Home time!

A lovely trip home to cater for Granny Jeans 80th Birthday was great fun. We also stumbled accross this little gem of a shop: http://capercaillie-antiques.co.uk/ with an amazing collection of vintage and retro furniture and crockery.



Rebecca & Laura

Vintage Styling - Lipstick & Curls

We found this amazing company offering vintage hair styling and make-up.

We love thier style.

So if you're thinking of adding a further vintage touch to your vintage afternoon tea party then have a look at thier website:



http://www.lipstickandcurls.net/

Lunch with Lady Eaton!

This is a must for our reading list!

 

Flora McCrae Eaton was a visionary, a philanthropist, a socialite, a businesswoman, a world traveler, and a mother of six, but she also ushered in a shopping and dining aesthetic that revolutionized the retail and restaurant experience for generations of Canadians.

Lady Eaton oversaw the architecture, staffing, and menus for more than a dozen grand dining rooms few have forgotten despite their eventual demise: the flagship Georgian Room (Toronto), the Round Room (Toronto—now the Carlu), Le Neuf (Montreal), the Grill Room (Winnipeg), and the Marine Room (Vancouver). For more casual fare Eaton's offered soda and ice cream counters, snack bars, hostess shops, cafeterias, and bakery counters.

Lady Eaton's direction of the restaurants "created" a Canadian cuisine — chicken pot pie, cheese dreams, Waldorf salad, honey drop cookies, gingerbread, butterscotch pie, and Queen Elizabeth cake. Thirty recipes make this trip down memory lane as savory as it is nostalgic. Put on your gloves and hat and relive an era of elegance all but vanished. Lunch anyone?

Dress for the occasion!

 

Having a Vintage Tea Party? Why not dress for the occasion?

 

We found this beautiful site offering free vintage sewing patterns:

 

http://www.soubrettevintage.com/category/downloads/

 

 

Couture Inspired 1950s Day Dress – Victoria & Albert Museum

 

Have a go!

Enjoy xx

Tea production to help Peacebuilding in the South Caucasus

On 16th October, International Alert’s partner Caucasus Business and Development Network (CBDN) organised the annual Caucasus Tea Festival in Tbilisi, Georgia. The aim of the Festival is to promote sectoral cooperation and popularise the Caucasus Tea brand across the region.
The event was part of CBDN’s ongoing work in engaging different economic sectors in regional dialogue.

Hundreds of people – ranging from tea experts, business representatives, authorities, diplomatic missions, NGOs and international organisations, to producers from across the South Caucasus, including Shirak, Karabakh, Samegrelo, Imereti and Zaqatala rayon – attended the event, and enjoyed tastings of the finest teas from across the region.

The event received widespread media coverage, including on national TV stations and print media. As one of the guests said, ‘I enjoyed trying the tea that is produced by tea-makers across the region. I think it is important to have these kind of initiatives where people of the Caucasus work together and events where the public enjoys tea, wine, cheese and honey without thinking about where it was made’.

CBDN promotes peacebuilding through regional economic cooperation and dialogue between all business communities across the South Caucasus. CBDN was founded in 2005 and its work is guided by a shared vision of an economically connected and cooperating peaceful Caucasus and by a set of commonly agreed principles. To find out more, please visit: www.caucasusbusiness.net

http://www.international-alert.org/fr/news/caucasus-tea-festival

How to make the perfect Cucumber Sandwich

We came accross this article in The Guardian online, enjoy:

The whole point about cucumber sandwiches is that, unless done really well, they're as dull as the sum of their ingredients. They glory in their own delicacy: rumour suggests the nutritional redundancy of a thin, white bread sandwich filled with a fruit that's 96% water was intended to celebrate the sedentary lifestyles of the Victorian upper crust. Certainly they're not going to sustain anyone through a hot afternoon at the plough, but it's this very insubstantiality that attracts me – they're perfect for afternoon tea, because, unlike a ham or a cheese variety, they won't spoil your appetite for dinner.

(Makes 9)
1/2 cucumber, peeled
Salt
6 thin slices of good white bread
Unsalted butter, at room temperature
White pepper

Cut the cucumber into slices as thin as you can make them, and put in a colander or sieve. Sprinkle lightly with salt (don't go overboard) and leave for 20 minutes. Taste to check you haven't oversalted them: you can rinse them at this point if so.

Lay out a few pieces of kitchen paper on the work surface, place the cucumber slices on them, and pat dry with more paper.

Lay out the bread and butter each slice generously. Arrange the cucumber on half the slices, overlapping each round, and sprinkle with ground white pepper. Top with the remaining slices.

Pressing down firmly, cut the crusts off, and then cut into neat fingers, triangles or quarters of roughly equal sizes. Serve immediately, with good tea.

Our trip to the Hampstead pop up vintage fair

 

Laura and I visited the pop-up fair on Sunday and hand-picked some amazing props for our next event!

We made our way around the great stalls and found the most amazing items including some pretty plates and hand-stitched napkins.

Looking forward to the next one!