Category: Tea

Valentine’s Day

Published on by meteaandlucy2 Comments

valentine I

 

Valentine’s Day is substantially less exciting when you are married. In fact, the images above and below demonstrate this well (they are from the Valentine’s Card I bought Alec).

Valentine II

 

We spent Valentine’s weekend taking Lucy to a birthday party, fixing a drain, and doing things around the house. Perhaps next year we should try to act like we are dating and actually do something! In all fairness to our ourselves, we are going to Chicago (with the kids), and have reservations for the restaurant the Girl and the Goat (without the kids), which is supposed to be fabulous. Its a bit of a belated Valentine’s Day outing.

However, in honor or Valentine’s Day, I would like to tell you about the new love in my life. No it isn’t a person; it’s coffee. A strange thing happened while I was pregnant. Well a lot of strange things happened; pregnancy is like a bizarre nightmare where you can’t believe things like this are happening to your body (unless you are planning on having a baby soon–pregnancy is great!). But this particular strange occurrence is how my tastes changed. It isn’t an unusual thing to happen to women; it is considered a normal symptom of pregnancy, but it is weird and unpleasant nonetheless. Foods tasted different to me, most notably was lettuce which tasted like dirt and tea which also tasted like dirt. Needless to say, I couldn’t stomach tea. It didn’t get better right after I had Emory either. And while I couldn’t stomach tea, I began to like coffee (don’t worry I drank half-caf or decaf). I always enjoyed a latte but for the first time, I liked coffee. We even bought a coffee maker:

mr. cafe

His name is  Monsieur Café.  He was $29. And this picture is a bit deceptive because I do not drink my coffee black. I prefer it with a little Splenda and half and half. If you notice, my kettle is there on the side. I can drink tea again. It took a couple months, but I was able to start enjoying tea again. Though strangely I still can’t drink my favorite kinds from before. They still taste off. AND maybe the strangest of all, I drink herbal tea in the evening now (which I never enjoyed herbal tea). Maybe I’m old now. I could have a glass of wine but prefer a hot cup of herbal tea before bed.

Belated Happy Valentine’s Day!

 

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Mom Tea and Lucy

Published on by meteaandlucy1 Comment

Today my mom came up and we headed over to Highland Park to go to the Tea Source.  It is my Aunt Karen’s birthday at the end of the week, and my mom wanted to pick up some tea for her.  Karen lives in Eastern Wisconsin and there is not a wide variety of fine tea houses in the area, or any to be more exact.  Of all the places that sell tea in the cities Tea Source is by far my favorite.  As you can see on the sign in this picture they have over 250 varieties of loose leaf.  Which for a teaophile (made up that word) like myself, that is pretty fantastic.

I was trying to be sneaky and snap a picture without anyone noticing, but I kept hitting the off button on my camera instead of taking a picture.  I was not very successful.  However, no one yelled at me for taking a picture inside the store, so all was well.

I have not been to the tea store for quite a while because I decided that I needed to use up what I have.  I have not bought any for months, and I still have a ways to go.  I broke down and got one knew bag of tea.  A nice flavored black tea called Black Mountain Spice.  After our outing, I brewed up a pot of it and had it with a little brown sugar and whole milk, yum.  Note, I always use either brown sugar or honey in my tea if I am going to sweeten them.  White sugar is too sweet in my opinion for tea.

After the tea store, we headed to lunch at Cafe Latte on Grand Avenue.  Lucy seemed to love it in there.  She was awake and staring at everyone and everything.  She likes being out and about and being able to see new and different things.  Which I love because she behaves when I take her places.  She is all tuckered out from the morning though and asleep in her little bouncy chair at the moment.

So, no recipe this time. I made some corn muffins this morning, but they weren’t really good enough to share the recipe.  I will no doubt bake something again soon.