Who Needs Words When You Have Teacups?

I am at my desk in the windowed Study nook,
brilliant sun in my eyes through the matchstick
blinds, and two dogs snoring behind my chair;
a peaceful Tuesday morning.

But my computer keyboard has gone haywire on me, spelling

words such as "Emily" in this manner: Emiiillylyiim.

Really, truly, I am not tipsy.  But perhaps my keyboard is.

At any rate, this is going to be a post short on words,

and long on pictures. 

In fact, I pretty much need just one word: Teacups!

At That Old House, we got lotsa them.  Here are some.

Colclough's Amaretto Rose:

Deep cobalt and gilt cups, from Japan.

Aynsley's Tatton Hall pattern:

Johnson Brother's Indies Blue:

Who hasn't bought Birthday Month tea cups?

This one, February, for daughter Alida.

And July, for daughter Anne.

Wedgwood's Patrician ware, painted in the Bognor pattern:

And except for the birthday cups, which I think we

bought years ago at Disney World,

all of these tea cups were ferreted out at flea markets,

thrift shops, Goodwill, or Ebay.

Pretty and cheap.  My favorite combination.

 Go ahead, put the kettle on. 
And invite me!  -- Cass
If we are lucky, someone else will do the cleanup!

Link Parties for Tuesday

Sandi at Rose Chintz Cottage, and Tea Time Tuesday.  Click here!

Marty at A Stroll Thru Life -- it's Tabletop Tuesday.  Click here!

At Linda's Coastal Charm blog, it's Nifty Thrifty Tuesdays.  Click here!

Terri at Artful Affirmations is hosting Tea Cup Tuesday.  Click here!

PS  I think I managed to find all of the wacky keyboard typos and boo-boos.
       Please excuse some spacing and other odd copy crazies -- it's the Keyboard, it's not me!

Look What Followed Me Home

So two days ago, my friend Emily and I
motored south to Somerville in New Jersey, where there is an
antiques mall in a former Woolworth's downtown.  

We did a slow lap of the first floor of Somerville Center Antiques and then, exhausted with the sensory overload, went next door to the Phoenix Diner where the food is what good New York area coffee shop food should be.

Meaning the cole slaw was great.   Olympic caliber.

I'd say the onion rings were also outstanding, but that would mean admitting I'd had some.

After lunch, we plunged back into the fray.  Yes, we are fearless in our quest for the quirky.

A lap around the lower level, then another look-see on the main floor.

Where I found these:

  A sugar and creamer set.

Lustreware.  Japan.  Petite.

 And about as cute as cute gets.

Then, not far away, beneath a pile of nicely laundered doilies and dresser scarves, this peeked out:

A cross-stitch embroidered linen tablecloth.

Orange embroidery.  Ten bucks, in great shape.

Come to Mama!

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And today, the cloth and the lustreware are teaming up with

the famous Johnson Brothers for a Harvest Time Tablesetting.  Now let me see . . . .

It's a cloudy-drizzly-poopy day, so we'll do this in the sunroom, where it is brighter.

First, on goes the cloth.  Duh.

Then it's the Johnson Brothers Fresh Fruit china.  A Craigslist uber-bargain.

Dinner plate.

Salad plate.

Cup and saucer?  Of course!

Otherwise why would we have a sugar and creamer?

Wine glass?  What else but a sturdy green stem?

This is one of our set of Roemer wine glasses (can't make an umlaut),

used in Germany for Rhine wines.  Our glasses were made in France.  We are such rebels.

 

Flatware -- my still-new Reed and Barton Williamsburg Royal Scroll.

Salt and Pepper -- ceramic fruits.

A few harvest-y tchotchkes jazz up the table and

give us something to look at while we're waiting for real food to show up.

That may be a long wait.

 Although -- did you spot some round orange marble-y looking things

scattered on the tabletop in a few of the pictures?

They  are pumpkin flavored malted milk balls, from The Candyman out on Long Island.

Thank you, Doris and Kirby!

 So there is something to eat.

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  What did Emily get on our trip? you ask.

Emily spotted something she thought she wanted to get for her husband,

but when we went back to find it -- we couldn't.

Lesson learned:  In an antiques mall, tie helium balloons onto the things you want

a second look at, or just take them with you on the first go-round.

I never did find that brown Aesthetic pattern Staffordshire I was first eyeballing . . . .

I hope it found a good home.  -- Cass

 Thursday Links

At Tales From Bloggeritaville, it is Thrifty Thursday.  Click here!

No Minimalist Here hosts Open House Party Thursdays.  Click here!

Between Naps On The Porch -- Tablescape Thursday.  Click here!

Tea in the Parlor on Tablescape Thursday

Tablescape Thursday! Thanks to Susan of Between Naps On The Porch for hosting this fun event. Click here for more table-topping fun and inspiration.

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Meanwhile, I am going to have tea in front of the fireplace, and have a slice of Grandma Cake! Come with me, as I walk you through the recipe for Tea in the Parlor. . . .

Start with a parlor, a blank slate:



Paint it to your liking, and add ... well, stuff. Furniture is a good place to start.

Drive 200-plus miles to Sturbridge, Massachusetts, to order period-style furniture from Angel House.
Stir in some blood-curdling "we don't have that fabric anymore"
moments, dash to Calico Corners and order fabric to go!

Then,
wait ... wait ... wait for the call that the furniture is ready. Pester Angel House.

Pester Angel House again, till patient lady in the office begins to sound testy on phone. Rejoice when furniture is ready!

Send husband Howard and his ex-wife (00ps, ex-roommate) Mitchel on a 400-plus mile round trip in a rented truck to fetch new parlor furniture in Massachusetts to save whopping delivery charges. Offer to pay for their lunch en route. At Burger King.


Fall in love with the furniture.
Ask it to marry you, then remember you are already married.
And that furniture would make a poor husband,
as it has no means of taking out the trash.


Ruthlessly shove furniture around over and over again because
you can't find an arrangement that works.

Realize that for Tablescape Thursday, you can fudge it
and just use one wee bit of the room. Move appropriate furniture into place:

An Angel House (very comfy) wing chair, and the old
barley twist table your sister-in-law was donating to charity
and you snatched from her garage.Discover, too late, that the bottom side of the wing chair bears evidence of the
passage of a cheeky little white and brown spaniel who left a bit of himself behind,
on the upholstery fabric. Clean off for future pictures.

Add a bit of old table linen that doesn't need ironing, realize you don't have anything that doesn't need ironing,
so resort to last week's bit of old lace.


Add Johnson Brothers "Indies Blue" china, an old "Blenheim" pattern silver spoon (it hasn't been polished so just claim to like that vintage look), the cobalt and gold Meissen teapot, change your mind about the Meissen teapot as you don't have any cup & saucer to measure up to it, realize you don't have enough nice china and hear your husband scream all the way from midtown Manhattan, replace Meissen with unknown maker blue and white teapot, and, finally,
a slice of Grandma Cake to make it all worthwhile.



And there we have it....
Tea in the Parlor, or:
How To Get The Most Posts Out Of One Homemade Cake.


I'd light the fire, but it's a gas gizmo and I am mortally terrified of it.

And I still don't have a satisfactory arrangement of furniture in this room.
Someday.

Wedgwood Writes To That Old House! And: A Giveaway Winner!

Wedgwood wrote to me! Well, to my blog, anyway. . . .

Just to prove that you never, ever know who is going to read your blog.... on Friday afternoon, the 20th comment on my 2/24 blog post, Rescuing Waterford and Wedgwood, turned out to be from ... Wedgwood itself! You can click here and read it at the bottom of the comments.

Wedgwood commented on my blog post. Wedgwood! I am impressed at their customer relations; that is very responsive! Smart brides can still put Wedgwood in their registries, the company isn't rolling over yet.

Plus, they liked my pictures. Aw, gee, shucks! :-)

And the winner is . . . (drum roll, please!)

Now... in a smooth segueway into my next announcement. . . did you know that Wedgwood owns Johnson Brothers? Who knew? And it is a Johnson Brothers "Old Bradbury" ironstone gravy boat that Shelia of "Note Songs" blog won in my "Tablescape Thursday and a Giveaway" post.

Congratulations, Shelia! I know you will give this nice ironstone piece a good home.

By the way, those of you who have done giveaways... do you find it nerve-wracking to find that "random number?" Or am I the only whackadoodle who does? My gosh, I was as nervous as, well, something that is nervous.

Have a grand weekend! My husband and daughter have season tickets and are off to the Metropolitan Opera Saturday, for Il Trovatore, and as for me? I will be painting a bathroom vanity. What is wrong with that picture?

But I will take time out to look again at this slide show, about a
278-year old cottage-style house in Newport, Rhode Island. Take a look here!

I like that the homeowner, John Peixinho, is a professional decorator who is self-taught. I could move right into that house, and not change a thing. Well, not much. Maybe a few things, here and there. . . .

Foodie Friday, Hooked On Houses Party, and Last Chance for my Giveaway!

Click here for more Foodie Fun, thanks to Gollum!
************************And click here to link to Hooked On Houses Friday Blog Party,
hosted by the amazing Julia.

That Old House is a mixed bag today: Foodie Friday -- Hooked On Houses Blog Party -- Odds & Ends -- and a last chance for anyone to enter my Giveaway for a
Johnson Bros. gravy boat:

Click here!

Catching up on some Odds & Ends, down below, but first... for Foodie Friday, the recipe for Grandma Cake. You will thank me, yes you will, as this cake elevates the simple to the sublime. It is just pure goodness. And it's even better a teensy bit stale.

Grandma Cake... recipe and a little background!

My grandmother was born in Norway in 1875, and grew up in a house that dated back to Viking days. She lived until I was in college, and she was nearly 100. She'd wanted to make that century mark, but she didn't get her way on that one, although she did on nearly everything else in her life.

She raised 7 children in New York City, in a big house on the rich farmland where JFK Airport now stands. My father is her youngest, and he is nearly 89.

She was a remarkable woman,
Margrethe Olave Eskeland Lindtveit.

She could draw sewing patterns freehand, sewed all the clothes for her big family, including coats and men's shirts, knitted like a machine, crocheted, tatted, and, until they rotted apart from age and sunlight, a set of Hardanger curtains she made as a young bride hung in my family's dining room.

She had the greenest thumb this side of Eden, skipped lunch to afford fresh flowers, was barely 5-feet tall, opinionated, smart, determined, and she scared her family witless. Not one of your pushover grandmothers, my Grandma.

She walked barefoot in the morning dew 3 seasons of the year, had long glossy brilliant white hair that she washed in an enamel dishpan with a bar of coal tar soap and then dried outside, in the sunshine, the hair streaming down her back; to my sister and me she looked like an aging enchanted princess.

She loved boats and fishing and her husband Gunvald devotedly (and probably equally), could gut a fish and pan fry it to perfection, baked the flakiest piecrust, and made a bundt-style cake that is the best food, ever, anywhere on the planet.

She gave that recipe to my mother, least loathed of her daughters-in-law, and my mother promised to pass it on to me. She never did. When Mom sank into Alzheimer's, I figured the recipe for Grandma Cake was lost forever.

But recently my sister Peggy handed my mother's recipe box to me:

Lo and behold, there it was, right in front . . . the Holy Grail:

I love how my Mom wrote "Serves 12 - 15."
What family was she thinking of?
If you click on the picture, the recipe will greatly enlarge and you can easily read it. I love that it's in my Mom's distinctive handwriting. But, in case you have trouble deciphering it, here is the recipe:

GRANDMA CAKE
3 cups flour (unbleached)
1 cup sugar
1-1/2 tsp. baking powder
1/4 tsp. mace
a pinch of salt
1 cup butter (no margarine; Grandma will rise up and smite you!)
3 eggs
1/2 cup milk
1 tsp. pure vanilla

Mix all the above thoroughly and beat at high speed for 3 to 4 minutes. Bake at 350 for approx. 1 hour.

(It's not written down, as you are clearly just supposed to know that the cake batter goes into a greased bundt or tube pan before you put it in the oven!)

This is not a fine-grained pound cake; it has a rather coarse crumb, and the outside gets quite dark and caramelized looking and as the cake ages a day or two the "crust" gets a bit of a crunch to it. Oh my. I may have to bake this. I don't bake anymore because Howard and I aren't eating sugary things. I may have to make an exception. Please let me know if you try it!

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Update... I made the Grandma Cake ... Yum
Pics and story here!
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And now for those Odds & Ends...

You know that I am hooked on That Old House, and a bit obsessive about getting it "just right." If you remember my powder room metamorphosis, I asked for opinions on curtain fabric, and most of you thought "toile" and some even said, "black and white toile." Methinks you were right!

I just happened to have a sample of a cream and black toile, so up it went on the window frame with a piece of trusty blue tape. I liked it:

Then I remembered a toile I bought 2 years ago at WalMart for $1.00 a yard.
Yes, ladies and maybe a gent or two, that's $1.00 a yard.

(Pardon the wrinkles! It was stuffed in a drawer.)

This isn't your quality toile, no fancy name on the selvedge, but it is already mine, and there is enough for a nice full swag on the powder room window. Free is good.

And there it is, taped up, and dragging down the wall.
(When I find something nice for a buck a yard, I splurge. I bought a lot.)

So what do you think?

It's thin, but I'll line it. I think it will do just fine.
Stay tuned for the "after" pictures!

And speaking of befores & afters. . . I used a red and white tureen in yesterday's Tablescape Thursday post, and before I put it back on top of
Grandma's china cabinet . . .

...(yes, that very same Grandma)...

I thought it might look good on my nearly-nekkid sideboard:

Hey, it's a start.

Have a lovely weekend, everyone! I will announce the
winner of the gravy boat tomorrow morning (Saturday).
Not too early. . . .