Stay for Tea

Month: March, 2008

March 31, 2008

Making candied flowers

This past weekend, my boyfriend and I visited a friend who is in town from France, spending some time staying with her folks on their farm. Their beautiful home is set in a garden of lemon trees, violets blossoms and green succulents. We were invited by our friend for a relaxing afternoon, with a particularly sweet offer of making our own candied flowers.

Undeterred by the soft rain that’s been coming down for several hours, we stepped into the garden and foraged for whatever we could dunk in some sugar. Traditionally, candied violets are poured over with hot syrup, and used in France as a garnish for desserts. However, that is just one way and one reason to do it. We had an approach far more simple, and our goal was to just enjoy making the candied flowers and eating them like snacks.


Violets are the preferred flower, but Johnny-jump-ups and Borage can do! Make sure to dry them off pretty well before candying. Read the rest of this entry »

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March 4, 2008

Objects, Food, Rooms

I wanted to do a public blog for a while. Who knew that the simple adage of writing what you know and like would actually end up being true? So here I am, inspired by the sub-title of Gertrude Stein’s book of prose poems (Tender Buttons: Objects, Food, Rooms). I like objects – like buttons, on things or in jars sitting on shelves; and containers for things, to keep me organized; recipe books and comfortable shoes; framed photos and refrigerator magnets from Thailand. I like food – whether it’s a greasy slice of Indian pizza delivered late at night, an iced soy drink, fresh fruit from the farmers’ market. I like rooms – rooms that I inhabit and rooms I visit; strangers homes I glimpse in the evening through their unshuttered windows as I pass by on a streetcar; inspiring abodes printed in a magazine. These are things that I like. The simple things. And I plan on writing about them. None of this is new, plenty of people have talked about these things already, and that’s just fine. Maybe something that I like will be new to someone else, and then they’ll find something new to like. Simple.

-T.

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