afternoon tea

So perhaps I have mentioned how much I love afternoon tea. No? Well, let me fix that. I really, really love afternoon tea. Do you know why? Because afternoon tea is one of the best ideas ever.

Because, let's face it, 7 hours is a long time between meals. I eat breakfast at 7 and lunch at noon and life is good. But then it's 7 again and time to cook dinner and I am starving, which always serves as an incentive for shortcutting and skipping steps and settling for mediocre food. And if I had my way, I would never eat mediocre food again. Hey, I can dream.

The point is, afternoon tea is 1) well-timed, 2) delicious, 3) adorable, and 4) oh so civilized. I adore it. I wish I had cucumber sandwiches today, but lacking that, here was my afternoon tea:


I know. I peeled my grapefruit and separated the slices and arranged my plate all pretty. I know. I have way too much time. In my defense, we aren't building this Saturday, and since 80% of my job is scheduling things for Saturday... well, I wasn't very busy.

Isn't it cute? It was delicious. It made me happy. I was warm all the way down to my toes and my tongue was delighted and I sipped my stolen green tea with the deepest satisfaction. (Yes. It was somebody else's tea and I stole it. But -- I keep forgetting to bring my own into the office! But -- it's been in the cabinet for ages! But -- but -- I've brought everybody cookies so many times that I think it evens out. Yes? Yes.)

It needed some carby goodness -- little sandwiches or crackers or cookies or mini muffins or cakelets or tartlets or scones, or oh my goodness, now I am starting to think about it. But I worked with what I had.


Incidentally, last night I tried a new recipe -- grapefruit stir fry. A word of advice? Don't put grapefruit in your stir-fry.

It wasn't dreadful, quite. It just... wasn't very good. At all. Without the grapefruit, it would have been a little boring, but better. William hated it -- of course, he can't stand grapefruit, which I totally forgot about, I swear, until after I'd started cooking!

So we have a milk crate full of grapefruit that I guess I'll have to find something else to do with. Main course options are slim, so fruit salads and grapefruit juice it is, I guess. And roasted grapefruit. I'll try that, too.

Heck, I'll try anything. I read that you can grow a grapefruit in its own skin. I want to try that, too.


Also: I have ordered yeast. I bought a pound of yeast online from King Arthur's Flour because I just could not bear to pay $8.50 for a little four-ounce bottle. So I paid $12 to have a pound shipped to me.

And now I am worried about it. You see, the round table baking folks did a cruel, cruel thing. They let me track my shipment. Normally, I order things online and then forget about them (I do things like that) and then it is like a delightful surprise when it arrives.

but now? Now I am checking it online every few hours, and saying things like, "West Virginia? West Virginia? What do you MEAN it's still in West Virginia??" and, "it's been in that sortation center for 8 HOURS already, hurry up! Come on! What's the holdup?"

And that's just silly.

You know what's sillier? It's not going to be here by tomorrow, I can tell. Because it just left West Virginia at 9:36 a.m. It's not happening. But I have a whole day off tomorrow, and I have PLANS. I have plans for BAKING.

I am going to make french bread. And cookies. And maybe little cakes. And hot cross buns. And a pie.

And I won't really make all of them, but I WANT to. And I definitely am baking bread. But without yeast? No can do! So I am going to suck it up and buy a hideously overpriced little packet of yeast.

To tide me over 'til my ship(ment) comes in.