Afternoon Tea at the Empress

The Empress Hotel is famous for its Victorian afternoon tea. Being a Janeite and a bit of an anglophile I have wanted to do this for a long time. I was so excited to make it a part of a wonderful anniversary trip. My husband really went above and beyond with this one!The tea starts with fresh strawberries and cream.

I don’t drink tea, because being a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (Mormon) I uphold a standard called the Word of Wisdom, But hot chocolate is also served when requested, and it was very good. Of course a variety of teas are available, including herbal tea.A beautiful assortment of tea sandwiches were served. Our selections included egg salad croissants, smoked salmon wheels, and chicken curry sandwiches. There were also scones with jam and cream, and a variety of chocolates and other miniature sweets. There is a children’s tea available and I have to say that the little children, mostly girls with mothers and grandmas, looked so adorable with their own little fancy tiered plates in front of them. I know the afternoon tea is pricey for most of us, but it is not just a meal, it is a special experience.I would like to thank my husband Jon for 27 wonderful years of marriage, and the best anniversary weekend ever. I was completely spoiled and treated like royalty. Thank you, sweetie. I love you with all my heart!

-Lynnae

Jealous of Colin Firth

One day on facebook my friend said she’d had a rough day and just wanted to settle down with some chocolate and Colin Firth. From there we started wishing you could buy a box of chocolate Darcys- something I think would be a big hit.

Then my husband disappeared into the den for a while and after a bit showed my this picture he’d made……. I think somebody is feeling a little jealous!

Don’t worry dear. I love you and all your awesomeness and NOT Colin Firth. Now if there was a real Mr. Darcy, then you might have a problem.

Or if there was a real box of chocolate Darcys.

-Lynnae

Valentines Day

Can You Feel The Love……..

My husband had a treat for me on Valentines day. He handed me a heart shaped box of chocolates. On it was a note containing the riddle that Mr. Elton gives to Emma. 

I smiled and then opened the chocolate, and found……..

He had cut out the box sections so he could fit the DVD in there! Sweet!

(I will add that that gift was soon followed up by a box of chocolates from my favorite local shop).

I made chocolate covered strawberries for us, and he cooked the most tender steaks I’ve had in ages.

The Holidays are in Full Swing

I have a few more things to post about before Christmas.

First of all, we finally got our Christmas tree last week. My daughter came home from college on Friday and tonight she hung up her ornaments. Our tree is quite a mixture of ornaments and colors.

Some of my daughters were saying how they would like a ‘designer tree’ with a theme and color palette. This makes me smile, because I used to feel the same way, but those same little  girls would have felt very sad a few short years ago if I wouldn’t have allowed them to help decorate the tree with their treasures. I would love a fancy organized tree, but I’m sentimental, so it will never happen until my husband caves in and lets me have two trees.

If you missed my earlier post of other Christmas decorations around my house, here is the link.

Growing up my parents would let us each have a new ornament every Christmas. Some were store bought and some years they were handmade. I have a stuffed bird that came from patterns printed on fabric in the 70’s. One year we drew pictures on round lids from liver containers and shrunk them ‘Shrinky-Dink’ style in the oven. That one has been lost, but growing up in a large family that had to share a lot, that little shoe box full of ornaments was precious and I still put most of them on my tree.

  I hope someday my girls will treasure their old ornaments too.

 

I tried a new fudge recipe this year that I really like. This batch was ‘mixed nut fudge’ – all the fun of mixed nuts, now in fudge, which is something my body needs anyway.

I also got my fat book back from the swap I participated in at Thrifty Miss Priss. Here is a glimpse.

 

 

This was my page. I didn’t want to post it before everyone got their books. Participating in this was a lot of fun. There was so much talent and effort put into the pages, and my picture collage doesn’t do it justice. Once I’m not so busy I’ll finish the cover. 

Lastly, I won a fabulous prize from the Where Women Create Christmas giveaway! I am so thankful and overjoyed. If you want to see the wonderful necklace I won click here and look at ‘the ninth day of Christmas’

Extra arts, crafts and decorating really kept me going when I was discouraged recently about my foot not healing well. But I feel like I’ve accomplished a lot and  I have so much to be thankful for! My family, the birth of Christ,  and all of you - friends, family, and those I’ve never met.

Merry Christmas!

-Lynnae

Baroness von Puur Chocolade Hagelslag

“There’s a surprise downstairs”.

Usually when my husband says that I am less than thrilled. It often means either he’s got me some kind of weird gag gift he knows I’ll hate (Obama mints?) Or he wants me to see some programming work he’s done and I can’t possibly grasp how amazingly cool it is or how much time it took to come up with those eight lines of code.

Soooo, Saturday  he informed me there was a surprise downstairs.

And guess what? There was Chocolate! NOW were talkin’!

You see a couple years ago he went to Amsterdam, and upon returning he informed me that what I previously thought of as a country with a confusing name (or names) was actually a land where people dump chocolate flakes all over their morning toast. How did I not know that? How could my intuition not tell me that there was such a country on this earth?

Recently he wanted to order another box of chocolate sprinkles- which are nothing like chocolate sprinkles in America that are brown but just taste blah. These babies are packing some serious cocoa! He found however, that they wouldn’t ship unless he ordered a bunch. Yessssssssss!

Do you see that? Do you see the chocolate on the toast? That’s the Suggested Serving, folks.

You have to obey that.

Here we see Extra Dark chocolate sprinkles, Dark Chocolate flakes, Milk chocolate flakes, Regular dark Chocolate Sprinkles, Two Boxes of Milk chocolate sprinkles, and a bag of chocolate Euros.

And their all MINE!!!!! (except for a box that will be making it’s way to a very special college girl in the near future).

My advice- don’t tell anyone you have it.

Jane Austen Tea Party

As I mentioned last week, I decided to throw a little Jane Austen Party for my siblings, nieces and nephews over mid-winter break. It was great fun having everyone over and my guests were all great sports at playing along, being my guinea pigs in learning a dance, and reading my Jane Austen script. Here I sit with one of my sisters. She is in the blue gown, and I have the strange feather headpiece that photographs more like a static electricity problem than an adornment.

We started with a 'cocoa and punch tea party', then we performed an 'amature theatrical' dramatic reading of my adaptation of Jane Austen's Juvenile work "Love and Friendship". I assigned parts and doled out an ample supply of felt sideburns and mustaches for the male parts. This was a good laugh and It was fun to see my adaptation come to life.

After that we tried our hands at some English Country Dancing. I taught several couples the 'Hole in the Wall' dance and we got through it several times with music, and felt quite elegant, despite the small number of couples and cramped quarters in my living room, which served as the assembly room.

Thank you all for coming! I hope in the future to be hostess of many such events!

Oh Chocolate, My Chocolate

My hubby and daughters have gone to a daddy daughter dinner and dance tonight. It's quiet around here. I just had a bowl of Raisin Nut Bran for dinner and I'm in heaven. I love not making dinner and not feeling guilty about not making dinner.

So, last week my husband took my to the Chocolate Festival for an early Valentines date. I know, I know, right now everyone is saying- "What? There was a chocolate festival and no one told me?"

Yeah, there was and you missed it.

But you could not possibly love chocolate more than I do, and my hubby knows that too, so he sprayed on his Axe Dark Chocolate body spray, and off we went!

I completely expected it to be something a bit more like a cross between heaven and a romance novel, with flying cupids and maybe a gospel choir singing odes to chocolate, but modified my expectations to include the idea that it was just the indoor exposition hall at the fairgrounds, with booths and vendors and the usual thing, plus a few twinkle lights.

But there was chocolate. Samples of Chocolate truffles from Oh! Chocolate, where my discriminating husband gets my chocolate gifts from, plus there were chocolate fountains, chocolate toffee bits, spicy habenero chocolate (yes!).

Part of the festival was devoted to wine, and not being a wine drinker, I felt completely justified in going through all the chocolate sample lines repeatedly.

We did stop consuming chocolate for a moment in order to share a bag of hot mini donuts drenched in cinnamon and sugar. For those of you who know I do Weight Watchers, I will say that taking a hint from top polititians and their taxes, this day was strictly "off the books".

We wrapped up the evening with a little seminar from "Oh Chocolate". A member of the owner's family demonstrated chocolate dipping techniques, and talked to us about using chocolate in our daily lives (I'm way ahead of you!). After dipping and serving us a lovely tray of strawberries, he talked about the experimental side of his job in the chocolate industry. Then he proceeded to dip little balls of goat cheese in dark chocolate. Now, my hubby and I like goat cheese, and just seeing this gave me the chills. After the samples hubby said "We are going home and making this tonight."

So, needless to say, we spent the evening rolling goat cheese truffles, peanut butter truffles, and anything else we thought would work well. I can't wait to do more.

Long ago as a child my Grandma told us the bedtime story of flying to chocolate town where everything was made of chocolate, even the people.....

Is it any wonder that in the middle of a boring drive I'll fantasize that just around the corner a hot fudge truck has overturned, and it's rich cargo is pouring out over the road..... I slam on the hazard lights as I stop the van, kick off my shoes, and wade in.....

The chocolate festival was KIND OF like that.