recipes

friday feast: happiness is a may sarton poem and a cream scone

~ jama ~ 66 Comments

“The most valuable thing we can do for the psyche, occasionally, is to let it rest, wander, live in the changing light of a room . . . “ ~ May Sarton

 

When it’s cold and snowy out, there’s nothing better than treating yourself to a little cream tea.

I like to split a warm scone, spread on some strawberry jam and clotted cream, and sip a nice cup of Yorkshire Gold.

Gone are the winter blues, and I’m quite content to while away the hours reading, writing, thinking. I’m safe and warm in a room I’ve filled with some of my favorite things: a copper teapot, Dickens books from Foyles in London, a dozen antique teddy bears, an English phone booth, an Addams Family “Thing” bank, a kazoo, and a bone china bouquet of violets (one broken).

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friday feast: ♥ true love in three acts ♥

~ jama ~ 87 Comments

“You must always be awaggle with love.” ~ D.H. Lawrence

~ With advance apologies to Tea S. Eliot, Elizabeth Barrett Brewing and William Shakespour.

*

1. To tart or not to tart, that is the question.

Reasons for not making fruit tarts:

  • Pesky little tart pans
  • Stirring vanilla cream in nippy kitchen
  • Finicky pastry dough
  • Locate pretty fruit in the dead of winter? Oh, come on.

Reasons for making fruit tarts:

  • Len loves them. Cornelius loves them. I love them. What person in their right mind doesn’t love them?
  • It’s Valentine’s Day.
  • Beloved blog readers might be impressed that an adorable a self-sacrificing writer stood in an icy kitchen for hours some minutes stirring, stirring the vanilla cream and whipping finicky pastry dough into shape after walking flying to Chile to pick fresh berries.
  • Good excuse to buy a new tartlet baking set.
The baking set comes with a 12-well non-stick tartlet pan, a dough cutter and a tamper.
Handsome assistant demonstrates use of tamper.

In the room the women come and go,
Talking of rolling pie dough.

*   *   *

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friday feast: eileen spinelli’s tea party today (+ our giveaway winner!)

~ jama ~ 63 Comments

“I received my first tea set — blue-and-white willowware — on my fourth Christmas . . . I remember feeling so excited on the occasion of my first tea party that my hand shook as I poured tap water into my doll’s tiny teacup.” ~ Eileen Spinelli (Introduction, Tea Party Today)

Put on your best bibs and bonnets, there’s a tea party today!

I must confess I only just discovered this charming poetry collection last week. I know, I know. Slap me with a big fat wet noodle. How did I miss it?

After all, I’ve enjoyed Ms. Spinelli’s work for quite some time. In fact, whenever I see her name on a book cover I automatically smile :). Could be because this highly popular, critically-acclaimed author and teacher has published dozens of cool books over the years (poetry, picture books, chapter books), including my personal fave, The Dancing Pancake. *licks lips*

How could I not love a person who has a teddy bear in her office, is fond of the “sights, sounds, and aromas” of diners, bakes peach pie for her husband, and sips tea while writing her wonderful stories and poems?

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the poem that will not end blog tour: 3 course special (review + recipe + giveaway)!

~ jama ~ 56 Comments

 

It started with a rhythm,
a rhythm and a rhyme.
It wouldn’t let me stop,
it ate up all my time.

Holy poetic peas and potatoes!

Though we’re very happy to be celebrating the official release this week of THE POEM THAT WILL NOT END: Fun with Poetic Forms and Voices by Joan Bransfield Graham and Kyrsten Brooker (Two Lions, 2014), there is one teensy problem.

We can’t stop reading it!

 

Innocently opened this book about a rhyming maniac called Ryan O’Brian who cannot cannot cannot stop writing poetry. All day long and even into the night, he’s scribbling and doodling and tapping and clapping, making poems everywhere with everything — on the sidewalk with chalk, on the soccer field with mud, in the bathroom with toothpaste, with marker on his toes! Yes, yes, very impressive to be sure, but what we really love is what he does at the kitchen table —

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friday feast: barbara crooker’s “sugar” + 2 sweet recipes

~ jama ~ 41 Comments
(click for Homemade Cotton Candy recipe via Cooking Books)

Do you remember the last Barbara Crooker poem I shared, where her ailing mother refused to eat her food, but demanded marshmallow Peeps?

This craving for sweets seems to be common among the elderly. A good friend of ours with an incurable lung disease would always pick at her dinner, but had no trouble at all polishing off a big piece of coconut pie. I could always make her smile just by saying,”crème brûleé.”

When I saw my mother in Hawai’i last month, I noted her diminished appetite and drastic weight loss. She did enjoy my Christmas cookies, though, along with chocolate truffles, bread pudding, cranberry muffins, apple and lemon meringue pie, Chantilly cake. No coaxing needed when it came to dessert.

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