Category: Antiques

Oh my sweet summer salad!

It’s the last day of summer before the school year starts – I have a bustling house with both a freshman and a senior!

Where did the time go?

On a small scale – the summer itself – and on a larger scale – the time that the boys have gone from wee babes to young school age children to full-size high school students?

Given the chance, these boys will eat me out of house and home now! But I try to occasionally offer healthy food that can compete with the artificial neon colors of boxed fruit snacks.

Enter the tomato…

A long dry spell this August is starting to prematurely kill off the grass, the tree leaves, and so the late summer harvest has a bit more urgency to it. My little herb garden has done as well this summer. It is over grown with rosemary, sage, two types of thyme, oregano, and the perennial robust chives.

One of my neighbors offered to me a part of her harvest of small pear tomatoes which have an intense yellow color and sweet bite. I couldn’t let these tomatoes sit around the house, so I pulled together what was left of some store-bought cherry tomatoes, along with some cucumber and mozzarella balls, to prepare a light side dish for tonight’s dinner.

Fresh herbs from the garden, chopped and torn, along with a splash of EVOO and white vinegar created a wonderful marinade. The tomatoes soaked up the dressing that only proved to enhance the flavor of those wonderful, colorful, savory fruits.

A big scoop of the salad in a cameo rose green depression glass sherbet dish looks perfect enough to eat! No cookies with this delicate piece but still a lovely snack in a lovely vessel!!

I have already eaten a mammoth scoop of this late summer salad. I hope I have enough discipline to leave some of the salad to accompany dinner.

There is a sweet way to enjoy a healthy snack in style before you eat our favorite dessert – which is, of course, a cookie and a cuppa.

Cookie and a Cuppa

This is the post excerpt.

I have an obsession. An odd obsession. Friends and co-workers don’t understand this peculiar obsession. I’m a grown woman who absolutely loves vintage china. Tea cups, specifically. But I gush over sugar bowls and creamers, mustard pots, egg coddlers, and small porcelain lace figurines made in Occupied Japan.

Since I was young, my family would spend the weekends antique shopping in some of the dirtiest, ramshackle locations. My parents enjoyed early 20th century farm house relics, like wooden boxes and crocks and homemade candles and printer trays. However, I looked for pretty things in the dirt and dust. The shiny items took the form of children’s miniature tea sets and porcelain vases. Beautiful treasures hiding amongst old carpentry equipment and plastic toys of the 1950s and 60s.

Now that I’m older and have children of my own, I still find the occasional trip to an antique store an adventure for the whole family. I discovered Wade Whimsies after finding a drawer full of the little creatures at my in-laws house. Now I have my boys search for them when we antique. My husband – who loves golf – likes to search for old golf clubs for his man cave. I still antique shop with my sister and parents every now and then.

But I always look for porcelain tea cups. They are a tool- like a hammer or a pencil. But they are also a piece of art- hand painted, gold-embossed, elaborately flowered. They have origins around the globe – Limoges or Dresden or Nippon.

Every time I discover another tea cup, I take it home, thoroughly wash it, and then I drink a nice cup of tea from it. I often indulge in a cookie, biscuit, scone, macaron, or welsh cake, too – because Yum! I have dozens of cups, tea pots, biscuit jars (like the one above), mustard pots, sugar bowls, creamers, and plates of all sizes and shapes.

This past weekend, after Mom, Sister, and I went to high tea, we discovered an antique co-op in a red barn near Brickerville. I found this tea cup on a shelf below a bunch of different salt and pepper shakers.

Isn’t it beautiful! It is paired with a lovely strawberry/raspberry black tea and a heart shaped strawberry shortbread cookie. A great way to end the day.

Well, that’s my first blog entry. It was easier than I thought it would be. I’m looking forward to sharing my next cookie and a cuppa with you.