Chinese Tea in a Tangerine via NYC

Hi everyone.  I hope your week is off to a great start. It's quiet around here after babysitting my little grandchildren last week.  As you may recall, my daughter Heidi went to New York City last week and brought me...

This little ball of Chinese pu-erh tea, all wrapped up in this pretty little package. 

 

 She bought it at McNulty's Tea and Coffee in NYC.  They have been in business since 1895 and have a huge array of coffees and tea.

The tea has been cured in a hollowed out tangerine.  As you can see, the peel is completely dried and the top of the tea has some dried peel too.  Inside, there is black tea without any additions.

I was excited to try it.  I warmed my vintage Japanese teapot and put in a spoonful of the tea, added the freshly boiled water and let it sit.  When I poured it into my Japanese teacup, I was amazed at the lovely, deep, golden red color.  The taste was heavenly.  Thank you Heidi!

Speaking of Heidi, she will be hosting our Thanksgiving this year as she has done every year since 2008.  She's already printed out her menus as shown above.  I will be bringing some pre dinner snacks of Scottish sausage rolls along with some giant stuffed olives I found at World Market.  It's our family tradition to play Monopoly each Thanksgiving evening.  It will be a fun, family day.

Heidi sent me a copy of this menu from The Plaza Hotel in NYC from 1899.  Look at those prices! 

 

She and my son-in-law went to The Plaza to enjoy drinks one afternoon.  Don't you just love the traditional decor?  It's my favorite style!

Heidi's favorite movie from childhood is Home Alone Lost in New York.  I think she has every scene in that movie memorized.  She tells me this is the Plaza hotel lobby where Kevin asks where the swimming pool is located.  

Thanksgiving will soon be here and then the holiday season will be in full swing.  We're hoping to get our Christmas tree on Saturday but in the meantime, we're suppose to high record high temps in the high 80's on Thanksgiving day!

Have a wonderful day everyone and thank you for stopping by.

My best wishes to you,

Pat

Tea and Politics

Do you like the title of this post?  Don't worry as I'm not intending to ruffle your feathers going into politics or religion or other taboo subjects.  But, I thought you might enjoy a bit of something different than my current knitting project (which by the way, is going well).

My dear daughter Heidi took me to tea recently in honor of Mother's Day.  We had a fabulous time at a little tea house near our homes.  Here's Heidi above trying on a lovely hat.  She's going to a wedding next summer in England and wants to wear a hat!  We had a wonderful afternoon of Mother/Daughter bonding.

The tea itself was delightful.  I chose the Queen Catherine blend of tea by Harney and Sons.  It was loose tea, my favorite vs teabags. And, the little tea sandwiches were amazing.  After our tea, we had a nice time perusing the surrounding shops and garden shops.  It was a most fun afternoon.

There's lots of beautiful jackaranda trees in the area where I live.  I read somewhere that the falling of these beautiful flowers is called purple snow.  My ballot for the California primary arrived in the mail this past week.  I thoroughly enjoyed filling it out and putting it in the mail.  I don't vote along a particular party line.  Is it just me, or did you feel that both Cruz and Rubio missed a vital chance to embrace the Hispanic vote?  Aren't they both fluent in Spanish?  I enjoyed the snippets Rubio shared of his Grandfather's life in Cuba.  It's too late now for both of them but their campaign strategies still puzzle me a bit.

  

Speaking of Spanish speaking, here's the article I read this morning.  Have you ever heard of anything so crazy; English only policy?  My family and I travel alot overseas and unfortunately, I only speak English.  I'm always amazed at the superb customer service I receive when someone speaks to me in English or offers me an English menu vs the regular menu.  What is wrong with people today?  To me this is just being polite to your fellow man.  When I go to Turkey they don't tell me to speak only Turkish!  America needs to wake up a little bit.  

And, the above can bring up the illegal immigrants etal problems.  I lived for 22 years in an agricultural community.  The irreplaceable Mexican migrant workers were a VITAL part of the community.  Without them, we wouldn't have all the produce/fruit on our tables.*  Fast forward to southern California....I live in south Orange county which does not have agriculture but we have vast areas of manicured landscaping, building industry and other businesses.  Most of these businesses are owned/managed by Mexican immigrants. And, they do a fabulous job.  Many of them have taught themselves English and have risen through the ranks to own their own businesses.  And, I am suppose to tell them to speak English only?  No way...  Which brings up another item; homeless camps.  Being from the Seattle area, Seattle has a huge homeless population.  Do you think these people in the homeless camps are Hispanic, Spanish speaking?  NO; they speak and look like me.  I really feel it's wrong when we attack a community of people different from us.  And by the way, in my own family are two naturalized US citizens whose primary language was not English. 

I guess to sum up my feeling, I don't like it when we judge or profile people who we may perceive are different from us.  It's happened to me in Egypt and here at church and it's not a good feeling.  Sorry for the rant on my part but sometimes I think I watch or read too much news :)

Have a wonderful weekend.  I'll be busy working on the lace border of my knitted shawl and I'll also hopefully have some exciting news to share with you soon....suspense; haha 

My best to you,

Pat

*It warms my heart when I read about Hispanic immigrant families who have attained their dreams here in America.  It warms my heart when I read about them graduating and attaining their goals here in their adopted country.  Because of their families sacrifice to move to a new country, their children are now doctors, lawyers, engineers, and scientists to name a few.  To me, that's what America is all about.   

Linking with:

Amy'sFive on Friday . . . 

Happenings at Lilly My Cat

It's almost Friday and time to join in at Amy's  Five on Friday. Today, I'm going to share five random thoughts with you.  To find out about the tea cup shown above you'll have to read to the bottom of the post.  So here goes...

 

I feel like I'm trapped in a tunnel and can't get out until my taxes are in order.  I moved them from the table last night and here they are.  How I wish it was an easy return.   Yes, the accountant will prepare the return but he needs the numbers in an orderly manner.  I like to run a tight ship and keep all my papers in order.  But, when you have numerous rental properties, along with selling property, it becomes a bit complicated.  Basically, we sold three investment properties on a 1031 exchange. We  sold the property and bought new property to defer the gain.  Since the beginning of this year 2016, we have sold three more properties which means... 

We have been looking for replacement properties.  We have viewed various properties with our realtor this week so we have a pretty good idea of what we want to buy.  It's going to be a rental and it needs to be a nice, well kept property that would appeal to anyone.  I think we have identified a couple of them and we will see what happens.

Enough said about business, I had fun too this week.  I bought the dress pictured above for $15.00 from Macys.  The fabric is pretty as it has a sparkle to it and the dress is lined, too.  I found a perfect pair of strappy heels with a wrap around the ankle strap but I didn't buy them.  Did you read that Macys are closing 40 stores and laying off 4,000 people?  Sad indeed.  This dress style is a bit "modern" for me but I plan on wearing my body hugging slip!  haha...

My yarn basket is full of items; a shawl that I'm working on but I put it aside to knit some Easter bunnies for my grandchildren and I been crocheting some doilies.    In the meantime, my dear sister-in-law introduced me to double knitting.  I followed the instructions as shown in the video except that I cast on the stitches separately for each color.  It's really quite a fascinating technique.  Here's the swatch I did; it's suppose to be a parrot but as my little grandson said, "it doesn't look like one"!  The reverse side has the colors reversed.  It's fun as it uses my brain (or what there is of it).  I may make a scarf like the one pictured here. Isn't this a fabulous pattern?

I'll leave you with a fun, exciting project.  It's the Tea Cup and Mug Exchange hosted by The Enchanting Rose. I had originally read about it on another blog site and I was so excited to join in.  I signed up as a follower to The Enchanting Rose and yesterday I signed up for the exchange.  As you can see from the photo above, I have a ton of cups and saucers.  Lots of them were inherited from my Mom.  It's one of my most cherished collections.  If you're interested in joining, visit the blog or fill out the sign up sheet which is here. 

That's about all that has been happening here at Lilly My Cat.  We're suppose to get some rain this weekend; I hope!  Tomorrow we have a family dinner planned, Saturday we will meet with the realtor again, dinner party with friends in the evening and hopefully attend church on Sunday.  I hope all of you my dear readers are doing well.  It's always a joy to hear from you.  Feel free to comment and let me know what you've been creating.

Hugs to all,

Pat

P.S.  Last week someone asked in the comment section what is Poilane bread.  Please click on this link for further info.

 

Sadie's Teaset

My little granddaughter is expected in arrive later this summer.  My daughter and son-in-law have been busy getting her nursery all ready for her.  Although she hasn't arrive yet, it's as though we really know and love her already.

Last week my daughter and I (and my little grandson) had a wonderful afternoon in San Clemente. We always head to the beach when we go there but this time we had a lovely lunch downtown and strolled through some of the interesting shops.

We happened upon the cutest gift shop where they had a collection of tea sets.  My daughter told me she wanted to get one for Sadie's nursery.  When I returned home, I set off shopping via the internet.  I'm a bit of a "dish snob" when it comes to dishes.  I wanted to get her a proper set, made in Germany.

After spending a couple of hours looking, I realized that I had a tea set!  She could have mine.  I hadn't opened it in years but I knew exactly where it was (which is a blessing since moving there are still items that are packed away).

Here is my tea set.  It is over 50 years old!

 

When I pulled it down from the cupboard, the poor old box almost gave way.

 

I unwrapped it and gave it a good washing. 

 

You can see that it was made in Japan.  

 

  

And, I even had the original wrappings....

 

 

After getting it all washed and dried, here are all the pieces.  I remember as a child putting mashed potatoes in the little covered casserole.  There was still salt and pepper in the shakers!

 

I hope that little Sadie will have many years of enjoyment with this little tea set

 Here it is all set up for her in her nursery.  

It's always a joy to find something old and bring it back to life to use again.  My dear daughter didn't play with this set as she loved her papers and pencils.  And, I'm amazed that all the pieces are here, intact, after all these years.  I think it was my brother who gave me this set.

It's Mother's Day tomorrow and I want to wish you a Happy Mother's Day.  Enjoy each day and I wish all of you the very best.

My best wishes to you,

Pat

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Note:  Last week my dear friend from Tales from the Riverbank tagged my blog for "Two Good Reads"

 

I am honored that Lilly my Cat was mentioned.  To keep this tag going, I would like to add Gillie at Loving Our Vintage Life  and Homemaking Tales.  So ladies, if you'd like to accept the tag you have to copy the logo above, link back to this blog and nominate 2 others to be tagged. Have fun!

LINKING to the following parties this week:
Handmade Monday.....
The Art of Home-making Mondays..... 
Let's Talk Vintage..... 
Oh My Heartsie Girl...... 
Share Your Cup Thursday...