Red Wing Black Birds in the back yard.

Chocolate Kopp’s Custard, YUMMY YUM YUM!

Goofing off with my cousin’s wife at the Sow’s Ear, always fun!

A good brew at the Great Dane, WOOF! This is the Stone of Scone Scott’s Ale.

Antique hunting in Cedarburg, always fun.

Wild flowers and open fields.

A wonderfully sweet wedding.

And of course a smiling barn! Where they sell the most wonderful apple pie in the world!

I had a great time seeing my family and as always it was bittersweet to return home when it was time but it is nice to be back with Will and the furr balls and to sleep in my own bed.

About as local as it gets. To grow your own mushrooms check out Far West Fungi.

This Saturday was World Wide Knit in Public Day. The Berkley Knitters made a good show of it and we headed out to a local park to enjoy the sunshine (although we all forgot sunscreen and ended up a bit pink).

There was a great spread with chocolate chip cookies, couscous salad, brie, baguette, tomatoes, cherries, mini-pitas, hummus, veggie spears and crackers.

The youngest attending member was very kean on the pitas and hummus.

We can’t wait till next year, we really must have another knitting picnic soon.

Come on over to Put the Tea Kettle On for the full recipe for Rhubarb Ginger Cream Pie.

by Jessie Moore

We are excited to announce a new joint venture blog, Put the Tea Kettle On. My friend Libby and I have decided that we needed a proper place to detail our tea drinking expliots for our amusement and yours. We will both be posting about tea, food, tea cozies and anything tea related. There will be tea shop reivews, tea tastings, tea ware and much more. So we hope you will stop on by and share a cuppa and some good laughs with us.

We started with the first cherries of the season at the farmer’s market.  We bought a big bag and munched on them all day in the warm sun.

There was music and dancing on the quad, we crashed on a blanket and ate more cherries and shared Carrie’s garlic fries.

There were booths with clothes of all kinds of patterns and fabrics and colors.

Patches of color and bikes (of course it IS Davis!)

We wore our Tie-Dye of course. There are more pictures of the low impact fun at my flickr.

I must admit, as much as I love tea I had never gone to an English style tea shop, until last weekend. My friend Libby also shares my love of tea and last weekend she took me out for brunch at a tea shop in San Mateo called SweeTea’s. Libby had been given a gift certificate so we got to make a morning of it.

The shop is small with about 4-5 tables so it feels very cozy and intimate. Each table had different sets of plates and cups, ours where a reproduction of a Royal Albert pattern of red and yellow roses.

I ordered the Afternoon tea that came with two sandwiches, three petite desserts, seasonal fruit and a scone. Which sounds like a lot but the when they say petite they mean it and the scones was half as large as you normally find at a coffee shop, it ended up being just about right. Of course the food is the one thing I forgot to take a picture of.

We got to try two different types of tea from their list and we opted for the house breakfast blend and a Darjeeling. The house blend was a really nice smooth tea, not too acidic and nice amber color (see photo above). The Darjeeling was nice but it did not have a very strong flavor and we tend to like our tea on the stronger side, Libby is a big Pu Er fan just to give you an idea.

We had a good time being silly and girly and next we want to try an Asian Tea house. Look for more tea adventures over the spring and summer.

All true tea lovers like their tea strong......

A lot of my friends ask me where I get my tea and what brands I like, and it is the topic for last weeks blog-a-long, I’m a bit behind. For the most part a lot of my tea just comes from the grocery store. But there are a couple tea shops I go to and order from on-line.

Here are my favorite shops and brands:

• Upton Tea Imports- a great mail order tea company that puts out a fantastic catalog of teas, the catalog itself is an education in types of teas and where they come from.
• Zhena’s Gypsy Tea- A great company with fun blends and great variety tins that make great gifts
• Taylors of Harrogate Yorkshire Gold - I get this tea from the Berkeley Bowl but you can get it from the English Tea Store
• Celestial Seasonings- a great line of  teas, especially their herbals, easy to find at your local grocer
• Twinings of London- I love their Lady Grey tea and the Prince of Whales blend. Also easy to find at most grocery stores.
• Peet’s Coffee and Tea- Good loose tea and coffee, a big popular local chain.
• Numi- Another local Oakland Tea company that is available in grocery stores and some cafes. Love the Chinese Breakfast and the Black Vanilla DeCafe
• L’amyx Tea Bar- A local tea bar with a couple locations, great tea, great food, fun atmosphere, and nice tea wares.
• Mighty Leaf Teas- This brand has been a favorite lately with their whole leaf tea bags, love the Orange Dulce.
• Revolution Teas- Another whole leaf bagged tea, some great herbal blends, still trying out these.

These are just some of the teas/brands I drink frequently, I am always on the look out for ones to try. So what are your favorite brands and shops?

This weeks topic for the Hot Tea Blog-a-long is your favorite cup of tea. This is a hard question because, well I don’t really have just one. I will therefore give you my general favorites.

My everyday favorite cuppa is a good strong brew of  an English Breakfast tea such as Yorkshire Gold with a splash of milk and a teaspoon of sugar. This should be drunk with a warm yummy scone or if no scones are around then toast with jam (apricot or Boysenberry are my favs).

My favorite green tea is Jasmine green tea. I love it  warm with a molasses ginger cookie from Mishka’s Cafe in Davis, I really must visit there again soon. I fell in love with it when I would go to the cafe to study or on my breaks when working at the yarn shop. Since I am no longer in Davis I make my own molasses ginger cookies at home but with Will around they don’t last long.

My favorite Herbal tea(tisane) is peppermint tea with a bit of honey. I like to drink this in the evening after dinner under a warm blanket with a good book.

These are teas that I come back to again and again, not matter how many I try (which is a lot). How do you take your tea?

Help! I need soft food ideas, quick! I am 95% sure my wisdom tooth is impacted and they are going to pull it out tomorrow. Any ideas besides yogurt, juice, and soup? Any great widsom teeth stories? The last time I had a tooth out I was about 9-10 years old and all I remember was ice cream dribbling down my numb face (thankfully there are no pictures). Maybe I should just live at Jamba Juice.