Tea and Travels

 
When I first started writing this blog in 2016, I titled it “Tea and Travels.” Back then, Wayne and I traveled every year to some place we had never been before, eager to experience the history, art, culture, food, and of course tea and coffee customs of each new destination. I thought this pattern would continue. Then covid arrived, and my expectations had to change. Change is a natural aspect of human experience and can be good. And a curious mind can learn plenty without leaving home. You are welcome to review my earlier blogs, chronologically listed, right on this website, to share our food and fun adventures in lots of exciting places throughout the world. But when the covid crisis started to wane, and we accepted the fact that we would not be visiting Japan, a country we both love, any time in the near future, Wayne and I talked about the places we have visited and the experiences we might still want to pursue.
 
We agreed that London would be worth visiting again, since “Tea” is the first word in the title of my blog, and Kathleen’s wonderful April 2022 blog featured the delightful art show “Beatrix Potter: Drawn to Nature” at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. Once we made the decision, Wayne secured tickets to the Beatrix Potter Show and made reservations for Afternoon Tea at the Savoy Hotel and Claridge’s, two of the classic venues for traditional tea in London. Our thoughts raced on to the fact that we have never traveled through the “Chunnel,” and that there were several places in France that we had never visited. We found an excellent history and art tour that would take us to London, for two days of museums and Afternoon Tea, then through the Channel Tunnel and on to Paris by train, followed by a river boat cruise down the Seine.
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I continue to believe that Afternoon Tea is the best way to celebrate our mothers. What could be better than being the Guest of Honor at a special tea party? Your mother will not have to cook or clean up or participate in any of the planning. She can just get dressed up, if she wants to, and bask in the pure joy of being genuinely appreciated by all of the other guests. Obviously, this is not the time to remember any of your mother’s mistakes or character flaws. This is your moment to get on the high road and create the loveliest springtime setting you can imagine with your best dishes, linens and teapot and fresh, tasty and festive food.
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I admit that I have only made Chocolate Bounty Cake once, for a “family bubble” dinner during the pandemic. All of us loved it, and our agreement was unanimous that it was also the richest, most decadent dessert we had ever enjoyed. Serve this enormous dark chocolate, coconut and almond creation in thin slices and be prepared to send everyone home with a little gift package of leftovers to appreciate later. Chocolate Bounty Cake is essentially a Chocolate Brownie layer topped by a filling of Coconut Cream covered in Toasted Almonds and topped with a shiny Dark Chocolate Glaze. The good news is, although there are several steps in making this grand dessert, it’s a pretty simple process, and you will not even need an electric mixer. This is old school cooking with a wooden spoon, a nine-inch springform pan and a saucepan. It will take you a couple of hours to get this masterpiece assembled, but no worries. You can make it the day before Mother’s Day if you wish and refrigerate it overnight, adding the shiny glaze shortly before serving time.
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Special equipment: 9-inch springform pan, parchment, glass measuring cup, large mixing bowl, wooden spoon, 2 wire cooling racks, foil, cookie sheet, medium saucepan, rubber spatula, attractive serving platter, plastic wrap
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Makes: 12-16 small servings
 
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F

 No matter how sad the news may be, April always brings cherry blossoms, peonies, tulips and bluebells, and Easter is forever a time of renewal and rebirth.
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Newly blooming flowers and nesting birds lift our hearts when April arrives and appear in every form of spring-inspired art throughout the world, as birds and flowers are eternal symbols of spring. The egg, long associated with Easter, is also an archetype for new birth. In the Middle Ages, when serious fasting and abstinence took place during the season of Lent when the faithful embraced acts of penance, even eggs were prohibited from the Lenten diet. When Easter arrived at last, not only did Christians celebrate resurrection and renewal, but they were overjoyed to be able to eat eggs again!
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Our website and blogs are filled with all sorts of delicious egg dishes. One of my favorites is the Artichoke Cheese Frittata, loaded with eggs and cheese and featured in my January 2020 blog. I have been making this easy to prepare classic for years, as it is my guests’ favorite savory at Afternoon Tea and is also a perfect appetizer in any season. For an elegant and special occasion, you might want to make Arpege Farm Eggs, inspired by Alain Passard, chef of the three Michelin-starred restaurant in Paris, L’Arpege. We enjoyed this astounding sweet and savory poached egg at Manresa in Los Gatos, California, founded by David Kinch, who was mentored by Passard and has now earned a Michelin star of his own. You can find the recipe, which combines, sea salt, chives, spices, cream and maple syrup with a subtlety that will take your breath away, in my October 2017 blog. Another timeless egg preparation is Tea Smoked Eggs, a Chinese classic, in which boiled eggs are gently cracked and simmered, still in their shells, in a lightly sweetened broth of Lapsang Souchong Tea and soy sauce. When the eggs are peeled, the dark broth which seeped into the cracks, leaves a unique, wispy brown pattern on each egg along with an enchanting smoky tea flavor. My February 2020 blog shows you the easy steps for making Tea Smoked eggs at home. My family loves them!
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Easter also brings the delightful challenge of figuring out what to do with all those beautifully decorated boiled eggs after the morning hunt is over. The answer is Deviled Eggs! Anyone who has looked at our website carefully has noticed that this treat, loved by young and old, appears on many of our Afternoon Tea menus. Who doesn’t love this pretty finger food, sprinkled with festive paprika, or even curry powder? And even a person who has no idea how to cook can peel some boiled eggs, cut them in two and mash up the yolks with salt and pepper, mayonnaise, a little mustard and perhaps a dollop of sweet pickle relish to taste. Some lovely fresh spring herbs, finely chopped and sprinkled on top, can turn this American icon into a work of art.
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In our family, it isn’t a party if there are no Deviled Eggs. My niece and co-author Kathleen carries this philosophy forward by offering some easy adaptations to add extra spring charm to Deviled Eggs in two of her April blogs. Her beautifully photographed April 2021 blog highlights Deviled Eggs garnished with bright green asparagus tips. And her April 2018 blog includes the recipe for Lightened Up Deviled Eggs, a lower-fat version with clever ideas for springtime garnishes such as dill or pickled okra. My mother, Dr. Betty Murdock, also had some quirky and quite delicious ways of introducing boiled eggs into both our everyday and holiday meals. When she made meatloaf, she would put half of the ground beef mixture into the baking dish and place a row of three or four boiled eggs, end to end, down the center, and then cover them with the remaining meat mixture, patting it carefully into place to hide the eggs. The result was a delightful surprise of meatloaf with well-seasoned slices of boiled egg in each serving. Dear Betty was also famous for adding boiled eggs to the gravy on every Thanksgiving, Christmas and Easter family dinner. I loved to make a little dent in my serving of mashed potatoes, plop a boiled egg in the center, and pour my mother’s home-made gravy over this pretty little edible volcano.
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As you may have guessed, eggs are one of my favorite foods, and although they should be eaten in moderation, they are an excellent source of protein. And like so many of our other favorites, they can be enjoyed in either savory or sweet preparations. Also, like fish, nuts and cheese, eggs harmonize beautifully with one of April’s other precious gifts—spring herbs. When I was a child, eating my grandmother’s excellent Ozark cooking, herbs were never included in daily meals; in fact, salt, butter and pepper, and perhaps a bottle of Worcestershire sauce in the cupboard, were the only flavorings used to enhance the natural tastes of our daily diet, which consisted primarily of potatoes, corn, beans, chicken and eggs. An occasional green onion or tomato pulled out of the back yard garden was about all we ever did to perk up the subtle flavors of these food staples.
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When my family moved to California, a whole new world of flavors entered our lives. California is indeed a paradise of multi-cultural cooking, influenced by the cuisines of Mexico, Italy, Japan, South-East Asia and all the Mediterranean areas, each of which is loaded with fresh herbs. And California cuisine, inspired by these and other cultures, is itself characterized by the inclusion of fresh, local and natural herbs. In fact, many restaurants in California today, have their own herb gardens. The first fresh herbs I remember eating were bright green chopped chives sprinkled over baked potatoes with sour cream. So simple, but so delicious and still popular today.
 
Fresh herbs, which pop up in grocery stores and home gardens every April, include not just the four favorites from the song “Scarborough Fair,” parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme, but also mint, cilantro, basil, dill, bay leaf, chervil, coriander, marjoram, oregano, savory and tarragon. As the ever-reliable Fanny Farmer Cookbook points out, “Herbs should never overwhelm a dish. The purpose of any seasoning is to provide an accent that enhances natural flavors.” I have found that cooking with these lovely little edible green plants can add a special note of fresh and cheery zest and indeed enhance the flavor of even to the most ordinary dish. Try stirring a little chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley or basil into the scrambled eggs for breakfast, and voila! Gourmet eggs! Parsley can also be added to melted butter to pour over lightly boiled tiny red potatoes and fresh spring peas or as a bright, edible garnish to soups, stews, any roasted vegetables or spring salads.
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Fresh herbs are not very fussy about whether you add a lot or a little, and many herbs bring delightful color as well as subtle flavor enhancement. Rosemary is one of my favorite herbs, as it blooms in the spring with beautiful, fragrant blue flowers and has an enchanting aroma. I like to add a few whole sprigs of rosemary to oven-roasted vegetables, such as carrots, potatoes, onions and whole heads of garlic, lightly sprinkled with sea salt and coarse pepper and drizzled with olive oil. After roasting the vegetables for about an hour at 350 degrees, the rosemary sprigs will have shriveled up, but the fragrance will remain. Before serving, I simply remove the cooked rosemary sprigs from the roasting pan and replace them with fresh, bright green uncooked sprigs for a beautiful and enticing presentation. Indeed, sprigs of rosemary look beautiful as a garnish on any spring vegetable, meat, egg or cheese dish, gently placed on top of a quiche, a pan of macaroni and cheese, beside a plate of warm, buttery mashed potatoes, or on a platter of spring lamb.
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You can cook with either dried or fresh herbs, although fresh herbs are preferable. Just remember that dried herbs, which have been dehydrated, provide a more condensed flavor and should be used sparingly. At least double the quantity of fresh herbs can be used to enhance the same dish. A well-known dried herb combination used in French cuisine is Herbes de Provence, a mixture of rosemary, marjoram, thyme, savory and sage. Usually no more than one half teaspoon to one teaspoon of dried Herbes de Provence is needed to flavor a vegetable soup, roasted chicken or fish dish. A few sprigs of the fresh versions of these herbs can be tied together with kitchen twine in a small piece of cheesecloth to form a bouquet garni, a little bundle of herbs which can be tossed into the cooking pot or casserole dish to flavor sauces, soups, stocks and broths.
 
Bay leaves are also often included in bouquet garni, or simply added to the roasting pan when cooking meat dishes, especially pot roast. Bay leaves impart a fragrant and pungent flavor, but they should be removed before serving the meat to your guests. Basil is another beautiful herb, which is easy to grow in a home garden and is an essential element in Thai and Italian recipes. Basil pairs perfectly with tomatoes and is one of the key ingredients in the world famous Italian Caprese Salad, a simple combination of slices of fresh mozzarella cheese, tomatoes, chopped fresh basil, salt and drizzles of olive oil. And what would lunch at a Vietnamese Pho restaurant be without fresh basil? With every serving of this delicious noodle soup, enhanced with thin slices of beef or other ingredients of the diner’s choice, a plate of fresh basil, still on the stem, beans sprouts, sliced jalapenos and fresh lime wedges is brought to the table so each guest can tear off some basil leaves and add them, along with the other offered fresh ingredients, right into their bowl of Pho. All of us can learn, through experimentation, to make our home cooking even more delicious by adding fresh herbs. Nothing bad will happen if you use too many or not enough, and many herbs are happy to be combined with other herbs that flourish in the spring.
 
I hope you will enjoy including eggs and herbs in your Passover, Easter and other spring family celebrations. And let’s not forget that most of our favorite cakes, custards and desserts include eggs. This year, for our Easter family meal, I plan to bake Ellen’s Fabulous Coconut Cake, featured on our website in the American Southern Tea menu in the “A World of Tea Parties” section of “The Tea Book.” I have baked this beautiful cake, shared by Kathleen’s dear friend Ellen, (see Kathleen’s March 2017 blog) many times, and it always makes any special occasion even more special.
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This beautiful white cake is loaded with coconut, coconut extract and five extra-large eggs. If you have a cake pedestal, use it, and as this regal creation deserves to be elevated and celebrated. It is elegant in every season, including Christmas, but since I will be serving it this year at Easter, I plan to surround it with pretty pastel chocolate covered almonds. Fresh roses or other spring flowers circling or topping the cake would also be nice, perhaps even a few sprigs of rosemary in bloom.
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For the Cake:​

•  2 cups sugar
• 1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened
• 5 large or extra-large eggs, at room temperature
• 2 cups flour
• 1 ½ teaspoons baking powder
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup buttermilk, at room temperature
• 1 cup very lightly toasted sweetened angel-flake coconut
• 1 ½ teaspoons coconut extract
• Cooking spray with flour for the pan

 

Special equipment: 12-cup Bundt pan, large mixing bowl, foil-lined cookie sheet, two small bowls, heat-proof spatula, wire cooling rack, hand-held electric mixer, medium sized mixing bowl, flour sifter or sieve, large (1 quart) glass measuring cup, wooden skewer, attractive serving platter or cake pedestal
 
Makes: 12-16 generous servings
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March has arrived with fresh green leaves, blossoms, and birds chirping everywhere. Spring is here! It’s time to think about all those wonderful tea parties we hope to celebrate in this joyful season. And it’s always time to learn more about tea. Six years have gone by since Kathleen and I completed Sharing Tea: The Road Back to Civilization and created the website, myteaplanner.com, to showcase our book and our blogs, along with a wide range of additional tea-related information. Since then, tea culture world-wide has experienced an exciting renaissance. Tea production has increased world-wide, as has tea consumption. Economic studies estimate that the growth of the international tea market is expected at an annual rate of 5.5% from 2019 to 2025, and by that date tea is projected to become an annual 18.42-billion-dollar industry. China is the world leader in both tea production and consumption with India close behind.

The expansion of tea production and tea consumption has brought a wider range of teas that are readily available along with a larger selection of equipment and tea kettles for brewing tea. The internet has become a treasure trove for finding every imaginable variety of tea or tea blend along with elegant teapots, cups and tea accoutrements. In addition, Tea Associations in the USA, Canada and the United Kingdom provide their members with information about the latest Tea Trends, offer courses and Tea Talks and keep up with governmental regulations of tea production and marketing. World Tea Media, www.worldteaexpo.com is an international tea trade show and conference with tea-focused seminars, business education, tea tastings, and of course networking and making friends with other tea lovers.

 
While these associations cater primarily to the trade, contemporary tea culture for ordinary tea lovers offers new and exciting adventures. In some ways, tea has taken on a role similar to wine among those who prefer the hot, non-alcoholic beverage. For example, today it is possible to be trained and certified as a “Tea Sommelier” and work in a restaurant or tea shop to recommend appropriate pairings of tea with various foods such as cheese or chocolate. And many tea shops now offer tea tastings modeled after the wine tastings hosted at wineries and restaurants. This allows guests to sample a variety of different teas and to learn more about the wide choice of tea blends and herbal tisanes that are now available.
 

The American magazine, Tea Time, is a great source for keeping up with all of these trends. This beautifully photographed magazine offers at least three Afternoon Tea menus in every issue, now including a “Tea Sommelier” section for every menu suggesting appropriate tea selections for each of the courses, scone, savory and sweet. Every issue also includes a “Tea Events Calendar,” highlighting special Afternoon Tea gatherings and tea-related celebrations and events in various locations throughout the United States. And the “Necessary Things” section of every issue features the latest new tea-related products such as linens, china, jams and preserves and gift sets including the newest tea blends and herbal teas.
 

And for those of you who, like me, are addicted to life-long learning about tea, there are plenty of books all about tea, cultural tea traditions and tea parties. I received the book Modern Tea: A Fresh Look at an Ancient Beverage by Lisa Boalt Richardson as a Christmas gift. I read it from cover to cover with delight and fascination. The author, who refers to herself as a “tea geek,” is especially interested in tea cultivation, harvesting, production and marketing. She has visited tea-growing fields throughout the world and has personally participated in hand-harvesting and processing tea leaves. She goes into extensive detail about the various types of green, oolong and black tea and how they are handled during production. This section of the book certainly answers the old question: Does green tea come from green leaves and black tea come from black leaves? The answer is, all tea comes from the same plant, Camellia sinensis, but black tea, which is far more popular throughout the world outside China and Japan, is made from leaves that have gone through an oxidation process, turning the leaves black.
 

Richardson’s book also includes chapters on buying, storing and brewing tea as well as pairing tea with various foods, cooking with tea and even making cocktails that contain tea. Her chapter on “Tea Ceremonies and Rituals” provides accurate information on the Chinese, Japanese, English, Moroccan, French and Russian tea rituals, but I would have found this section more satisfying if she had relied on actual tea masters from these various cultures rather than on Americans who have studied these subjects for many years. I prefer to go to the original sources whenever possible.
 
Modern Tea also includes information about the health aspects of tea and global issues such as Fair Trade and Ethical Tea Partnerships. And the “Resources” section at the end is a delightful list of tea shops and “reputable online resources” for buying tea and tea equipment. I can certainly recommend one of these resources, Le Palais des Thes, a French company that offers a splendid assortment of teas from all over the world to order on-line as well as multiple retail locations throughout Europe, Japan, Israel and the United States. Another wonderful Christmas gift I received recently was the fabulous Le Palais des Thes Advent Calendar that provided me with a different cup of outstanding tea every night leading up to Christmas.
 
Overall, I enjoyed reading Lisa Boalt Richardson’s Modern Tea. As a writer she has a friendly, self-deprecating voice and expresses a deep knowledge and genuine love of tea in all its myriad aspects. For used book lovers who prefer to focus more on the menu planning, food preparation and ambience of Afternoon Tea, my favorite is Teatime Celebrations by Patricia Gentry, a California-based college cooking instructor and member of the Southern California Culinary Guild and the International Association of Cooking Professionals. Gentry also has experience managing a tea-room, and the subtitle of her book, “Eighteen Menus for High Tea and Teatime Meals,” tells you everything you need to know about this wonderful, competently written treasure trove of tea menus and recipes. Kathleen and I both rely on Gentry for the accuracy and reliability of her recipes. In fact, the recipe for Cranberry Curd in my November, 2019 blog was inspired by Patricia Gentry’s recipe for Cranberry Curd Tarts.
 

If you are up for more reading—all about tea, Kathleen and I invite you to take another look at “The Tea Book” section of this website. As women who love to host and attend Afternoon Tea gatherings, our intention was to cover every aspect of tea and the tea party experience. “The Tea Book” explores the history of tea in ancient China and the philosophic and aesthetic foundations of sharing tea in the Chinese and Japanese traditions. Our chapter on “The Philosophy of Tea” brings this historic foundation into contemporary life based on the tea traditions developed in England and other European countries centuries ago after the export of tea from Asia spread throughout the western world. For us, Afternoon Tea provides an opportunity for ethical and elevated interactions with other people of goodwill. Thus, “the Philosophy of Tea,” which encourages harmony, humility, respect and creativity brings these age-old values into ordinary life as we drink tea with friends as our best selves.
 
Our chapters on “Guidelines for the Host or Hostess” and “Guidelines for Guests” offer practical advice on the “etiquette” of tea and suggest ways to create beautiful, comfortable and welcoming settings in which to gather with friends. Other chapters in “The Tea Book” provide you with a detailed checklist for planning a tea party, a survey of tea utensils and equipment and a chapter including recipes for the most basic savories, scones, sweets and condiments that you will need to master the art of offering Afternoon Tea. “The Tea Book” also includes detailed menus and recipes for each of the four seasons, meticulously created by Kathleen based on her years of experience as a caterer, cooking teacher, wedding cake baker, chef and manager of a Bed and Breakfast Inn. Her gifts as a painter, photographer and flower arranger also inspire her vision for menus and table settings. Since spring has arrived and you may be thinking of inviting a few friends over for a small but elegant gathering, I highly recommend the Spring Tea, loaded with luscious savories and sweets that showcase the freshest spring vegetables, herbs and fruits. Our “Calendar of Tea Parties” takes you through the year and provides innovative menus and recipes for all the special holidays including of course a splendid Afternoon Tea menu for St. Patrick’s Day, which we will celebrate this month.
 

As this haiku, written in Hong Kong, suggests, my favorite section of “The Tea Book” is “A World of Tea Parties,” a trip around the globe with menus and recipes from places where my husband and I have traveled and experienced Afternoon Tea based on local customs and traditions. We start in China where tea originated and move on to Portugal, the first European country to experience tea. Then we visit several other tea-loving countries, including England, France, Italy and Russia, before returning to the USA, where we feature regional menus from California and the American South.
 
Our “Tea Book” also anticipates special occasions, such as a home-made Wedding Reception Tea, a Vegan Tea or a Tea for Children, several of which include grocery lists and planning guides to help you attend to every detail of these memorable gatherings. We also provide our readers with a Resources section containing a detailed Bibliography, a Menu and Recipe Index, a list of recommended Commercial Food Products and a Glossary of Culinary Terms. Kathleen and I have tried to anticipate everything our readers need to know to create beautiful and unique tea parties in their own homes or gardens with their own friends and loved ones. We also remain open to new possibilities and options in the ever-changing and magical world of Afternoon Tea.
 

​For your St. Patrick’s Day celebration this year, whether it be a family dinner or Afternoon Tea, I offer an elegant and classic cake from Patricia Gentry’s Teatime Celebrations. I have slightly adapted Patricia’s Orange-Glazed Oatmeal Cake to emphasize the Irish connection by suggesting an Irish Whiskey or Bailey’s Irish Cream glaze. This moist and hearty oatmeal cake can also be enjoyed for breakfast or even, as Patricia suggests, on camping or fishing trips, as it keeps and travels well. It is also a “cake for all seasons,” as the basic batter can be adapted for other seasonal holidays and celebrations. I include my suggestions for seasonal adaptations at the end of the recipe. For St. Patrick’s Day, serve this luscious cake with Irish Breakfast Tea.
 
For the Cake Batter:

For the Soaking Glaze:

• ½ cup water
  
• 4 tablespoon granulated sugar
• 2-4 tablespoons Irish Whiskey, Bailey’s Irish Cream or Orange Liqueur such as Cointreau
•             (If you prefer to avoid alcohol, use 4 tablespoons orange juice.)

 

For Garnish:

• 1 cup freshly whipped heavy cream lightly sweetened with 2 tablespoons powdered sugar and 1 teaspoon vanilla
  
• Fresh strawberries, hulled and sliced in two

 
Alternate Garnish:

• Freshly hulled whole strawberries
  
• Small bowl of sour cream
• Small flat bowl of brown sugar

 

Special equipment: extra-large mixing bowl, 2 medium sized mixing bowls, flour sifter or sieve, hand-held electric mixer, rubber spatula, 12-cup Bundt pan, decorative serving platter or cake pedestal, small attractive bowl for whipped cream, wire rack, medium saucepan or microwave-safe 1-quart glass measuring cup, wooden skewer
 
Serves: 12-16
 
Preheat oven to 350° F
 

1. Preheat the oven and spray the Bundt pan with cooking spray with flour. Place the oatmeal in a medium bowl and pour the 2 ½ cups boiling water over. Set aside.
2. In an extra-large bowl with a hand-held electric mixer, cream together the butter and sugars until light and fluffy, about 4 minutes. Add the eggs, 1 at a time and beat well after each addition. In a medium sized bowl, sift together the flour, salt and baking soda.
3. Add the flour mixture, oatmeal and vanilla to the creamed butter mixture and mix thoroughly, but do not overmix.
4. Turn the batter into the prepared pan and bake until a wooden skewer inserted into the middle comes out clean, about 70 minutes. (Start checking at 60 minutes, as oven temperatures and Bundt pans vary.) Cool the cake in the pan on a wire rack for 10 minutes.
5. While the cake cools, combine the sugar and water for the glaze in a medium saucepan and bring it to a boil over medium-high heat, stirring to dissolve the sugar (or microwave the sugar and water in a glass measuring cup until boiling, remove and stir to dissolve all the sugar.) Add the whiskey, liqueur or orange juice for flavoring and stir to blend. Use 2-4 tablespoons of the flavoring liquid depending on how strong a flavor you prefer.
6. Invert the cake onto a decorative platter or cake pedestal. Poke holes in the cake with a wooden skewer and slowly pour the soaking glaze over the cake. The glaze will disappear and become invisible. To serve, place fresh strawberry halves around the outside of the cake on the platter and offer freshly whipped cream on the side.
7. For an alternate garnish which children love, place whole hulled strawberries in an attractive bowl near the cake platter with bowls of sour cream and brown sugar nearby. Let the guests dip their strawberries by hand into the sour cream, then into the brown sugar and eat the dipped strawberries along with the cake.

 
Seasonal Variations for Brown Sugar Oatmeal Cake:
 

The recipe above is a spring presentation.
 
Summer: Add kirsch or other cherry flavored brandy or cherry juice to the glaze. Serve with Fresh Cherry Sauce and Ben and Jerry’s Cherry Garcia Ice Cream or any other summer berries such as raspberries or blueberries and vanilla ice cream. Serve with iced Rooibos tea or hot Japanese green tea.
 
Autumn: Flavor the glaze with Calvados or apple juice. Serve with Home-Made Apple Butter (recipe in Rose’s November 2020 blog) and Dulce de Leche ice cream. Serve with a strong black tea such as Keemun or warm apple cider.
 
Winter: Flavor the glaze with rum, an orange liqueur such as Cointreau or Triple Sec, or orange juice. Add to the dry ingredients for the cake: 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon, 1 ½ teaspoon grated nutmeg and grated zest of 1 orange. Add to the batter, 1 cup raisins, dried cranberries or chopped candied orange peel or a combination of all three. Serve with hard sauce and cranberry curd or rum raisin ice cream and Earl Grey Tea.
 

February is the shortest month of the year and one of the most interesting. In some places, notably California, it is in February that the first tentative signs of spring appear.
 

​In other places, February is still a full-on cold and snowy winter month.
 

​No matter what kind of climate you are in, Valentine’s Day arrives every year on February 14 to warm our hearts and to remind us that we all love to be loved. Here is a Valentine Tanka (a 31-syllable 5-line Japanese style poem) I wrote last year as a Valentine’s Day gift.
 

 
There are many ways to express our affection on Valentine’s Day. Each of us has some special gift or talent, and right where we are is the best place to look to convey how much we care. Those of you who can draw, paint, take beautiful photographs or write in elegant calligraphy have everything you need to create a lovely valentine. And if you have a good visual and tactile sense but cannot find the words to share your feelings, the great poets of the world are always there for us when we need them, and they would not care in the least if we borrowed a few of their heart-felt words.
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Here are some little gems from the Sonnets of William Shakespeare:
 

 
“Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?
Thou are more lovely and more temperate.” From Sonnet 18
 
“…I think on thee, and then my state
Like to the lark at break of day arising
From the sullen earth sings hymns at heaven’s gate;
For thy sweet love remembered such wealth brings
That then I scorn to change my state with kings.” From Sonnet 30
 
Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments; love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,” From Sonnet 116
 

My favorite Romantic poet is John Keats, a sweet and kind young man who wrote all of his poetry by the age of twenty-four and died the following year. Here are the beginning lines of his lengthy romantic poem, “Endymion.” Wouldn’t these words be charming in a Valentine?
 

 
Then there is Elizabeth Barrett, the most famous British poet of the Victorian Era, who eloped with the poet Robert Browning at the age of forty, became Elizabeth Barrett Browning and lived happily ever after in Florence with her true love. The following quotations come from “Sonnets from the Portuguese,” which she wrote to express her undying love for Robert.
 

 
“Say thou dost love me, love me—toll
The silver iterance!—only minding, Dear,
To love me also in silence with thy soul.” From Sonnet 21
 
“How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, …
… and if God choose,
I shall but love thee better after death.” From Sonnet 43

Those of you who can sew, knit, crochet or are gifted crafters do not need words at all to express your love for your Valentine. And of course, the cooks among us can always prepare a special meal for the one we love. For tea lovers there is no more precious Valentine than an invitation to Afternoon Tea. I invite you to view the visually delightful chapter on this website, “A Valentine’s Day Tea” in the February calendar section. In this menu, my co-author, Kathleen has created a glorious assembly of savories and sweets, featuring heart shapes and red, pink and creamy pastel colors for both the food and the decorations. Some of my favorites from “A Valentine’s Day Tea” include the bright pink Cherry Coconut Pom Pons, Chocolate Heart Sandwich Cookies with Sour Cherry Filling, Battenberg Cake in a stunning Checkerboard design, and the always beautiful Strawberry Charlotte, filled with vibrant red berries.
 

This year I am also thinking of almonds, which produce elegant white blossoms in February and delicious, healthful and versatile nuts from August through October. Like the lovely Lemon, which I extoled in my May, 2021 blog, Almonds are the product of a Mediterranean climate and are delicious in both savory and sweet preparations. Our website features more than ten recipes for dishes made with almonds, from Almond Scones to Almond Madeleines, to Chicken Almond Salad in Lettuce Cups to one of my husband Wayne’s favorite desserts, Spanish Almond Cake. Any of our Almond-based recipes would be welcome additions to your Valentine’s Day Tea.
 

​An ancient food of pre-historic origin, Almonds first grew in Iran and gradually spread throughout the eastern Mediterranean and north Africa and on to Spain and Portugal. Today, California, which also enjoys a Mediterranean climate, is by far the primary producer of almonds, followed by Spain, Iran, Turkey, Morocco and Italy. Almonds are packed with nutrition, filled with vitamins, minerals and protein. In fact, the United States Department of Agriculture recommends that regular consumption of almonds can reduce the risk of heart disease. I eat almonds every day because they are good for my health and because they are one of my all-time favorite foods. No wonder my blogs are filled with almond recipes.
 
My husband and I begin every day by eating Home-Made Almond Granola, which I bake myself. One batch lasts us about three weeks, and it is always in our cupboard. You can find the recipe in my June 2020 blog. A bag of this wonderful breakfast cereal/snack, filled with oats, almonds, cranberries and almond butter, tied with a red ribbon, would make a delightful Valentine gift for your sweetheart. A Chocolate Almond Torte, found in my April 2019 blog, would also be splendid for Valentine’s Day. And in my July, 2018 blog on Venice, I share one of my favorite Italian desserts, Fregolotta, also known as Italian Crumb Cake, filled with ground almonds and topped with whole almonds. And if you are too busy to bake, remember that almonds are fabulous treats as both sweet and savory snacks. There is nothing like Dark Chocolate Covered Almonds, or Sesame Honey Almonds, both easy to find at good old Trader Joe’s. And we have a bag of savory Sriracha Hot Chili Almonds in our pantry right now.

I also have a good supply of whole almonds in my freezer, and I am still thinking about Spanish Almond Cake. I sneaked our recipe for Pastel de Almendras, or Spanish Almond Cake, into our Portuguese Tea Menu in the World of Tea Parties section of this website. Wayne and I have traveled to neighboring Spain and Portugal and love the cuisine of both countries. But he fell in love with the Spanish Almond Cake which we bought at a bakery in Madrid shortly after it came out of the oven. The sales lady sprinkled this sublime confection lightly with powdered sugar, just before placing it into our eager hands. After our return home, I was able to find the recipe and have made it for special occasions, including Valentine’s Day, numerous times since. I am happy to share the recipe with you here.
 

This elegant pound cake filled with ground toasted almonds is very popular in Spain, Portugal’s now friendly next-door neighbor. This cake needs no icing or decoration, as it has a delicate dignity all its own. Serve it on a cake pedestal sprinkled all over with powdered sugar. It is best the day it is baked, but it is also wonderful for breakfast the next morning.

 

• 1 ½ cups ground toasted almonds (2 cups of whole almonds before grinding)
• 1 cup (2 sticks) butter at room temperature
• 1 cup sugar
• ¼ teaspoon almond extract
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 6 large eggs, separated
• 1 cup flour
• powdered sugar for sifting over the cake

 

Preheat oven to 350° F
 
Special equipment: Cooking spray, 10” spring form pan, food processor, 2 large mixing bowls, small bowl, electric mixer, parchment paper, large baking sheet, aluminum foil, wire rack, rubber spatula, flour sifter or sieve, thin sharp knife.
 
Makes: One 10” cake, approximately 12 servings

​

1. Bring butter and eggs to room temperature. Separate the eggs, placing the yolks in a small bowl and the whites in a large mixing bowl. Set aside. If you are using whole almonds, toast them at 350 on a large foil covered baking sheet, for 10 minutes, stirring several times to ensure even browning. Remove the almonds from the oven and let them cool on a wire rack. Spray a 10” spring form pan with cooking spray. Cut a 10” circle of parchment, fit it into the bottom of the pan, and spray again.

 

1. Pulse the cooled almonds in a food processor until finely ground. Do not pulse until the almonds turn into nut butter. Set aside. Cream the butter and sugar with an electric mixer in another large mixing bowl until light and fluffy, about 5 minutes.

 

1. Add the egg yolks, almond extract and vanilla and beat briefly to combine. Measure 1 ½ cups of ground almonds from the food processor and add to the batter, mixing just to combine.

 

1. Clean the beaters and beat the egg whites until light and fluffy and stiff peaks form. Gently fold the egg whites into the butter mixture with a rubber spatula, using an over and under motion until the egg whites disappear. Sift the flour over the batter little by little and gently fold in the flour until incorporated.

 

1. Scape the batter gently into the prepared pan and smooth the top with the rubber spatula. Bake for approximately 40 minutes or until a cake tester or thin sharp knife inserted into the center comes out clean. Cool on a wire rack. To serve, transfer the cake to a cake pedestal and carefully sift powdered sugar all over the cake. The cake can be served warm or at room temperature.

 

Another new year and another new virus! “Good grief!” as Charley Brown used to say. Nevertheless, we will power on and greet 2022 with grateful and hopeful hearts. It is still winter, which is a lovely time of year, the full moon over the ocean is glorious, and the humpback whales have arrived in Hawaiian waters after their long migration south from the icy waters of Alaska. Let’s enjoy the quiet serenity of the post-holiday season and nurture ourselves with the pleasures of solitude, healthy food and the eternal joy of Afternoon Tea.
​

Now is the time to enjoy Tea for One, those holy moments in the late afternoon, when, utterly alone, we create an environment of stillness and gentle beauty for reflection and renewal as we prepare for the evening and the year ahead.
​

​To help you reclaim the aesthetics of serenity, I invite you to review the shortest chapter in this website, “Tea for One,” in the Afternoon Tea for Special Occasions section of The Tea Book. This brief chapter reminds us that The Philosophy of Tea applies even if we are sitting alone drinking a cup of tea. This brief ceremony is, in itself, a special occasion and deserves the careful attention to detail and sensitivity to the season that we would apply to a larger gathering of several friends. Remember, you are the guest of honor at this event, and as the host as well, you will need to turn your attention to selecting an appropriate location, adding flowers or other decorations to create a pleasant environment, setting an attractive table and choosing an appropriate beverage and light savory and sweet snacks to complete the experience.
​

​​Today, I am thinking of enjoying a cup of Gokujo Hojicha from the Ippodo Tea Company of Kyoto, a gift from our friend Yuki Handa, who lives in Tokyo. This pure green Japanese tea will be perfect in my old brown floral teapot given to me and my husband years ago by his sister, Kathy. I will be sitting at my round, glass-topped table, gazing out at sea.
​

​A slight chill is in the air on the normally warm Oahu coast, and I am reminded of the exquisite winter poems of the greatest haiku writer of all time—Matsuo Basho. I will reflect with gratitude on all the things I learned from him, and smile at the thought that I consider him a dear friend although he was born exactly three hundred years before I was, in another country and spoke and wrote in a completely different language.
​

​I will decide to merge cultures by placing my teapot and cup on an old white linen place mat from a set my parents gave me after a trip to Ireland. And before my first sip of hot, pleasantly bitter tea, I will think about Basho’s concept of sabi, described by his translator and my professor, Dr. Ueda. “…one attains spiritual serenity by immersing oneself in the ego-less, impersonal life of nature.” This idea of sabi has also been described as a kind of delicious, impersonal loneliness or solitude, so beautifully manifested in Basho’s wild duck poem.
 
After all the fabulous foods I have enjoyed at the Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year celebrations, I will choose something lighter for my Tea for One, party, although two of us or perhaps three are here, as I have invited Matsuo Basho and Professor Ueda to join me. I am thinking of a delightful cracker or cookie combination that I have recently discovered, Coastal Crisps. This thin, crispy snack contains both sweet and savory elements and is packed with nutrition. Although these amazing crackers are available commercially as Lesley Stowe Raincoast Crisps, I have made them myself and renamed them Coastal Crisps. They contain a marvelous combination of dried fruits, seeds and nuts bound together by a light batter of buttermilk and honey, creating a little meal that is both simple and complex, plain and fancy, humble and elegant. I think Basho will love them!
 

My friend and neighbor, Pearl Yee, gave me the recipe for these marvelously tasty and wholesome crackers. Apparently, her friends shared this recipe with her, and now all her friends are baking and sharing them. I admit that Coastal Crisps are addictive. I have shared two or three batches already with my niece and co-author Kathleen, for Thanksgiving, Christmas and her December birthday, and she loves them more than the fabulous Christmas cookies for which she is justly famous. They are also easy to make and store in the freezer to be baked on short notice for impromptu wine (or tea) and cheese gatherings. Coastal Crisps are made like Biscotti, baked twice, first in loaf pans and frozen, and secondly, sliced and baked on cookie sheets, and turned over in the middle of the baking time to insure crispness.
 
The procedure for making Coastal Crisps is fairly simple, and the baker has a lot of leeway in selecting the various types and even amounts of dried fruit, seeds and nuts to include. I have found only two challenges in producing these perfect little crackers. First, the frozen loaves must be sliced very thin, which can be tricky. You must give the loaf a few minutes out of the freezer to soften just a bit, but not too much, so you can make perfect slices. This is my husband Wayne’s job. He uses his electric meat slicer, but sometimes the motor starts to overheat as he presses the knife through the hard loaf. You can certainly just use a sharp serrated knife if you prefer. Secondly, here in Hawaii, the perpetual humidity of the air causes the Coastal Crisps to get soggy within a day or two, even if they are nice and crunchy when they come out of the oven. We have simply resorted to popping them into the oven for a third time to warm and re-crisp them shortly before serving time. Once, baked and cooled, they should be stored in air-tight metal containers.

Dry Ingredients:

• 2 cups flour
• 2 teaspoons baking soda
• ½ teaspoon salt
• ¼ cup brown sugar

Seeds: approximately 3 cups total. Suggested amounts and varieties

•  1 cup pumpkin seeds
•  ½ cup sesame seeds
•  ½ cup flax seeds
  
•  1 cup roasted unsalted sunflower seeds

Nuts: approximately 2 cups total. Suggested amounts and varieties

•  1 cup whole almonds
•  ½ cup pistachios
•  ½ cup chopped walnuts or pecans

 Dried Fruits: approximately 3 1/2 cups: Suggested amounts and varieties

•   ½ cup dried cranberries
•   ½ cup raisins
•  ½ cup dried cherries or currants
•  2 cups whole dried, figs, stems removed (to be added to the dough in the loaf pans just   before baking)

Wet Ingredients:

• 2 cups plus 2 tablespoons buttermilk (If you don’t have buttermilk, just add 2 tablespoons of vinegar to 2 cups of whole milk.)
• ¼ cup honey
• Soft butter or cooking spray for the loaf pans

Special equipment: 2-cup glass measuring cup, extra large mixing bowl, whisk, spatula, 3 loaf pans, 8” x 4” each, parchment covered cookie sheet, wire cooling rack, plastic wrap, cutting board, sharp serrated knife or electric carving knife, offset spatula, air-tight containers for storing, preferably metal.
Makes: approximately 8 dozen Coastal Crisps
Preheat oven to 350° F

Christmas
 
On Christmas morning,
She and the dog were up before dawn.
He ran in darkness so dense
The pines, the frozen oaks and the black air
Were all one.
Only the stars, like tinsel,
Glittered in the clear, icy sky.
She heard the dog’s heavy breath,
Heard his big paws crunch
Through the frost-brittle leaves.
Then, as her gaze tried to penetrate
The deep pre-morning,
Like reading a book printed on black paper,
Suddenly she saw his eyes--
Two golden circles radiating in the lightless world--
Then the stars seemed to fall like silver rain,
And she thought of the Christ Child’s crown of light,
Remembered his mother’s corona,
Warming the winter with a golden glow.
 

​ 
The week before Christmas, those last few days of Advent, can be the busiest of the whole year. And sadly for many of us, these days are often filled with hurry and stress, with last-minute shopping, gift wrapping and cooking along with all our other daily responsibilities. What a blessing it would be to slow down and treasure all the aromas, sounds, flavors and colors of Christmas that still animate all our childhood memories.
 

 
This year we are planning a quiet Christmas Eve with a simple meal that will retain the familiar tastes, smells and cozy moments of Christmas without the last-minute stress. I will still use my lace tablecloth, my best china, silver and crystal. The lights on our tree will glitter in the darkness, and the gifts will be wrapped with golden ribbons. Candles will light my nativity scene, and I will personally eat the last little chocolate hidden in my Advent calendar. But the traditional Christmas meal that I will be sharing with my husband and close friends will all be prepared in advance, ready to be warmed up and presented on that special night.
 

​ 
As our guests arrive, the scent of spiced apple cider warming on the stove will greet them, and the finest cheeses we can find on Oahu will be laid out on my best green marble platter, along with Panforte, baked weeks in advance. Christmas carols will be playing, and the table will glow with soft candlelight. Wreath-shaped Spritz Christmas Butter Cookies, decorated with sparkling sprinkles of red and green sugar, will share the two-tiered server with Toasted Oat Shortbread, waiting on the buffet with Gosby House Gingerbread and Lemon Curd, sending the aroma of warm ginger throughout the house. It is with true Christmas joy that I share this year’s international Christmas Eve menu with you. All of the items come from old recipes I have saved over the years and made many times during the Christmas Season for my loved ones.
 

​Cheese Platter with Panforte, Dried Apricots and Wheatmeal Crackers
 
Warm Spiced Cider
 
Old Fashioned Roast Pork with Onion Sauce
 
Danish Red Christmas Cabbage
 
Tomorrow’s Potatoes
 
Creamed Peas
 
Gosby House Gingerbread with Lemon Curd
 
Spritz Christmas Butter Cookie Wreaths
 
Toasted Oat Shortbread
 
Coffee and Hot Chocolate
 
 

 
For the cheese platter, I recommend a variety of hard and soft cheeses with contrasting mild and intense flavors. A good selection might include Brie, Jarlsberg, Leyden with Cumin, Irish Cheddar and a strong, soft French cheese such as Fourme D’Ambert. Another favorite is Manchego, a flavorful Spanish hard cheese that is often served with quince paste, (membrillo in Spanish.) This delightful pairing would make a festive addition to your Christmas Eve cheese platter. I like Carr’s Wheatmeal Crackers, sold in good grocery stores, to serve with cheese.
If you are not familiar with Panforte, you can read all about it and find the recipe in my December 2020 blog on this website. Panforte is a dense cake of ancient Mediterranean origin comprised of dried fruits, nuts and honey. It is wonderful with cheese, but just as good as a dessert. Panforte can be made well in advance and stored in the refrigerator or a cool cupboard.
 
You can also find the recipes for the desserts in this Christmas Eve menu on this website. Gosby House Gingerbread is included in our “A California Tea” menu, and the recipe for Lemon Curd is available in our “Tea Menu Basics” chapter. Spritz Butter Wreaths, popular throughout Scandinavia and Germany, have always been my family’s favorite Christmas cookies. Look for them in our “A Christmas Tea” in the December section of “A Calendar of Tea Parties.” Toasted Oat Shortbread is the newest version of my co-author Kathleen’s classic shortbread. She calls them Better Oat Bars and shows you how to make them in her June 2021 blog right here on this website. I didn’t think traditional Scottish Shortbread cookies could get any better, but these, which include toasted oats and almonds, are truly divine. The Cookies, Gingerbread, and even the Lemon Curd can all be made a few days or weeks before Christmas and frozen.
 
I am happy to provide the recipes for the main dishes of this old-fashioned Christmas dinner. Feel free to add even more festive flair, color and aroma to this menu by offering some traditional home-made relishes, such as Cranberry Ginger Sauce (my November 2016 blog) to accompany the Pork and perhaps Home-Made Apple Butter (my November 2020 blog) to be served with the Gingerbread along with the Lemon Curd. Both of these very flavorful condiments can be made a few days early, like the Pork, Cabbage and Potatoes, and kept in the refrigerator in glass jars. If small children are present at this traditional Christmas Eve meal, they might like the Apple Butter, spooned over vanilla ice cream along with their Christmas Cookies. And don’t forget to leave a few Spritz and Toasted Oat Shortbread Cookies out for Santa along with a warm mug of Spiced Cider. He will have a big night ahead of him! And a very Merry Christmas to you and all your family and loved ones!
 

 
This tender, juicy and aromatic Pork Roast gets its perfection through a fragrant spice rub of fresh herbs, seeds and spices, slow roasting at low temperature, the addition of onions and apple cider to form its own sauce, and a night in the refrigerator to mellow all the flavors. Start making this roast, which will be the star of your menu, the day before Christmas Eve. An hour before dinner, you will thinly slice the cold meat and reheat it in its simmering sauce as you prepare the Onion Sauce.
 
As you will see, there are many steps and several hours in the two-day process of making this Pork Roast, but all the steps are easy to follow, and may produce the best Pork Roast you have ever eaten. The entire hearty menu is designed to enjoy leisurely with loved ones on a cold winter night. There is a harmony of colors, flavors and textures that echoes throughout the meal. The taste of sharp cheddar in the Tomorrow’s Potatoes will hearken back to the cheese tray, and the Panforte served with the cheeses will foretell the winter fruit notes in the pork and the cabbage, both linked with the subtle inclusion of red apples, connected again with the hot spiced cider served to the guests on their arrival and echoing once more in the spicy gingerbread as your meal comes to an end on this Christmas Eve.
 

• 1 boneless pork shoulder roast (Boston butt,) about 6 pounds
• 3 garlic cloves, minced
• 2 teaspoons freshly cracked black pepper
• ½ teaspoons Kosher salt
• 1 tablespoon chopped fresh rosemary
• 1 tablespoon chopped fresh sage
• 1 tablespoon fennel seeds, roughly chopped
• 2 large red onions, cut into 1-inch wedges
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 1 cup apple cider
• ¼ cup apple jelly
• 2 tablespoons cider vinegar

 

​ 
Makes: 8 servings
 
Special equipment: heavy deep-sided (3-inch) roasting pan, sharp knife for trimming the meat, kitchen string, meat skewer, large baking dish, sharp carving knife or electric meat carving knife, medium saucepan, medium sized bowl, small bowl, 2-cup liquid measuring cup, plastic wrap, aluminum foil.
 
Preheat oven to 300° F

This festive, colorful and flavorful pickled cabbage recipe is perfect for a cozy winter meal, especially Christmas Eve. Popular throughout Scandinavia, Germany and Iceland, this hearty dish pairs harmoniously with the Roast Pork on our menu but is also delicious with ham, smoked sausages or game. And this dish is the holiday cook’s best friend, as you can make it up to two weeks in advance and keep it stored in clean jars in the refrigerator.
 

 Makes: 6-8 servings
 
Special equipment: Large Dutch oven or stock pot, paring knife, hand-held grater or food processor with shredding attachment, wooden spoon, large glass jars or bowls for storage
​

​I found this recipe for luscious savory potatoes years ago in Sunset magazine and have been making it every year since for one or another of the big fall and winter holidays. It has the same warm, fluffy comfort food quality of mashed potatoes but does not have to be made at the last minute. The flavor is also enhanced with sharp cheddar cheese, and the entire dish can be prepared a day early, hence the name, Tomorrow’s Potatoes, placed in a casserole dish and warmed up just before Christmas Eve dinner.
 

• 2 pounds russet potatoes (4-6 medium to large potatoes)
• 1 ½ cups (6 ounces) shredded sharp cheddar cheese
• 6 green onions, trimmed and thinly sliced
• 1 ½ cups sour cream
• Kosher salt and freshly ground pepper to taste
• Paprika (for and extra zip of flavor, use Spanish smoked paprika)
• Butter for the casserole dish

 

​Makes: 5-6 servings
 
Special equipment: 3-4-quart saucepan or Dutch oven with lid, cheese grater, large mixing bowl, rubber spatula, 2-quart casserole dish
 

 
As it turned out, we were able to do even more. With the help of my co-author, Kathleen, who is Margaret’s daughter, along with the entire family and a team of Kathleen’s life-long friends, we created a beautiful outdoor memorial service for my sister followed by a festive reception in the yard of her family home in Watsonville, California. How did we manage this complex event for about fifty people? We did what is required for every successful large-group activity. We planned ahead and followed the simple guidelines listed below. All along our primary focus was on giving dear Margaret the most beautiful and heartfelt memorial service and the most joyful celebration of her life that we had the energy and imagination to produce.

​Visualize the Location and Scope of the Event and Start Planning Early
​

​We decided to hold the memorial service in September when the weather was turning cool, all of us had been vaccinated and the California rainy season had not yet started. We chose Watsonville’s Pioneer Cemetery, an historic graveyard just a short walk down a steep hill from the Pedulla home as the site for the service and the interment of ashes. This decision inspired Kathleen to visualize a traditional family procession from home to the cemetery, and we all imagined the sound of bagpipes. The planning process had begun.
 

Create Detailed Lists
​

​The memorial event was two separate but interconnected activities: the service in the cemetery and the reception at the nearby family home. Each required its own timeline and set of lists. The service required the design, printing and mailing of invitations, a program for the ceremony, meetings with the cemetery staff and hiring a bagpiper. A detailed food and beverage list was necessary for the reception, including inventories of seating arrangements, linens, dishes, silverware, and a meticulously planned menu. Kathleen is the queen of lists, and she masterminded most of the details just listed while I planned the ceremony itself. Needless to say, she did far more work on this project than anyone else and deserves all the credit.
 
Kathleen’s “Food and Beverage Layout Plan” will give you some insight into the careful thought she gave to every aspect of organizing and serving the elegant lunch that our guests enjoyed so much.

​Enlist a Competent Team with Excellent Communication Skills
​

​Fortunately, the Pedulla family, who have lived in Watsonville for nearly sixty years, are blessed with creative, capable and trustworthy friends. The majority of the food and drink for the reception was prepared or provided by the team of family and friends. Kathleen’s dear friend Peggy Sue Welch arranged all the flowers for the memorial service, others created center pieces for the lunch tables, set up chairs and a tent, served as ushers, and Kathleen’s friend Polly, a concert musician, played a Bach Sarabande at the memorial service.
 

Clearly Define the Tasks and Responsibilities of Each Team Member
​

​We planned the cemetery service well in advance and enlisted various family members to speak or otherwise participate. Then we held a family meeting the night before the event to review the tasks of each participant, providing each with a folder containing specific instructions for his or her role at the service.
 
Kathleen followed a similar procedure for the reception, contacting each team member well in advance with a written copy of the menu and a detailed list of who was responsible for preparing or obtaining each item on the menu. Members of the team who were responsible for seating, table settings and so forth were given similar written instructions.

Pay Careful Attention to Long-Term and Short-Term Time Management
​

​Obviously, selecting the day, time and location is the first step in planning a complex event, but last-minute details can be just as crucial. Kathleen developed the amazing, multi-cultural lunch menu for the reception months in advance, and I did the same for Margaret’s biography, the eulogy and the chronology of the memorial service. However, some of the most meaningful details were completed in the very last seconds before we changed into our black dresses and put on our pearls to begin the family procession to the cemetery.
 
Kathleen was up before dawn on the day of the service, baking the Irish Soda Bread, Margaret’s favorite, and then putting the Blackberry Cobbler in the oven. Meanwhile, I assembled the Cheddar and Chutney Tea Sandwiches, which needed to be as fresh as possible, just as Kathleen’s friend Kristen arrived to make the luscious Macaroni and Cheese from scratch and bake it along with the refrigerated Lasagna and the Baked Beans as the service at the cemetery was taking place. During this final hour, team members were also dispatched to pick up the two items that were purchased rather than home-made: hand-made spicy cheese and chili tamales and a glorious tray of ultra-fresh sushi.

​We invite you to read and re-read Kathleen’s remarkably comprehensive multicultural menu, a marvel of California farm-to-table autumn cuisine. It produced a huge amount of food, served buffet style in three courses as Appetizers and Salads, Main Dishes and Desserts. There was truly something for everyone, and the guests were invited to take home leftovers. Katheen was going for the spirit of generous autumn abundance to honor her beloved mother, and she succeeded! I stayed with the Pedullas for a few extra days after the service, and we enjoyed fresh berries with vanilla-honey yogurt sauce every morning at breakfast and deviled eggs, ham and peanut noodles for lunch, all the while remembering Margaret with grateful hearts and living the joy of a harvest festival.
 

​Kathleen’s Memorial Reception Menu
​

Drinks:
Beer, Wine, Whiskey, Punch, Martinelli’s Sparkling Cider, Coffee, Tea, Cucumber Water
 
Appetizers:
Isaac’s Salsa and Pickled Okra, Guacamole and Chips
Antipasto Platter: cheeses, meats, olives, crackers, crudites, baguette
Kathy Lathrop’s Broccoli Spread
Kathleen’s Shrimp Ceviche
Irish Soda Bread with Irish Butter
Deviled Eggs
Sushi Platter
 
Salads:
Asian Peanut Noodles
Thai Green Bean Coleslaw
Potato Salad
 
Main Dishes:
Chili and Cheese Tamales
Baked Beans
Pulled Pork with Barbecue Sauce
Chutney and Cheese Tea Sandwiches
Isaac’s Honey Mustard Ham with Rolls for Ham Sliders
Kristen’s Macaroni and Cheese
Kathleen’s Spinach Lasagna
 
Desserts:
Fresh Strawberries, Raspberries and Blackberries with Honey-Vanilla Yogurt Sauce
Raspberry and Peach Trifle
Blackberry Cobbler
Red Velvet Bundt Cake with Cream Cheese Icing
Rose’s Triple Espresso Cake with Fudge Icing
Fregolotta (Italian Crumb Cake)
Three-Tiered Cookie Plate: Frosted Brownies, The Queen’s Shortbread, Lemon Bars
Bambi’s Chocolate Chip Cookies
See’s Candies
 

​​As you think about Thanksgiving with your family this month, you are welcome to include any of the items from our memorial menu along with your traditional family meal. You will find Isaac’s Roasted Tomato Salsa in my August 2019 blog on this website, Homemade Vanilla Custard for the Peach and Raspberry Trifle in my May 2020 blog, Blackberry Cobbler with Almond Streusel Topping in my August 2020 blog and Fregolotta (Italian Crumb Cake) in my July 2018 blog.
​

​Our website provides another treasure trove of menus and ideas for autumn tea parties and feasts and for large gatherings now that it is safe for us to celebrate in family groups. If you are planning ahead to long-postponed spring and summer get-togethers, some of our menus also feature grocery lists and planning guides. Our “June Wedding Reception Tea” includes the menu, lists and planning guides for a home-generated reception for fifty guests. You might also find “Afternoon Tea for a Large Group” a helpful resource. And finally, our “August Family Reunion Tea” is filled with ideas for feeding the family with a variety of menu options, including North American food, Scandinavian food, Middle Eastern cuisine and a Kosher menu.
​

​
​Though the last two years have been hard for all of us, we invite you to celebrate with us once again, the joy of family, the joy of food, the joy of Afternoon Tea. And a happy Thanksgiving to you all!

Autumn’s arrival is a joyous event in every year, and this year, cooler mornings and cleaner air are especially welcome after unprecedented heat waves, wildfires and storms. But even greater than this sense of relief is the secret expectation that something glorious and wonderous is taking place, something felt deep in our bones and in our dreams.
 

​ 
One of the glories of an autumn evening is watching the Harvest Moon fill a pumpkin patch with golden light, turning the round pumpkins into mirrors of the moon. For me, nothing says “autumn” like pumpkins. The deep, earthy orange color, the plump abundant roundness, the preview of feasting and celebrating the harvest, are all embedded in the pumpkin’s very essence. And our website is bursting with pumpkins.
 

​ 
“An Autumn Afternoon Tea” in the Afternoon Tea and the Four Seasons section of this website offers charming little Pumpkin Cream Tartlets along with other seasonal sweets. In the Calendar of Tea Parties section, our October tea party menu, dedicated to the Mexican festival, Dia de Los Muertos, features Pumpkin Empanadas, little half-moon shaped pastries with recipes for both sweet and savory versions. And our September menu, An Ozark Farm Harvest Tea, includes my favorite Pumpkin Bread. The recipe for this moist, spicy quick bread can be found in my October 2018 blog, “Glorious October,” available on this website. I make this totally autumnal Pumpkin Bread every year. It is great for Halloween or Thanksgiving and perfect for fall tea parties, as it can be cut into little tea sandwiches filled with whipped cream cheese.
 
Pumpkin and cream cheese seem to be natural partners, as evidenced in my October 2019 bog, “Pumpkin Time—Savory and Sweet.” This blog includes the recipe for Pumpkin Bundt Cake with Cream Cheese Icing, a splendid and festive cake that will be the star of any autumn gathering.
 

 
For those of you who like to plan ahead, in my November 2016 blog I share the recipe for an extra-special Pumpkin Praline Pie that will turn your family’s familiar Thanksgiving menu into something both traditional and excitingly new. The word “traditional” is an understatement when applied to pumpkin. As we know, pumpkin, or more likely some related form of native squash, was included in the first Thanksgiving feast of 1621, but pumpkins and other forms of gourds have been around far longer than that.
 
Pumpkins belong to the Gourd family of flowering plants, with the scientific name of Cucurbitaceae. This includes hard-shelled gourds such as pumpkin, butternut squash and kabocha squash, and soft-shelled vegetables such as zucchini, cucumbers and summer squash. Evidence of Bottle Gourds, which may have been native to southern Africa, were found in an archeological site in Peru and dated to 13,000 B.C. Pumpkins and other forms of squash native to Central America and Mexico, were present before the arrival of human beings. And scientists believe that vegetables in the Gourd family were the first domesticated plant species, grown for food in the Americas even before maize and beans.
 

 
In fact, gourds have been part of the culture of almost all native people of the Americas. A major food source, gourds and squash have also been used as tools, musical instruments and objects of art. In more recent history, I think we all remember playing with maracas as children and carving Jack o’ Lanterns out of pumpkins. Pumpkins are truly fascinating vegetables which are being used more and more these days for artistic purposes, as porch, table and textile decorations to mark the autumn holidays of Halloween and Thanksgiving. Pumpkins can also grow to an astounding size, winning prizes for the growers at Pumpkin Patches and Harvest Festivals throughout the country. One winner in 2009 grew a pumpkin that weighed 1,636 pounds!
 
Edible pumpkins and other squashes are also appearing more frequently in recipes and restaurant menus as savory vegetables, not just as “traditional” pumpkin pies. Eaten in Africa for generations, Squash and Peanut Stew, made with Butternut Squash, is delicious, healthy and easy to make. Recipes for this fabulous vegetarian dish are easy to find online. You are also invited to use the recipe for Ifisashi with Nshima (Zambian Peanut and Vegetable Stew with Corn Meal Mush,) from my June 2017 blog, “A Zest for Zambia.” I learned about this fabulous dish, featuring Butternut Squash, on my adventures in Zambia.
 
Asian recipes are also filled with pumpkin and squash. In fact, Kabocha, a Japanese variety of winter squash, is often referred to in Japanese menus as “pumpkin.” I love kabocha as part of a selection of Vegetable Tempura, and it is also wonderful in Vietnamese and Thai vegetable curries. And let’s not forget that zucchini and other squashes are everywhere to be found in Italian and French cuisine. However, I must admit, that when autumn rolls around, no matter how much I love savory squash dishes, my heart returns to baking, and sweet pumpkin desserts fill my heart again.
 
All the pumpkin cake, bread and pie recipes in our website and my blogs call for canned pumpkin. The Libby company, by far the largest producer of canned pumpkin, uses a proprietary strain of the Dickinson variety for its canned pumpkin. And those fifteen-ounce cans seem to contain just the right amount of cooked and pureed pumpkin to make a perfect pie or cake. No sawing open a pumpkin, scraping out the slimy, stringy seeds, peeling off the hard shell, chopping up the vegetable and cooking and mashing the pulp. I admit to being a lazy baker, but if you want to make your special pumpkin pie or cake from scratch, you are a better person than I am. You will find plenty of recipes online for “from scratch” pumpkin pies, but most of them just tell you to use a “pie pumpkin” or a “sugar pumpkin.” What does that mean? There are a vast number of pumpkin varieties, and your best choices for baking include Baby Pam, Autumn Gold, Ghost Rider, Baby Bear, Cinderella, or Dickinson, the kind used by Libby’s. Good luck to you!
 

Meanwhile, I am happy to offer you one more recipe for a luscious pumpkin dessert using Libby’s canned pumpkin. And now we come to October’s crowning glory—Pumpkin Cheesecake, the triumphal pairing of pumpkin and cream cheese. My co-author Kathleen and I are both fond of Cheesecake and included Pumpkin Cheesecake in the menu for “A Tea for Our Elders” in the Afternoon Tea for Special Occasions section of this website. Most Pumpkin Cheesecake recipes call for a graham cracker or gingersnap crust, which is quite delicious, but years ago I found a recipe that uses a Lemon Cookie Crust, which I thought lifted this glorious autumn dessert to a whole new level of gourmet elegance. I have made this special Sherried Pumpkin Cheesecake numerous times over the years when fall arrives once again in its splendor. I think you and your family will love it too.
 

 
I cut this recipe for Pumpkin Sherry Cheesecake out of the San Jose Mercury News years ago, presumably from the food section, but the column which I cut out contains no date. The unsigned introduction to this article suggested this recipe and an interesting sounding recipe for Light and Dark Holiday Pudding, a steamed dessert combining spices, cocoa and candied fruits, as substitutes for the traditional Mince and Pumpkin Pies for Thanksgiving. Every time I have made this lovely pumpkin cheesecake, which subtly melds the flavors of lemon, autumn spices and cream sherry, my family has showered me with gratitude. Don’t we all love compliments?
 
Read the recipe carefully before you begin to make this beautiful cheesecake. Both the Cookie Crust and the Filling require lemon zest. You will need one medium to large sized lemon to produce the two teaspoons of lemon zest required—one teaspoon each for the crust and the filling. Also, make sure that the eggs and the cream cheese are both at room temperature before you begin making the filling. This will reduce the chances of ending up with a crack in the top of your finished cheesecake, as will not overbaking. But if your lovely Pumpkin Sherry Cheesecake should end up with a cracked top anyway, just cover the crack with a luscious pile of freshly whipped cream immediately before serving.
 
​For the Lemon Cookie Crust:
 

​For the Filling:
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For the Whipped Cream Topping:
 

 
Special equipment: large mixing bowl, flour sifter or sieve, hand-held electric mixer, citrus zester, small bowl, 9” springform pan, parchment paper, disposable kitchen gloves, foil-lined baking sheet, wire rack, medium sized aluminum mixing bowl, rubber spatula, cake pedestal or decorative serving platter
 
Makes: 1 nine-inch cheesecake, 12 servings
 
Preheat oven to 400°F for the Lemon Cookie Crust and 325°F for the filled Cheesecake
 

 
September is here, but in many areas, the heat remains, along with the drought and smoke from the wildfires. But in some places, September brings whispers of autumn, cooler breezes at dawn, acorns falling and orange pumpkins in the fields. The earth’s shift between summer and fall is one of nature’s most delicious times. Crops ripen, colors change, and all the world feels an energetic impulse to create, to build, to harvest.
 

 
As I mentioned last month in my August 2021 Blog, “Chocolate to the Rescue,” one product that is welcome in every season is chocolate. As the whiff of autumn enters the air while summer lingers, chocolate will always be here, ready to partner with the last strawberries from the fields or to welcome the first golden pears of fall.
 

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As you may have guessed, I have a long and loving relationship with chocolate.
 

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Though this poem may be a bit sarcastic in tone, it attempts to highlight some common misunderstandings about chocolate. Chocolate does not originate in Belgium, Switzerland or France. Chocolate is the product of the Cacao tree, Theobroma cacao, which generates pods, each containing about forty beans, which are harvested, dried and roasted and ultimately processed into chocolate. Cacao trees (also known as cocoa trees,) are tropical evergreen trees native to Mexico and Central America. Botanical archeologists consider the history of the Cacao tree to cover about four thousand years. Chocolate, processed from cacao beans, was familiar successively to the Olmec, Mayan and Aztec cultures of Mexico, where it was consumed as a hot or cold beverage, sometimes flavored with honey or chilis and used for religious rituals.
 
The Spanish conquistadores took chocolate back home with them, and Spanish royalty were the first Europeans to enjoy hot chocolate. Several centuries later in, 1847, an Englishman named Joseph Fry developed the process for mixing chocolate powder with sugar to produce bittersweet chocolate bars. Other European chocolate bars quickly ensued, with Cadbury in 1849. In 1875, Henry Nestle was the first to create milk chocolate bars. And in 1879, Rodolphe Lindt refined the chocolate bar to melt in the mouth. The first American milk chocolate bars were produced by Milton S. Hershey in 1900. My husband Wayne and I both grew up eating Hershey bars, and all of these chocolate candy bar makers are still in business.
 

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However, we must remind ourselves that chocolate does not originate in Europe or America, except a limited production of some artisanal chocolates grown and produced in Hawaii, where tropical Cacao trees can be commercially grown. Today, the four biggest producers of Cocoa beans for commercial purposes are the Ivory Coast, Ghana, Indonesia and Nigeria. Chocolate, along with coffee, are two of America’s favorite addictions, both the products of tropical climates and economically depressed countries where family farmers and agricultural workers receive very low wages. This brings us to the subject of “fair trade chocolate and coffee.” While I will leave you to research and reflect on this concept yourself, I will simply say that really good chocolate—better than Hershey bars—costs money, and I am willing to pay for it.
 
As a young couple living in Silicon Valley in the boom days of the birth and commercialization of the computer, Wayne and I saw our friends indulging their considerable incomes in the local California wine industry. Many of our friends were wine connoisseurs, or thought they were, and there was no limit on what they were willing to spend on a cellar full of good wine. But early in our marriage we made the decision to live alcohol-free lives, and we have remained true to that decision, except for a few bottles in our spice cabinet for making special desserts. At about this same time, since we shared a love for chocolate, we slowly came to realize that the chocolate bars of our childhood really didn’t taste that good. What brought about this change of awareness?

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Maybe it was See’s Candies, produced in California, and sold in charming little black and white candy shops by cheerful employees dressed in cute little white uniforms with black aprons. Maybe it was the fact that every time you bought a box of See’s candies, you got a free sample. Maybe it was the fact that you could just walk into a See’s Candies store and create your own box of chocolates by simply pointing out your favorite flavors from the glorious variety of choices in the spotless glass cases. My favorites became Dark Chocolate English Toffees, and Soft Centers, including Dark Marzipan, Dark Bordeaux, Dark Butterchew and Dark Raspberry Cream. These were so much better than the chocolate covered cherries from the drug store, dripping with sugary fondant, that I craved as a child, and admit I do still like.
 
See’s Candies is one hundred years old this year, and for many years these luscious chocolates were available only in California. Today, See’s is widely available, and we even saw a See’s Candy shop in Tokyo the last time we were there. See’s Candies was founded in 1921 by Charles See, a Canadian chocolate salesman who moved his family, including his mother, Mary See, to Los Angeles to start his own Chocolate shop using his mother’s recipes. While the number of high-end artisanal chocolate companies has increased exponentially in the last few years, See’s has maintained high standards of quality while remaining reasonably affordable.
 

 
Another old family-owned chocolate company we discovered in our travels is Rogers’ Chocolates of Victoria, Canada. Victoria itself is an Afternoon Tea lover’s paradise with the Empress Hotel as the standard bearer of Afternoon Tea as it was meant to be. Murchie’s Fine Tea and Coffee is another charmer, where visitors are treated to perfect scones, tea sandwiches and sweets in the traditional English style. Just a few steps away from Murchie’s is Rogers’ Chocolates. Wayne and I wandered into this quaint old-fashioned candy store right on Government Street, the main street of Victoria, on our first visit to this charming town. We sampled Rogers’ signature chocolate, Victoria Cream, a luscious dark chocolate with a buttery vanilla center, and fell in love.
 
Little did we know on this first visit, that Rogers’ is the oldest candy store in Canada and still the leading gourmet candy maker in the country, founded in 1885 by Charles “Candy” Rogers. Charles Rogers originally sold a few chocolates in his grocery store but expanded to the present shop because his chocolates were so much more popular than the vegetables. Today, Rogers’ sells fine quality chocolates made from Fair Trade Certified Cocoa and provides world-wide shipping. The inventory is ever-changing to appeal to contemporary tastes. Our favorite is the iconic Empress Square, a perfectly textured dark chocolate filled with roasted almonds and caramel. A Sea Salt version of the Empress Square is also available. I don’t mind telling you that I have three boxes of Empress Squares in my refrigerator at this moment, shipped in perfect condition from Victoria to Hawaii as a birthday gift from Wayne.

Wayne has led the way in our evolution as chocolate aficionados. In November of 2005, he read an article on Gourmet Chocolates by David Rosengarten, editor of The Rosengarten Report published in Bottom Line, Inc. In this article, Mr. Rosengarten claimed that “…possibly the nation’s best chocolates” were produced by Ortrud Munch Carstens Haute Chocolature of New York City. The article continued, “Because she prefers to work alone in her New York studio, she turns away many would-be buyers. She charges $100 per pound for her ‘Barks’—ultra thin sheets of chocolate containing nuts and fruits—and as much as $180 per pound for specialty items. The minimum order is $150 plus $20 or so for overnight shipping. Phone orders only.”
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Wayne phoned Ortrud immediately. She told him, with what seemed at the time as typical “New York rudeness,” that it was too much trouble to ship her chocolates all the way to California and she didn’t have time for him. “Goodbye.” But at the last moment, Ortrud suggested that Wayne could send a friend over to her studio to pick up his order and have that person mail the chocolates to him. Wayne thought about the only person we know who lives in New York City, my cousin, Nell Snaidas.
 
Nell’s husband, Tom Fervoy, answered the phone and was intrigued at the prospect of discovering the “…nation’s best chocolates.” When Tom arrived at her studio, Ortrud was much more charming to Tom than she had been to Wayne. A chat ensued, and Ortrud mentioned her love for opera. When Tom replied that his wife was an opera singer, it turned out that Ortrud knew Nell’s work and was a fan. From then on, both Tom and Wayne were on Ortrud’s good list, and Ortrud was happy to take all of Wayne’s orders and ship them herself. Nell’s glorious mezzo-soprano voice saved the day! Thanks, Nellie!
 
Ortrud’s chocolates really were the best we had ever eaten. The texture was perfect—not too hard and crunchy and not soft and messy. They created an ideal bite in the mouth, slowly melting on the tongue. They were not too sweet, and the deep, rich complex cocoa flavor was not adulterated with any of the dreaded additives found in the popular chocolate candies of our youth. A Hershey’s Milk Chocolate Bar, for example, contains, in order of volume: sugar, milk, chocolate, lactose, milk fat, soy lecithin, PGPR (what is that?) emulsifier, vanillin (an artificial flavoring,) and artificial flavor (presumably in addition to vanillin.)

L.A. Burdick Chocolates
Founded in 1987 by Larry Burdick, an American who was trained in Switzerland, this Walpole, New Hampshire-based fine chocolate company produces innovative and high-quality chocolate delights with an emphasis on the seasons and the holidays. Burdick’s signature item is Chocolate Mice, adorable little creatures with sliced-almond ears, chocolate covered, of course, and cute little silk ribbon tails that can be used like lollipop sticks to hold the mice as you devour them. Newer additions to the Burdick inventory include Chocolate Elephants and Chocolate Penguins, in white and dark chocolate. Most of the L. A. Burdick Chocolate shops are on the Eastern Seaboard, including Boston, Washington, D.C., New York City and Cambridge, Massachusetts, but anyone can shop from their attractive website, which includes creative gifts, at a range of prices, such as a single Dark Chocolate Elephant for $6, a Gourmet S’mores Kit, for $38, or a Connoisseur’s Collection, including a wide variety of chocolates for $140.

 
John and Kira’s Chocolates
One of our favorite chocolate makers, John and Kira’s was founded in Philadelphia in 2002 by John Doyle and Kira Baker Doyle. This chocolate company specializes in unique flavors sourced from herbs and spices grown on family farms. Their best-selling Every Flavor Chocolate Box includes fifteen luscious pieces of dark chocolate ganache in flavors such as star anise, bergamot, whiskey, lavender and ginger from a family farm on the Hawaiian island of Molokai.
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John and Kira’s also features whimsical Chocolate Honey Caramel Bees and Chocolate Ladybugs, filled with almond and hazelnut praline filling. Both of these sweet little chocolate insects are brightly decorated in yellow, red and black to resemble the creatures who inspired them. But our favorite John and Kira creation is the Chocolate Fig, a brilliant pairing of Spanish Figs, filled with whiskey flavored ganache and dipped in dark chocolate. You can order these rare delights in boxes of 12 for $39.95, or splurge on a Fig Tower Grande, 12 Chocolate Figs and a 28-piece box of Every Flavor Chocolates for $90. I have discovered that a single Chocolate Fig is a deeply satisfying treat, enjoyed at sunset, surrounded by the sounds of twilight and reflections of the day that is coming to an end.

 
La Maison du Chocolate
This French chocolate chain, now world-wide, creates their chocolates by hand in their factory in Nanterre, near Paris. They produce tiny, bite-sized chocolates packaged in charming little brown boxes tied with chocolate-brown bows. The small size of each individual chocolate allows chocolate lovers to sample a variety of flavors in a single sitting without over-indulgence. La Maison du Chocolate specializes in a wide array of chocolate candies, pastries and treats, including truffles, fruit flavored chocolates and even divine little bites of dark chocolate-covered candied orange peel. So good!
 

 
Z Chocolat
This artisanal French chocolate company was founded in 2000 by Jean-Philippe Khodara in Forcalquier, Provence. Unfortunately, their headquarters and manufacturing facility were burned to the ground in May of this year, and they will not be able to fill orders until about mid-September. As a gesture of good will to their loyal customers, they plan to double each order at no additional cost. They are accepting orders now.
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I have eaten many Z chocolates and find them truly exceptional. They contain no alcohol, no preservatives, low sugar, high cocoa content and 100% pure cocoa butter, originating in a variety of growing areas, including Venezuela, the Ivory Coast and Madagascar. Each of their twenty-four uniquely flavored chocolates is created in the same flattened pyramid shape and numbered, except their signature chocolate: Z. These extra special Z chocolates are filled with roasted hazelnut praline and sweet-salty caramel and covered in either dark chocolate, milk chocolate or white chocolate.
 
Every order of Z Chocolat arrives in excellent condition in a cute little drawstring bag containing the chocolates and a little black book describing each chocolate in minute detail, including the origin of every ingredient, calorie, sugar, salt, fat and protein content and even possible allergens. One of my favorites is #13, “A rich and smooth cinnamon ganache drenched in Venezuelan and Madagascan blend 70% dark chocolate.”

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September brings a kind of wistfulness to the air as summer comes to an end and autumn looms. This is the season when we realize that the holidays are right around the corner, and we are way behind in our planning. Once again, Chocolate is here to save us. Since fine quality artisanal chocolate is never a disappointment, Afternoon Tea guests will welcome a few of John and Kira’s Chocolate Honey Caramel Bees along with the traditional Shortbread on an attractive tiered server, or perhaps even some of Z Chocolat’s Pates de Fruits (100% natural fruit jellies from Provence in cherry, orange, lemon or apricot) on the table near the Scones, the Devonshire Cream and the Lemon Curd.
 
For an intimate and festive dinner, Burdick’s elegant but diminutive 6-inch Chocolate Cakes provide the perfect conclusion to a special occasion meal for four. The Chocolate Raspberry Cake would delight your guests, as would the Chocolate Lemon Cake or the Earl Gray Mousse Cake, all priced between $38 and $48. Gourmet Chocolates are also much appreciated hostess gifts or party favors. If every child at a birthday party found a Burdick’s Chocolate penguin, mouse, or elephant, or a John and Kira’s ladybug next to their slice of birthday cake, how happy they would be! And at a Christmas, Thanksgiving or New Year’s Eve dinner, a Rogers’ Chocolate Empress Square, still neatly wrapped, next to each place setting, would add a new level of holiday cheer.

If you choose to include Artisanal Chocolates in your home entertaining, be sure to serve them at room temperature. Fine Chocolates should be kept at a cool and dry room temperature, like a wine cellar, but here in Hawaii, where rooms can become very warm, I refrigerate my chocolates and let them come to room temperature for about half an hour before serving them. If you are offering assorted chocolates, do not leave them in the box. They deserve to be placed in beautiful candy dishes, bowls or serving trays like any other elegant dessert. You may leave them in their paper candy cups if you wish, and if they are individually wrapped, as Empress Squares are, leave them in their wrappers but place the wrapped candies in an attractive dish.
 
For Christmas and other Holiday gifts, there is nothing like a box of candy. Think about what your recipient really likes and try to avoid any ingredients that may be allergens. In California, showing up with a two-pound box of See’s Dark Chocolate Nuts and Chews guarantees a hearty welcome. If you are not sure what to give, all the candy companies I have discussed have beautiful websites with an amazing array of chocolate gifts for any occasion, gifts you may never have dreamed of! Let the innovation, expertise and genuine love of these dedicated chocolatiers inspire you. Your friends will love you for it!
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As August rolls around, slowly I may add, those of us who live with seasonal heat and humidity are tempted, like a caricature of the eternal Southern Belle, to clutch our sweat-soaked pearls, and announce with mournful self-indulgence, “I just don’t know if I can make it through the summer!”
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​As we are sweltering in profound and historic human-generated August heat and misery, our eyes teary from smog and smoke, or our yards flooded, we should spend some time in serious reflection on what we can do to reduce our carbon footprints and encourage our family and friends to do the same. Meanwhile, how are we going to make it through the summer? Chocolate!
 

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Three months ago, in my May 2021 blog, I wrote about the lovely and ubiquitous Lemon, the fruit that complements every kind of meal in every season. Chocolate, which on the surface may appear to be Lemon’s polar opposite, is in fact its fraternal twin. Chocolate is also fabulous in every season. It can be enjoyed hot, warm, cold or frozen, to help us through every weather challenge. And in Mexico, the birthplace of Chocolate, this luscious brown substance, the child of the cocoa bean, is used to prepare both savory and sweet comestibles.

Fortunately, our website and blogs are filled with all sorts of chocolate delights for all four seasons featuring chocolate combined with a plethora of other flavorings, including, fruits, nuts and spices. Among many other options, you might want to try Grasshopper Mousse, pairing the flavors of mint and chocolate featured in Kathleen’s July 2016 blog, or for a very elegant presentation when the weather grows cooler, you will find Chocolate and orange-flavored Grand Marnier Truffles with Gold Leaf in our Winter Tea menu in the “Afternoon Tea and the Four Seasons “section of our website.

However, it is still summer, and we still need cool, refreshing desserts. If it weren’t for the fact that my birthday, and my husband’s are both in August, and no matter how old I get, I still love presents and Birthday Cake, I would be whimpering and whining about the oppressive heat like everybody else. But the thought of ice cream, especially chocolate ice cream, never fails to cheer me up. For the August birthdays on your calendar, look no farther than Kathleen’s July 2021 blog, “Summer Celebration Cake,” where she recommends Chocolate Layer Cake with Blackberry Jam Filling, surrounded by fresh blackberries, my father, Patrick Murdock’s favorite. This easy creation, which can be made from a cake mix, highlights the gorgeous fresh blackberries that will still be available in August. And it avoids the dreaded slipping and sliding that can occur in the hot summer with layer cakes that are held together with buttercream icing.
 
For a perfect hot weather birthday presentation, you will need to add ice cream, preferably chocolate, but don’t stop there. Spend a little quality time in the frozen foods aisle of your local air-conditioned grocery store and peruse the chocolate treasures that beckon. The ice cream industry has expanded exponentially beyond the old vanilla, chocolate and strawberry options that were once all we could hope for. Ben and Jerry, the patron saints of ice cream, have developed an astonishing number of flavors that include chocolate, starting with the ever-popular Cherry Garcia, composed of Cherry Ice Cream with Cherries and Fudge Flakes. According to the Ben and Jerry’s website, Cherry Garcia, is their most famous flavor and the “First ice cream named for a rock legend.”
 
This website features a breath-taking array of cleverly named and innovatively composed ice creams. Here is a sampling:
 

      Chocolate Shake It Truffles
            Chocolate Malt Milkshake Ice Cream with Chocolate Cookie-Covered Fudge Truffles and                      Marshmallow Swirls 
      Karamel Suta Core
            Chocolate and Caramel Ice Cream with Fudge Chips and a Soft Caramel Core
       Netflix and Chill’d
            Peanut Butter Ice Cream with Sweet and Salty Pretzel Swirls and Fudge Brownies
       Oat of the Swirled
            Buttery Brown Sugar Ice Cream with Fudge Flakes and Oatmeal Cinnamon Cookie Swirls
       Brewed to Matter
            Coffee Ice Cream with Fudge Chunks and Brownie Butter Swirls

Clearly, the dream team at Ben and Jerry’s has figured out that chocolate is good with almost any other flavor, as this quick survey reveals. Here we find chocolate combined with marshmallow, caramel, peanut butter, salt, cinnamon, coffee, brown butter and oatmeal, and this is just the beginning. Ben and Jerry’s competition, Haagen-Dazs, has latched on to this principle and is quickly following suit. This high-end European sounding brand, actually owned by the Dryer’s Ice Cream Company of Oakland, California, is generating chocolate-infused ice creams similar to Ben and Jerry’s. Haagen-Dazs Caramel Cone ice cream, for example, contains, “Crunchy, chocolaty covered cone pieces and ribbons of caramel folded into caramel Ice cream.” Hmmm. Does that sound anything at all like Karamel Sutra Core?
 
In 2011, Magnum, a Belgian brand of ice cream and ice cream bars was launched in the United States. Magnum advertises their dark chocolate-covered ice cream bar as the “#1 indulgence ice cream bar in America.” Magnum also produces a wide variety of ice creams made with Belgian chocolate. One flavor, Double Chocolate and Ganache, made my head spin, just reading about it: “Chocolate Ice Cream with Swirls of Chocolate Ganache Sauce and Milk Chocolate Shards in a Crackling Milk Chocolate Shell.”
 

Lactose intolerant chocolate lovers can also find relief from this brutally hot and insect-abundant summer with dairy-free frozen desserts, produced by both Ben and Jerry’s and Haagen Dazs as well as Magnum, whose non-dairy flavors are vegan and contain no animal products. Another frozen chocolate dessert option is Chocolate Sorbet, a water-based frozen dessert that can be made without dairy products. If you own an ice cream maker, you can make Chocolate Sorbet at home. The recipe for David Lebovitz’s Chocolate Sorbet is available at food52.com. This recipe calls for nothing but water, sugar, Dutch-process cocoa powder, bittersweet chocolate and vanilla extract.
 
Alternatively, you can buy a pint of Talenti Dark Chocolate Sorbetto at Safeway for $4.50 ($6.49 in Hawaii.) This delicious tasting dairy-free but non-vegan frozen dessert is marketed to sound like an Italian Gelato but is in fact an American product made by Unilever in Dallas, Texas and Marietta, Georgia. I liked it, but food purists might be disturbed by the long list of ingredients, including water, sugar, cocoa, dextrose, coconut oil, egg yolks, egg whites, chocolate liqueur, carob bean gum, sea salt, pectin and the ever popular “natural flavor.”
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​As a life-long chocolate devotee, I could write many more pages on this addictive subject, but I have decided to continue the Chocolate Chronicles next month with more news and recipes about chocolate and more chocolate, as it will still be hot in September, and we will still need chocolate. For now, I am happy to share two luscious chocolate desserts that feature generous amounts of chocolate paired brilliantly with coconut and coffee. The first is Tibok-Tibok, a Filipino uber-chocolate pudding that is both dairy-free and vegan and can be served chilled with toasted coconut on top for a life-saving summer refresher. The second is an over-the-top chocolate and coffee dessert that I have been making for twenty years, Chocolate Mocha Cake. This memorable creation is fabulous in every season but can really lift our spirits served in the summer with fresh cherry sauce and Cherry Garcia Ice Cream.
 

Any person who has ever enjoyed a Mounds Bar will attest to the fact that dark chocolate and coconut is a heavenly combination. And fortunately, food lovers who need or want to live gluten-free, dairy free and or vegan will love this recipe, as Tibok-TIbok is all of the above, and anything but a sad alternative to “real” dessert. This deeply flavored chocolate and coconut pudding is a true tropical delight. Once you’ve created a batch of Tibok-Tibok, you might be tempted to get carried away as I did when I assembled a “Tropical Trifle” in which I substituted Hawaiian Banana Bread (recipe in my May 2017 blog,) for the Pound Cake and Tibok-Tibok for the Vanilla Custard and layered the ingredients with toasted coconut, broken macadamia nut cookies and slices of fresh papaya topped with piles of whipped cream. The end result was neither gluten-free, dairy-free nor vegan, but there were no complaints from my omnivore friends and family.
 
I adapted this recipe from one I found in Bon Appetit magazine. To make this pudding, you will need a double boiler. I have never owned one, so I usually make do with a large saucepan and an aluminum mixing bowl. Fortunately, I now own an electric whisk which comes in handy, as the pudding needs to be whisked constantly as it thickens. The idea is that the water in the bottom saucepan should be simmering briskly before the pudding in the top of the double boiler is placed over the water, but the simmering water should not touch the bottom of the pudding pan. This is the only aspect of making Tibok-Tibok that is even remotely stressful, as the rest of the process is simply pouring the ingredients into the bowl.
 

• 2 (13.5- ounces each) cans unsweetened coconut milk (not reduced fat)
• ½ heaping cup Dutch-process cocoa powder
• ½ cup sugar
• 3 tablespoons cornstarch
• ¼ teaspoon kosher salt
• ½ cup semi-sweet or bittersweet chocolate chips
• 1-2 cups toasted angel-flake coconut, optional

 

Special equipment: double boiler (or large aluminum mixing bowl and large saucepan,) rubber spatula, whisk, foil covered baking sheet, trifle bowl or 6-8 decorative dessert glasses or sherbet cups plastic wrap, wire rack.
 
Makes: 6-8 servings
 

​Chocolate Mocha Cake with Fresh Cherry Sauce
 

Earlier in this blog, I referred to the amount of chocolate in this Chocolate Mocha Cake as “generous.” That was an understatement. This dense, one-layer European style torte contains one pound of dark bittersweet chocolate combined in the cake and the icing. Clearly, it is meant to be served in small portions, and this nine-inch cake can serve twelve to sixteen happy recipients, depending on the size of the slices. I am visualizing a small wedge of cake with a scoop of Cherry Garcia Ice Cream on the side, both topped with Fresh Cherry Sauce. This is one of my favorite desserts of all time. I have been making it for twenty years, and I served it again recently for a small family gathering.
 
Chocolate Mocha Cake also supports my theory that chocolate is wonderful in all four seasons and that chocolate is good with everything. The original recipe, entitled Chocolate-Espresso Cake with Mocha Glaze, which I found in the 2001 December issue of Bon Appetit magazine and have adapted, was part of a Swedish Christmas menu that also included Beet and Apple Salad with Creamy Chive Dressing and Swedish Ginger Cookies. Obviously, this cake was intended to be part of a sumptuous Christmas feast. I hope you will save this recipe when Christmas rolls around, as it is ridiculously easy to make. You can adapt it for a winter presentation by topping or surrounding the cake with candied cranberries or marrons glace, festive European style candied chestnuts. I think this cake is great in the summer with Fresh Cherry Sauce, as chocolate and cherries are a classic combination that can never be surpassed. But as the seasons roll by, dried cherries can also be paired with chocolate with delicious results.
 
Start making this fabulous cake a day before you plan to serve it, as it improves with a night in the refrigerator.
 
For the Chocolate Mocha Cake:

Special Equipment: 9-inch springform pan, parchment paper, foil-lined baking sheet, 1-quart glass measuring cup, whisk, bamboo skewer, wire rack, hand-held electric mixer, large mixing bowl, heat-proof rubber spatula, medium sized mixing bowl, medium sized saucepan, disposable kitchen gloves, small paring knife, attractive cake platter, cake dome or waxed paper, covered glass container for the cherry sauce.
 
Serves: 10-16, depending on serving size
 
Preheat Oven to: 350° F