Glad Tea Party by Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

Glad Tea Party:  Carmel’s Cypress Inn Continues an Elegant Tradition by Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

I still smile when thinking about taking my elementary-age daughter Florence out for tea at the lovely Cypress Inn in Carmel, California.

I talked to the editor at the editor at The Monterey County (CA) Weekly (Circulation: 200,000) and asked for an assignment to encourage the afternoon tea tradition around Monterey County.  She agreed and sent me off to the Cypress Inn with my elementary-age daughter Florence.

Florence and I dressed in black-and-white dresses and shoes and away we went to the Cypress Inn in Carmel, California.

The following article has been modified, but the content is still the same:

I loved to play tea party with my daughter Florence when she was a toddler.  Now that she is a young teen, we can really dress up and visit one of Carmel’s coziest places for tea – the Cypress Inn.

Built in 1929, the Cypress Inn is built in a Mediterranean style with white-washed walls, orange roof tiles, and a glorious, sun-lit patio with tropical plants; the Cypress Inn is reminiscent of Andalusia.

On a recent visit, my daughter Florence and I had afternoon tea and sandwiches out on the small patio garden that holds just four tables.  Florence looked pretty in her black-and-white dress with her hair pulled back.  We just needed black hats to fit in perfectly with the Palladian windows I thought.

We chose teas from a tea box with compartments from the Mighty Tea Company.  Florence chose African rose nectar tea, and I tried rainforest mint.

While the hotel manager prepared our tea, we admired the red, pink, and purple flowers in the garden around us.  Lush, green foliage climbed the outdoor chimney and the posts upholding the porch eaves.

Hummingbirds flitted from blossom to blossom and blue jays hopped around looking for crumbs.  A red flowering potted plant decorated our table.

Flowers also decorated the Cuthbertson bone china that arrived on each of our individual tea trays that held a teapot, sugar cube holder, creamer, tray of whipped cream and jam, a tea-shaped strainer for tea leaves, and a plate of tea goodies (sandwiches and cookies).

Florence agreed that I had taken her out on a fancy outing for tea when she saw the tray of tea china and tea treats.

The teas all had a lovely, copper color and pronounced flavors.  Florence’s tea was made up of African rooibos leaves flavored with tropical fruit and blossoms.  The mint in my rainforest tea had a subtle flavor yet present flavor. 

We used the tea tongs to pick up rough-edged, brown sugar cubes and place it in our tea.  We used the flower-patterned creamer to pour in cream.  The result was a highly perfumed, sweet tea like chai.

Our diamond-shaped tea sandwiches made with spongy, white bread gave me ideas for picnics at the various “granges” – Rustic Community Centers - around Monterey County.  My favorite sandwich was made with ripe tomatoes, fresh basil, and lemony mayonnaise.

The sandwiches came in star-, diamond-, circular-, and half-moon shapes.

We each ate a large scone that filled us up.  Tea scones are made with evaporated milk, sugar, butter, eggs, and flour; they are moist and taste wonderful with dollops of whipped cream and strawberry jam.  Florence suggested mixing jam and whipped cream as a scone topping.

I ate pecan rich Mexican wedding cake cookies.  They are also called Russian teacakes.  (Trotsky allusion?)

According to Andrea Israel’s Taking Tea, the American tea-drinking habit has its origins in the British tradition.

The afternoon tea tradition began in the 18^th century when Duchess Anna of Bedford presented tea and sandwiches to her guests while her husband was out hunting.  English colonists brought their tea ritual with them to the New World.

Article end

In addition to Andrea Israel’s Taking Tea, the following book about afternoon tea has many baking ideas and recipes:

The Perfect Afternoon Tea Recipe Book:  More than 160 Recipes… by Anthony Wild and Carol Pastor

You can buy small tea sandwich cutters in the form of stars, diamonds, circles, and half moons at Amazon.com or restaurant supply stores.

Pinkies up!!!!  (Not necessary, but teaches balance without spills)

By Ruth Paget, author of Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France


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Dancing at a Home Party with an English Family by Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

  

Dancing at a Home Party with an English Family by Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

After our hostess made the trifle, the wife of another one of my husband’s colleague’s arrived with her little boys. 

The boys played with Florence and called her “baby doll.”  The women drank cuppas of tea, and  I supervised; Florence was small and real and not a doll despite running around and pushing the boys on the floor.

I was discovering that baking was an English woman’s great asset.  We ate a beautiful apple-spice cake that the other woman guest made at home before visiting.  I knew that walnuts in banana muffins were what vegetarians considered to be a hidden protein and thought baking was a tremendous skill to acquire one day.

After tea, our hostess began to chop vegetables as we talked.  I volunteered to help, but our hostess would hear none of it.

At 4 pm, another set of sons arrived home from school, they changed out of their uniforms and played a little with Florence before going at each other to play mock-rugby.

Florence rejoined the ladies where we could feed her biscuits and juice.  The men arrived around 6 pm and dinner began.

We ate the crudités with the hummus and taramosalata.  Our hostess ordered Indian “take-away curries, masalas, and saags.”  “Take-away” means “take-out.”  I loved my British English lessons.

The wines I selected at Tesco went well with the spicy Indian food – a Sauvignon Blanc from the Touraine and a Soave from the Veneto.  I also bought a Chianti like everyone did in the 1990s, but it was not right with the food.

We put on some Rolling Stones, David Bowie, the Bee Gees, and Elvis Presley music and danced.  I danced with the kids in a circle and Laurent was teaching “The French Rock” moves imitating Travolta to the English women. 

The guys came over to dance with Florence, the boys and me in a circle.  The kids conked out, and the adults kept dancing until the windows steamed up.

We opened up the windows for air at 3 am and finished eating the spicy, Indian saags, masalas, and curries.

Laurent and I went home laughing and wanted to come back and visit Scotland, Wales, Ireland, and Northern England one day.

By Ruth Paget, Author of Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France

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Traveling around England, Scotland, and Wales with my mom and great-aunt by Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

Traveling around  England, Scotland, and Wales with my mom and great aunt by Savvy Mom Ruth Paget 

The British said “River Thames” and not “Thames River” I noticed as my mother and great-aunt purchased tickets for a boat and bus tour out of London when I was on a trip with them as an elementary student.

We took a taxi to Maidenhead, where we boarded the tour boat.  We stopped first at Stokes Poges and visited a church from Anglo-Saxon times called Saint Gilles that was more than 1,000 years old.  My great-aunt and I smelled the antique roses with many petals, whose perfume seemed all that much stronger in the misty air.

Back on the boat, we passed an English village, which looked mysterious due to the foggy mist.  This village called Bray on Thames harbors Michelin four-starred restaurants, but I was enchanted with Bray, because it looked like the drawings in my fairy tale books.

Finally, we arrived at Windsor Castle.  Windsor Castle was built around 1078 by William the Conqueror as a fortress high on a chalk cliff over the Thames.  As a child, my lasting impression of the place was of the Queen’s Gardens.  After admiring the flowers, we set out for lunch at the Castle Hotel in Windsor.

After lunch, we took the bus to Runnymede where the Magna Carta was signed by King John in 1215 to guarantee the rights and property of barons; American colonists knew of this document and used it as a precedent for the American Constitution. 

 

My maiden name is Ruth Pennington, and three Penningtons signed the Magna Carta.  I was pretty happy to learn this later in life when I thought about running for president one day.

From Runnymede we took the bus to Hampton Court.  The gardens there are fantastic as well, but under no condition was I allowed to go into the maze made up of towering Yew trees.

Earlier in the week, while my mother and great-aunt were watching the changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace from the Victoria Monument, I walked across the street and into Saint James Park.  I started counting swans, because the Queen kept track of them. 

When I came back out of the park, the English policemen were on the scene and the whole tour group was rather agitated.  I just laughed at all the commotion and got back on the tour bus for the rest of the London city tour.  I had become a "lost child."

So, my time at Hampton Court was limited to photos in the garden in my double-breasted, blue coat with brass buttons.  My hair was in pony tails, because I had succeeded in taking down the bun my mother had sent me out into the world with earlier in the day.  

I wanted to see a castle a day, but I was quickly realizing that the gardens were the true treasures of the British Isles. 

The journal that my great-aunt and mother kept for me of this trip made me realize that it was my great-aunt, who made me love gardens so well.  

Her handwritten notes about how much she loved English roses are the best souvenir I have of the wonderful trip I took to the British Isles many decades ago.

By Ruth Paget - Author of Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France

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Attending Tea Parties in the US, the British Isles, and the People's Republic of China with Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

Attending Tea Parties in the US, the British Isles, and the People's Republic of China with Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

“The hors d’oeuvres are for the adults only,” said the English colleague of my mother, whom she had invited with his wife for tea at our house.

I, the eleven-year-old princess, was not going to be denied the liver pâté on crackers that my mother was serving as part of the tea.  I went into my bedroom to execute my plan.

I immediately began making placards to wear over my chest and back.  I wrote out my message, attached the placards with a string, and put them over my head.

I took the American flag out of my mother’s closet and reappeared in the living room.  I circled in front of the coffee table before the English couple with the flag held high and the message “Equal Rights for Kids” emblazoned in red marker on the placards.

“You just have to like some children,” the Englishman said as he was guffawing American-style now.  Victory won, I sat down nicely to enjoy the liver pâté and drink tannin-rich Red Rose™ tea from Canada that we always drank in my childhood home in Detroit, Michigan.  I willingly fought for my tea, because I knew that “biscuits” known as “cookies” in America would soon appear.

Thanks to a trip I took to the British Isles with my mother and great-aunt when I was seven, I already knew what a tea held in store.  On our trip, we visited my grandmother’s English pen pals, who plied us with cucumber, radish, and butter sandwiches served on white bread without crusts.

The sandwiches occupied the bottom tier of a three-tiered tea goodie tray.  The smaller tier in the middle usually held dry yet sweet triangular scone muffins that tasted good once you dunked them in tea.  The very top and smallest tier held dainty desserts and cookies.  As a child, I munched away on cucumber sandwiches just waiting to get to the top tray.

More than the cookies, though, drinking tea even at the young age of eleven, conjured up the magic landscapes I had seen in the British Isles.

I liked standing in the doorways of the stone farmhouses we stayed in overnight and looking out over the misty, emerald fields with stone fences of irregular heights separating them.  I always felt like I was dreaming while I was wide awake while looking at this scenery.  Sipping tea helped me recall that otherworldly feeling.

Tea brought on other feelings in high school when I had the chance to visit the People’s Republic of China in 1979.  At that time, China prided itself as having an “iron rice bowl” or social security blanket for all.  

After reading about the Chinese war for independence, communes, and the Cultural Revolution, I had a rugged view of the Chinese, who wore blue Mao jackets.

How surprised I was to find that communists liked overstuffed furniture covered on the backs with white lace doilies.  No matter where we went – train station reception rooms, hospitals, factories, hotel lobbies – we invariably sat through presentations and question-and-answer sessions in chairs like these with a warm cup of tea beside us.

Chinese tea cups offer countless play opportunities, especially while you are listening to a presentation about how tennis ball production has improved yearly since the 1939 Revolution.

The mug-sized teacups came with a cover.  Every time you would take off the cover, you would get a cloud of jasmine-scented tea that you could waft toward you.  Jasmine tea appeared to be China’s official function tea. 

 

By Ruth Paget, Author of Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France

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