Mug giveaway, dinner, and where I've been

Hello everyone,

I hope everyone is well. Here in Massachusetts we've been "enjoying" some snow. Yes. Snow. Two nights ago it snowed for about 2 hours. I must admit my relief when I woke up to see grass and not snow. I don't think I'm ready for shoveling yet.

I'm happy to announce the winner of our 2009 Blog-i-versary contest. The winner of the Mighty Leaf mug is my loyal reader, Dorothy (D). If I'm not mistaken, Dorothy won one of the Aura Teas gift certificates earlier in the year. She must have a lucky star. (Dorothy - Please e-mail me your mailing address so I can get it shipped out to you - teapages(at)gmail.com.) Congratulations and thanks for entering!

The tea dinner finally happened - a belated 2 year anniversary to Tea Pages. The menu was not cohesive in the least, nor was it meant to be. I simply perused some of my favorite tea cookbooks and chose what sounded good.

We started with a fantastic recipe from Sarina Jacobsen's "Tea" cookbook - Creamy Potato Chamomile Soup. (Bottom left) This rich soup will definitely be made many times in the coming winter. Chamomile tea is steeped and then the potatoes are cooked in it. Herbs are added as well as some sauteed leeks and celery. Some cream (I used half and half) and nutmeg round off the flavors. Spectacular.

We followed with a variation on Joanna Pruess's Green Tea Dumplings from her book "Eat Tea." I must admit that I punted here. I didn't take on making the green tea dumpling dough this time. I bought wonton wrappers at the grocery store - which of course lacked the green tea flavor. I did make the filling, but admit to making one substantial substitution. The filling is a flavor-packed combination of ground pork, cabbage, scallions, ginger, soy sauce, sesame oil, and green tea. Instead of ground pork I actually chopped some left over roast pork from the previous night's dinner. My BIG substitution was using red cabbage instead of napa. This decision was solely dictated by the fact that I couldn't get napa cabbage when I was at the store and I didn't have time to get to another store. It was definitely successful switch, though. For green tea I used Andrews & Dunham Damn Fine Tea Dragonwell. I'm interested in making these again, following the full recipe to see how much more green tea flavor will emerge. The leftover filling made great wraps the next day.

For the main course we tried the Shrimp Linguine with Fennel Tea and Citrus Butter from Tonia George's "Tea Cookbook." OK. I made it without the fennel tea. Apparently, I didn't have any left. I made do. The linguine was cooked in a pot with Yogi Lemon Ginger teabags. Then I sauteed shrimp and scallops with garlic and shallots. A sauce was made from lemon juice and orange juice and I threw in the some Yogi Ginger tea. The citrus flavor of this dish was outstanding and the "tea" definitely came through. I'm anxious to see how the fennel will influence the flavor next time. (Of course I just remembered that I DO have a fennel chai. I wonder what that would have done...Hmmm.....)

Dessert was (another variation) of Tonia George's Green Tea Panna Cotta. Her version is a gorgeous rich green - melting and lovely. Mine was very different, but sweet and flavorful. I didn't have matcha, the main ingredient. Instead I ground some of Upton's Japanese Hongyokuro with a mortar and pestle. Because it wasn't a powder, it didn't color the "custard" as matcha would have, it instead added flecks of color. I also made a minor error with the gelatin (true confessions here) so I don't believe it set quite correctly. It was firm like Jello where int he photo it seemed more softly set. The other side effect of using the ground tea was that much of it sank to the bottom of the cup. But it was kind of fun to scoop it up with the spoon as we dipped into our panna cotta.

Our beverage for the evening was Sarina Jacobson's Thai Iced Tea recipe. I steeped Tealuxe's Assam Organic with anise, vanilla, cloves, cinnamon, and ginger and then added sugar. I didn't have orange blossom water so I added a touch of orange juice. (Different, I know. Orange blossom would have added some floral notes, but I wanted to add a little citrus flavor.) I topped the cups with coconut cream. Heaven.

So, that was the great dinner. The other thing I've been doing of late is celebrating an even greater event. My husband and I will be celebrating our 10th anniversary on Saturday. We decided to treat ourselves to a little trip. We enlisted the grandparents for some babysitting and headed to Chicago. More on the tea side of that trip later, but for now, here's a picture of the happy couple ON VACATION ALONE!!!

Enjoy the rest of your work.

Clipper Merchant Tea Room - Limerick, ME

As I mentioned more than a few times, I've been in travel mode lately. Over the summer we took the kids up for a long weekend to Santa's Village in New Hampshire's White Mountains and then to Wells, Maine. Mountains and ocean in one weekend. I love New England.

While we were traveling through to Wells I realized that we were just a few miles from a tea room I'd been wanting to check out: Clipper Merchant Tea Room in Limerick, Maine. We decided to swing by. On this first trip I just dropped in, met the owner, and got a quick tour. (We also tested out the bathroom when my two year old needed to go. That's her standing by the shop sign...)

The building is a lovely restored Victorian Gothic that the owners believe was built in 1860. (Although they have since received word that it might actually date back to the 1830s.) You will enter into the side entrance off the driveway and be immediately greeted by a staff member at the desk. There are some teas and a few other items for sale in this room. Behind this room is the tea room's kitchen and you are certain to be greeted with amazing scents. (The first day I popped in they were making roast pork and it smelled fantastic!)

As you walk through the tea room you will note that the internal structure has not been altered from when it was a private home. You can certainly identify each room's original purpose. The renovation has been done in a graceful and delicate way, preserving the beauty of this grand old structure. (There are photos at the bottom of this post.)
* The first room is the "Custom House Room" which is the main dining room. There is a large table that seats 8 - 10 with a few smaller tables. In all they can seat 20 in that room. With a large fireplace, chandelier, and built-in china cabinets you can certainly envision holiday dinners held in days gone by.
* Behind it is the "China Room.". The owners' daughter was adopted from China and they decorated this room in her honor, with items they collected on their trip to bring her home. This room was likely a sun room in early iterations of the house. There are 3 or 4 small tables in this room.
* The third room is sometimes called the "Thistle Room" and sometimes "The Library." It is decorated with Scottish items in honor of the owner's family, including her family tartan and photos of her grandparents. There are also floor to ceiling bookshelves filled with books that visitors can borrow during their tea room visit. This room seats 16.
* The fourth room is the "Hawthorne Room," paying homage to Nathaniel Hawthorne and to American history. It was designed as a slightly more "masculine" room, with heavier and darker furniture and tones than the other rooms, aiming to be as comfortable for men as for women. It reminded me of the feel of the hunting manors they show in British movies. There is a table near the window with one big leather chair that I would have liked to camp out in for the day. 15 can be seated in this room.

Now, as I mentioned, I did a quick stop in on the way to somewhere else. I knew that I had to go back and have a full tea experience. And I did. A couple of weeks later I drove the two hours up from my house just for tea. I think the owners thought this was fairly bizarre, but they were certainly welcoming.

Welcoming is the ideal word for this tea room. There is soft, relaxing music and it was just a warm, cozy feel throughout. I also wanted to note how many men I saw in this tea room. It was really a pleasant thing to note. There were couples and there was a family party with younger and older couples and friends. This is not a frilly, girls-only spot.

Now what you really want to know about is the tea. I know it.

I was served a lavender lemonade to start. It was a pink lemonade that was slightly sweet with a heavenly lavender perfume. Fantastic.

That lemonade put me in the lavender mood so I ordered a lavender earl grey tea. The tea menu is very extensive at Clipper Merchant. They have a great selection of teas and the staff seemed knowledgeable about the options. The tea was served in a teapot on a warmer with an antique tea cup.

I ordered the tea sandwich plate. Isn't it beautiful? There were four types on the plate along with a scattering of locally grown blueberries and a piece of watermelon and a piece of pineapple. (And Maine blueberries ARE better than any other blueberries on earth. There is no competition here. I promise you. They just plain are.)

The four sandwiches were - egg salad (some on white and some on wheat), a fruited cream cheese (strawberry perhaps) on white, chicken salad on croissant, and open face cucumber sandwiches with half of a grape tomato on top. All were very pleasant. There were no big surprises here, but everything was certainly fresh, moist, and flavorful.

I followed my sandwiches with a blueberry scone. There were also lemon ginger scones and cranberry scones on the menu. The scone was made with a mix of brown rice flour and almond flour, rather than wheat flour, giving a much lighter and more cake-y texture. It reminded me more of blueberry cake than a scone, but I am definitely not complaining. It was served with butter, Devon cream, blueberries, and THE MOST AMAZING lemon curd ever. I seriously wanted to eat the lemon curd with my spoon. OK. I did. I admit it. It was heavenly. Heather, the owner, told me that they make the lemon curd in house. As a matter of fact, they make EVERYTHING in house. These people even raise their own ducks so they will have fresh duck eggs to cook with.

A tiered tray is available for parties of two. It is $24.95 and includes sandwiches, scones, and desserts. (That is for the tray, not per person.) You can view the full menu here. They do offer plates for children as well as special vegetarian menus and diabetic menus if you call ahead. Reservations aren't required, but they are recommended.

The Clipper Merchant Tea Room is definitely a destination. It's not really "near" much. It's about an hour west of Portland. However, it is a lovely drive into a beautiful part of the state. And, now, I will finish the post with a few more photos. Here are some shots of the interior of the tea room.

Just one more...I promise

This is just a quick note to thank you all for your kind words and well wishes as my family participated in our second FAAN Walk for Food Allergy on Sunday.

It was a fantastic day. The rain held off (thankfully!) My son loved having people join together to celebrate him and to show that we can help make a difference.

Our team raised $820 which was a great effort for a small group. We hope to raise a bit more and have a bigger team each year.

If you would like to donate to this very important cause, you can click here. If you wish to support our team specifically, e-mail me at (teapages (at) gmail.com) and I'll give you the details of how to do so.

Thank you for being such supportive readers and friends!

Important Notice about Blogs

Some of you may have read/seen new information from the Federal Trade Commission regarding the obligations of bloggers.

There has been concern about the role of bloggers as product "endorsers." The FTC wants to ensure that blog readers understand the full story behind a writers positive recommendations of a product - Is it completely unbiased? Was the product sent as a free sample? Did the reviewer receive any payment to write the review?

As a result, beginning in December, bloggers will be required to disclose any financial arrangements they have with a company they review, as well as whether or not the product reviewed was received as a free sample. (Yes, this is highly abbreviated. It's actually an 81 page document, but this is the gist of it from my reading.)

From the beginning, Tea Pages has had the policy of disclosing whether or not a product was received as a free sample. You can view this policy and some of my other commitments to my readers here. I will continue to freely disclose this information and consider it my obligation to you. In light of the ruling, I will also be reconsidering my participation in affiliate programs. I would not wish these affiliate programs to create any suggestion of bias on my part. Finally, as I mentioned in the "What I Promise" section of my "About Us" section, if I am being hired as a freelance writer by a company I will not review any of their products for the duration of my contract. At this time I am doing some writing for Tea Forte, so you will not see any new information about their products on this blog for the foreseeable future.

I take my blog very seriously and I know that you trust me to be honest with you. I am committed to sharing my opinions with my readers and maintaining my independence.

Thank you. Lecture over. :)

It's almost time...

Hello all,

Tomorrow is a big day. It is the two year Blog-iversary of Tea Pages.

I cannot believe that it has already been two years. There have been 350 entries over that time and my experiences have been priceless. I'll save the full scale reminiscing for my end of the year round up in December, but I wanted to mark the occasion.

Tomorrow night I'll be preparing my second annual Tea Feast. Like last year, I'll be delving into the world of tea cuisine to make a special dinner for my husband and I. I'll be sure to post a menu and photos soon.

The other thing I'd like to do to mark the occasion is to have a give-away.
With some extraordinarily good timing I just received a new product to test from Mighty Leaf and they offered a second one to share with one of my readers. The product is a stainless steel travel mug that is designed specifically for use with tea bags. As you can see in the photo below, there is slot on the top of the cap for the tea bag tag to fit into. When your tea has brewed, you pull the tag up so the corner of the teabag lodges in the slot. The teabag then sits in a well, above the surface of your water so it doesn't continue brewing. You don't have to try to fish the bag out or look for a place to dispose of it in your car or on the subway. I thought this was pretty clever and, while I tend to use my travel press for my tea, I've found a few occasions to use it.

SO, if you would like to enter to win this travel mug, just post a comment here letting me know your favorite Tea Pages entry/topic to date. I will choose a winner at random one week from today (Oct. 14).

And a BIG thank you to all of my amazing readers.

Evidence

In case you need evidence of my tea travels, this showed up on the Savvy Tea Gourmet website:

That's me in the orange shirt looking very serious as Phil Parda brews up some oolong tea.

Original source:
http://www.savvyteagourmet.com/photogallery10.asp