas fair at the castle, and the baking and entertaining ramp up once again—especially when there's a Christmas wedding for a favorite couple who’d experienced a near tragedy and had to rebook.

My thoughts: While the author has a nice descriptive writing style, the book caused me to stumble at times because it contained so many grammar and punctuation errors and typos. I got the impression this was a book no one bothered to proofread, and that’s a shame, because the author clearly has the potential to be top-notch with some very basic cleanup of the text. When I forced myself to focus on the story itself, I found the tale quite enjoyable.

The characters: I very much enjoyed getting to know Ellie and Joe and found their relationship genuine and believable. I was surprised to see the early focus on their troubles getting pregnant, but that struck me as a very real plotline, and it didn’t overtake the coziness of the book. Of the other characters, one of my favorites ended up being cranky old Lord Henry, never more than when he got roped into performing as Father Christmas and was kind to a little girl with Down syndrome. Kindness—especially to children—scores you a lot of points in my book!

Questions for discussion:

Food. In a tea-themed book, I expect to see lots of great descriptions of the food and beverages, and this book did not disappoint in that regard. I was happy to see a few mentions of Garibaldi biscuits (or "cookies," to us) since one of my Christmas gifts was a British cookbook that has a recipe for them. I also enjoyed reading about the stacked cake made of cheeses and thought this would be a wonderful treat to have at a wedding or other large social event. Do you like to read about the food in a book like this?

UK differences. While reading a book by an author in the UK, I enjoy noting the differences in some of our terminology, such as the fact that they say "biscuit" instead of "cookie." And I could not even type the title of this blog post without first typing "cozy" instead of "cosy." Did you note these differences? Did you enjoy spotting them?

Sense of place. The author did a fine job of creating a real sense of place with the descriptions of the old castle and its advantages (history, beauty) and disadvantages (the wiring, the plumbing). When a deep snow falls right before an important wedding, I could truly picture the magnificent scene. Did you have a vivid picture of the setting in your mind?
Our next book: Now that we’ve read two novels in a row, I think it’s time to go for some nonfiction, so I’ve selected Darjeeling: A History of the World's Greatest Tea by Jeff Koehler. I'd love to have you read it and join in the discussion on Friday, January 26!

Grateful for family, Christmas 2017

Did you have a lovely Christmas, friends? I did. Alex and I particularly enjoyed the Christmas Eve  candlelight service at our church. I love this time when the church is packed with worshippers sitting quietly as our college students lead us in songs and carols before we end by all singing "Silent Night" together in the dim light. After all the busyness of December, it's great to pause and reflect before Christmas actually arrives. And as the years roll on, I'm increasingly aware that second to the gift of Christ ("Thanks be unto God for his unspeakable gift!"), my favorite Christmas "gift" is simply having a healthy and happy family and friends. Here I am with Alex at my dad's house for the big family celebration on Monday.


Here's my sister, Rhonda, and me with Daddy.
Aunt Jane *loves* to have her picture made with Alex.
And while I do enjoy receiving presents, I most enjoy giving them to all the kids in our family, so here are a few shots of my nephew and nieces, starting with the youngest, Matthew.

Then there's Amelia, who received lots of clothes and horse-themed goodies for her room.

Cari is an Auburn fan (sorry, Alabama friends) and had requested this T-shirt commemorating their win in this year's Iron Bowl.

And Madison, the oldest, who now has her first "grown-up" job, has moved into a townhome with a girlfriend and had requested a coffeemaker.

And we're still eating leftovers from yet another wonderful family meal! My sister and I join in for what we like to think of as a modified Thanksgiving menu. This year that meant a ham Daddy baked as well as dressing, sweet potato casserole, potato salad, broccoli casserole, green bean casserole, cranberry sauce, olives, and rolls. Dessert was a coconut cake, pound cake, chocolate chip pie, and pecan pie. All was accompanied by lots of sweet tea! I hope you had a wonderful Christmas and enjoyed a happy, healthy family celebration yourself. How did you celebrate?

Merry Christmas!

"For, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord."— Luke 2:10, 11Merry Christmas, tea friends!

The tea-themed tree, circa 2017

Christmas is just around the corner, and I realized I never shared any photos of my new white tea-themed Christmas tree. After buying a much taller tree than my little pink tabletop tree, I had assumed I wouldn't have enough teapot and teacup ornaments to decorate it, but it turns out that wasn't a problem!

I have to say, the white background really seems to make the ornaments pop this year, and I love it.

One of my newest additions is this handmade ornament from my tea blogger friend Lynn, the only ornament I've ever seen that actually contains real tea! Isn't this clever? By the way, click on her name to visit her blog and get some great ideas for last-minute tea gifts. She's got some very creative ideas!

And below, I'll close with some other teapot and teacup ornaments that were gifts from friends in this lovely world of tea. Hope you all are getting ready to have a wonderful Christmas celebration with family, friends, and all those you love. Are you doing anything special this weekend? The thing I'm most looking forward to is the candlelight service at church on Christmas Eve. However you plan to celebrate, Merry Christmas, from my home to yours!

The tea sampler goes to …

Karen O. of the Quilting, Losing and Tea blog! Congrats to Karen O., and thanks to all who entered. Looking forward to more fun giveaways in 2018!

Candy Cane Crush from Davids Tea

Peppermint teas are some of my favorites to try at the holidays, and I was intrigued by this one from Davids Tea, Candy Cane Crush. It's a creamy black tea flavored with white chocolate, peppermint bits, and snowflake sprinkles, so this is really like a cup of dessert!
Here you can see that this tea gets a little milky looking as it steeps.
This was a delicious peppermint tea, made all the more enjoyable by the yummy bits of flavoring it contains!

Christmas giveaway: Davids Tea sampler

This month's giveaway is going to be a quick one, because I didn't decide on the giveaway item until late in the month, so this giveaway will run for only two days so I can hurry up and get it in the mail to the winner! I was placing an order with Davids Tea when I realized one of their tiny little zippered pouches of tea sachets would make a fun giveaway, so here 'tis: the winner gets this cute little zippered pouch containing Candy Cane Crush, Let It Snow, Alpine Punch, White Cranberry Bark, and Sleigh Ride teas to try! (And I'll be blogging about them after I try them for myself!)

If you'd like to be entered to win, just leave an "Enter me" to this post between now and 7 a.m. Wednesday, Dec. 20, and please make sure I have a way to contact you if you're the winner so I can hurry up and get this in the mail! (US only, please.) Good luck, and Merry Christmas!