June tea party

 I set up the tea party in the back yard because we are experiencing unprecedented sunshine and warmth.  Gotta take advantage of it when it strikes.  And we have this glorious big tulip magnolia tree that casts such lovely shade.  Kyle helped me set up the furniture on Tuesday.  On friday, I went into baking frenzy.  I made blueberry coffeecake.  I bought local strawberries and raspberries and planned on serving them in chocolate cookie bowls.  The chocolate cookie bowls failed, so I served chocolate cookie crumbs to sprinkle on the strawberries and raspberries.

 I made Mexican wedding cakes, but got distracted halfway through and left out a cup of flour.  The first two panfuls spread out in glorious crispy, lacey fail.  I added more flour to the rest of the dough, and the second half of the batch was good.  So then I started another batch, but instead of adding vanilla, I added almond extract.  Ratzelfratz!  So I crumbled the two pans full of fail into the dough, added another egg, and by god baked 'em.  They were quite tasty little cookies, though by no means Mexican wedding cakes.

Saturday I got up at five and ran around putting cloths on the tables, cutting flowers, and setting things out.  I love using my pretty buffet plates for these parties.  The theme was "Blue" to go with the blueberries, so I got out a slew of blue napkins, staged the spoons and forks in blue vases, pulled out table cloths with blue embroidery, and covered the beat-up sofa with some blue yardage.  Put the berries in a blue glass bowl  Arranged the cucumber sandwiches on a big blue glass platter.  Added rose petals and nasturtiums to the cucumber sandwiches for a shot of color.

And since it was a warm day, there were iced beverages.  tea, green tea, cucumber water, and pink lemonade.  Also black tea and coffee.  I love drinking iced tea out of a fancy wine glass, don't you?

My guests contributed to the party theme as well, coming dressed in shades of blue.  Pat likes her tea in a fancy wine glass.  Jacquie likes hers in a delicate china cup.  Beth brought a box of rich delicious blueberry squares from a local bakery.  And Jenny made a batch of Welsh tea cakes.  And of course, we laughed, talked, knitted, solved life's problems and enjoyed ourselves vastly.

All too soon we were done.  After I got everything washed up and put away, I took the leftover cookies across the street to the sweet young couple that expected their baby last Tuesday.  They'll soon have friends and family over a lot.  They can use some cookies.