Angela Webster McRae's Blog, page 57

July giveaway: Peach tea and tea towel!

Earlier this year, I discovered that Hobby Lobby had begun selling specialty foods like jams and jellies and custom spice mixes. What I did not discover until the weekend was that they sell teas, too, so I bought some Just Peachy tea for me and some to share with one of you. And of course when I saw a peachy tea towel as I headed to check out with the teas, I figured one of you should have it to remind you of your tea-loving friend here in Georgia.

I love the name of this Seattle tea company: Little Prayer Tea Company.
I like their packaging too! The graphic says "Hope is an Anchor of the Soul," and it includes a favorite scripture as well: "Help me find love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control" (Galatians 5:22-23). At first, I wondered why they chose that scripture, and then I realized it's a reference to the fruit of the spirit. I'm a little slow, eh?
Here's the fruit on the tea towel.

The Just Peachy tea, by the way, contains black tea, natural peach flavor, peach pieces, marigold flowers, and apple pieces. It's a nice, brisk black tea that does indeed have the flavor of juicy peaches. I haven't tried it iced yet, but I'll bet it's good that way too. So if you'd like to win the peach tea and the peach tea towel, just leave an "Enter me" to this post anytime between now and 7 a.m. EST on Friday, July 15, and you'll be entered to win. (US only, please.) Good luck!

A tea cartoon … from 1828

My latest find from the Library of Congress website is this 1828 cartoon captioned “Woman Dropping Her Tea-cup in Horror upon Discovering the Monstrous Contents of a Magnified Drop of Thames Water Revealing the Impurity of London Drinking Water.”
If I thought my tea contained all that, I’d drop my teacup too!

"Pleading the Fish" by Bree Baker

 

I do not like goodbyes, so it was with some trepidation that I began reading what I knew was the last of the Seaside Café mysteries by Bree Baker, Pleading the Fish. The heroine, Everly Swan, runs Sun, Sand, and Tea, a café and tea shop in Charm, North Carolina. This book kicks off with Everly planning her long-awaited wedding to local detective Grady Hays, and of course she's still battling the old family superstition that says Swan women are cursed in love. Grady is determined to help rid Everly of that notion once and for all, but before the two of them can delve too deeply into her family history, Everly gets a local historian, Susan Thames, to help her—but Susan soon turns up dead in a well. Despite Grady's pleas for Everly to leave the murder investigation to him, she (naturally) marches right on into the sleuthing, and threats are soon coming her way.
In between trying on old family wedding gowns and planning her beachside nuptials, Everly manages to make a few enemies, including several who clearly had reasons to want Susan out of the picture.
In this cozy wrap-up, Everly makes her peace with an old nemesis, and a surprise find in the attic helps her finally put the Swan curse to rest. A delightful-sounding lemon cake has a starring role in the book, and the recipe is, blessedly, included. There are lots of loose ends to wrap up here, and Baker does so beautifully. If only there were more of these sweet books to come!

Have a Happy Fourth!

 

Country Living Flea Market Finds

I'm pretty sure this issue of Country Living Flea Market Finds is a reprint—the cover seems so very familiar—but I didn't buy it the first time I saw it a year or two ago, and this week, when I was in line at the grocery store, I decided I needed it. My second cozy mystery series will, Lord willing, launch this fall, and it features two Alabama sisters who run a unique collectibles business. So I've been doing a lot of reading about collectibles since not every collector can focus mainly on teacups and teapots (alas).

Some of the items in this issue were just so fun to read about, like collections of vintage hair appliances, umbrellas, and—dear to my heart as a former 4-H'er—4-H memorabilia. But of course my primary collecting interests reside with all things related to dishes and teatime, so I was pleased to spot this pretty array of china plates.

And look at these lovely butter pats!

I'd recently written about how I've decided to start collecting butter pats, and to my surprise and delight, a thoughtful blog reader in Virginia, Patricia, mailed me two charming vintage butter pats with pink roses on them. How perfect!

Just curious: Do you collect anything outside of the tea wares world? Or know someone with an unusual collecting passion? I (and my characters) would sure love to hear about it!

A new tea shirt …

 

For years now, I have made it a point of enjoying my 1-1/4-mile walk through the neighborhood between 5 and 6 p.m. each weekday. It's always been a nice way to end my workday and a pleasant time of disconnecting from computer and cellphone. But this year? I'm here to tell you that this lifelong lover of hot weather can't take the heat anymore. I cannot. So now I'm walking early in the mornings before the Georgia humidity ramps up. And this year, I realized I've tossed so many old, worn T-shirts that I genuinely needed some more casual tees. So I was thinking of July 4 when I saw this shirt and ordered it!

This exact T-shirt design is no longer listed on Amazon or I'd share a link, but plenty of similar ones are still available. So if you need a "walking" shirt or a "Fourth of July" shirt, you may want to hurry and check out the tea-shirt offerings!

More Aldi tea-shopping success

Success! Now this is the last time I plan to write about Aldi for a while, but I must tell you that I was absolutely delighted to go back and find these two teas that Susan B. had told me about. I had looked only in the regular tea and coffee section of the store, and she mentioned that she found her new teas in the middle aisles with the specialty foods. I returned and looked there, and voila, there they were!

I got both the Tropical Green Tea, which was light and refreshing, and the Peach Rooibos, which I absolutely adored! I'm a fan of most rooibos teas anyway, but this peach-flavored one tasted exceptionally fresh and had that caramel-like finish that I always enjoy in rooibos teas.

And goodness knows I need to stop buying a new sweet every time I go in there, but … may I just say that these Coconut Spritz shortbread cookies are divine? Alex agrees. A lot of the store-bought shortbread cookies I've tried were dry and hard, but these were light as air and oh so buttery.

And last but not least, if you're a fan of flavored sparkling waters like the La Croix drinks, try this Passion Fruit Sparkling Green Tea from Aldi. I rarely drink soft drinks anymore, but when I crave a little carbonated something, I reach for these low-calorie drinks, and I liked these even better than the La Croix ones!

For Leon Day 2022: A tale of two Christmas plates

You know that tomorrow is Leon Day, right? "Leon" is "Noel" spelled backward, and among those of us who collect vintage Christmas decor all year long, Leon Day is definitely a red-letter day since it marks exactly six months until Christmas. Thinking about this day also reminded me that I'd been meaning to mention two lovely Christmas plates I've found this year that have presented me with a bit of a dilemma. First, there's this T&V Limoges gilt-trimmed holly plate I found at an antique mall early in the year. I'd been wanting one of these ever since I joined the Golden Glow Christmas collectors' group last year and first learned of this beautiful old china (the article I read is featured here). The plate was behind a display case, and I remember thinking I'd give up to $40 for the plate because I was pretty sure it was worth that or maybe even a little more. 

When the clerk pulled it out for me, sure enough, it was the T&V Limoges I'd read about it. It was only $8, so I couldn't scoop it up fast enough, and all the way home, I planned to get on eBay and find some more of these for $8 or so. To my everlasting shock, these plates sell for hundreds of dollars each! I like it, but I don't like it *that* much. One like mine is currently listed at $325 on eBay (or a set of five for $1,300). The only matching teacup and saucer I've ever seen was $250. Ouch. So … I'm keeping my little gold mine of a plate for now, but oddly, I liked it better before I knew it was so valuable. Is that crazy? (I think it's that I'm afraid to use it now.)

And on a similar but much less worrisome note as far as collectibles go, I found yet another lovely single Christmas plate at Goodwill a few weeks back, this time just $1.49.

As soon as I saw this frilly pink trim and color palette, I marveled that I had never seen this pattern before. And as with the T&V plate, I hoped I'd find others on eBay. There's only one that I've found, and it's $34.95 (free shipping). That's a maybe, but only a maybe, because if I can't have three more, I'll probably just stick with the one. I've seen teacups with the same border in a rose pattern but not with the Christmas tree pattern. 

Replacements.com lists a footed cup and saucer, salad plate, and bread and butter plate in this Châtillon pattern, with no photos, but they have none of the pieces in stock. So here I am, idly wishing for not one but *two* new sets of Christmas dishes to someday materialize. I'm planning to go thrifting with Aunt Jane tomorrow on Leon Day, so wish me luck—and don't forget to start shopping for your vintage Christmas pieces now!

For inquiring minds …

 

On Monday, when I told of my recent Aldi shopping excursion and mentioned that I had been unable to score the two teas that Susan B. in North Carolina had found, it didn't occur to me that I should have listed the teas that I didn't find here at my local store. And since several of you wondered what the teas were, I got permission from Susan to share her photo here!
These two teas look right up my alley, especially since I love tropical flavors as well as anything Peach Rooibos, so I plan to visit my store again this week in hopes of finding them. If you do as well, good luck!

Aldi's — a source for tea lovers

 

When tea friend Susan B. emailed last week to say that she'd found some fun new teas at Aldi, I immediately made a mental note to stop by the next time I was near ours, and that was Saturday. What I actually *needed* was carrots and raisins to make the carrot salad that Daddy always likes on Father's Day, but I picked up quite a few treats for myself as well, including the comestibles that made the above teatime snack possible.

I didn't find the teas Susan did, so I will have to make a return trip, but I did find these two (and for just $1.19 each). I haven't had English Breakfast tea in a while, and for some reason, the idea of a nice brisk black tea suddenly appealed to me. When I opened the package, I was happy that the tea bags even *smelled* like fresh tea. I absolutely loved this tea and had two cups, hot, which tells you something, as it's already pretty hot and humid here in Georgia, so I was surprised by how much I enjoyed this tea. I haven't tried the lemon tea yet, but I expect it to be good as well.

And when I was looking for the tea, I came across these "Cakebites," which were a delightful cinnamony treat. While not quite the quality of homemade, they were nonetheless rather tasty, with very tender cake layers, and these three bites were just enough to feel like I'd had an indulgent little snack that afternoon.

Another indulgence? These Lemon Crème chocolate bars. Since a serving is two bars, I realized that a single tiny bar at a time, slightly smaller than a Kit Kat wafer, would be a nice 105-calorie treat alongside a cup of tea, and the lemon filling was sunny tasting but not too tart.

I am still rather new to Aldi shopping. This was, I believe, only my third or fourth trip to the store, and every single time, I forget that you're supposed to take your own grocery bags. I was about to find one of their dollar bags to hold my groceries, but I saw some pretty totes for just $8.99 that were spacious and comfortable to carry. The rubberized, lightweight metal handles called out "craft supply tote," so this is the one I got instead of the flimsy bag, and it held all of the above items plus my carrots and raisins, some artichoke hearts for Alex, and a bag of mandarin oranges. And I plan to return soon to see if they have the teas I originally went after!