A Thankful Heart

"Saying thank you is more than good manners. It is good spirituality."
~Alfred Painter

I have so much to be grateful for, and today is especially good. It's sunny. My Mom's in town and we have a fun day ahead of us. The souffle I made last night puffed up well. We're healthy and blessed and warm. Thank you.

I want to bring a practice of gratitude into my life. I like to think of three things I'm grateful for at the end of each day. It's transformative.

Green Tea Cakes from Taiwan

The DH and I were browsing in an Asian market recently, and these Green Tea Cakes (like a cookie to us) caught my eye. What intrigued me was the simplicity of the ingredients: Green tea paste, wheat flour, shortening, sugar, milk fat, milk powder, sodium sulfite. Look at the box of your regular grocery-store cookie, and the list of ingredients is usually much longer. I'm trying to buy few packaged goods these days, and when I do, I want them to be with as few ingredients as possible. These fit the criteria and came home for a try.

The taste of these cookies is pleasant, and yet somewhat unusual. The green tea paste is chewy. It definitely pairs nicely with a cup of green tea. While it's not a cookie I feel compelled to put away because I'll eat them all in one setting, it does make a nice tea-time treat.

Smurf Legs

It's Funky Legs Friday! I call these my smurf legs. They are that smurf blue, don't ya think? These are thigh-high socks that actually stay up. They came from sock dreams, a store that definitely takes socks (and leg warms and arm warmers) to a new level of funkiness.

Choc Hazelnut Scones

Mmmmmm! I made these chocolate hazelnut scones recently, and really enjoyed them. I used whole wheat flour and less sweetener, of course.

Here's a tip about hazelnuts, one that I learned from a Martha Stewart Living article. Toast the hazelnuts and then rub them together in a towel (not a fancy one). Some of the paper-like covering on the outside of the shell will come off.

I think Trader Joe's has the best deal I've found on hazelnuts. How do you use them?

Words for Wednesday, Tea Time

This is my first post in a series called Words for Wednesday. I'll share some of my favorite words...sometimes about tea, sometimes not, sometimes my own, often not.

Enjoy!

Tea Time
~Sharon Elizabeth Wood, 1997

At four o’clock, the day becomes liquid
casting a Darjeeling shadow on itself.
This is the time between,
an hour without destiny.

I must be careful
not to disturb the scent of oranges
that rests on the mist,
nor to veer off the steamy path
as I raise the china lip
to meet my own.

We are both survivors of fate,
this old cup and I,
adrift in the fortune of tea leaves.

Now we are held by tales’ embrace,
floating on vapors and shadows,
silhouetted by the ebbing day
as it sets over the oranges.

There is just enough light
for remembrance and forgetting,
the taste of cress, the touch of lace,
powdery scones lifted to powdery faces,
moments past now beginning.
This is a time of peace, a time of grace.

A Little Crafting Inspiration

It's interesting how just thinking about being creative lifts my spirits! I can be stuck in a tough day and if I take a mini-break to give my creative side room to breathe, the result is uplifting. My heart and soul feel lighter! Humans are made to be creative.

As the holidays approach, I'm thinking of homemade gifts. If you are, too, you might enjoy one of the free templates here, a nice treat from Melanie Falick books. Or follow the month-long celebration of Handmade Holidays on Sew, Mama, Sew!

Do you have any creative plans for the holidays that you're willing to share? Homemade gifts? Creative celebrations? Mine are still wispy in my mind, but I'm narrowing in. I'm also curious - how does your creative side fuel/support/sustain/help/etc. you?

Harney & Sons Tea Tasting: Pan Long Yin Hao and Jin Shan

I've begun the Chinese green section of Harney & Sons Guide to Tea. I recently tasted Pan Long Ying Hao and Jin Shan.

Pan Long Ying Hao

Jin Shan

The shape of the leaves for both teas is sculpted by hand. Look at them closely! They are beautiful.

If you are new to green teas, I recommend Chinese greens as an entry point. The Chinese greens are less forward and often sweeter than the vegetal Japanese greens. Harney indicates two reasons for this. First, the best Chinese greens are picked in the spring from leaflets, which include a bud and the two leaves near it. In spring, the leaves have more sugars. Second, special techniques to "fix" the teas, heated to preserve the chlorophyll, are employed. There are many ways to fix a green tea. Common Chinese ways include pan-fired in a wok or heated in an oven.

I brewed both teas at 175 degrees for two minutes. Pan Long Ying Hao is on the left. Its liquor and flavor were both very light. In fact, I think I could have tasted it with the white teas and believed it belonged in that category. I feel quite special to be tasting this tea, because Harney points out that it is a local tea made for local drinkers. It's an obscure tea that has made it to the West. Lucky us! He doesn't even know exactly how the tea is fixed, though he expects in a hot wok.

The tea on the right, Jin Shan, was a wee bit darker in liquor. The flavor was lemony (we agreed with Harney on that) and very mildly astringent. This tea is grown in the cool mountains, in an ancient tea-growing area (between Zhejiang and Anhui). This tea is exposed to as little heat as possible, which allows it to stay sweet and light.

Harney also mentions a fascinating anecdote about the Jin Shan region. Monks from this area may have been the ones to introduce the Japanese to tea in the ninth century.