The Two Item Food Rule

Our  Circle of Friends church group of women - older women, because younger women are generally at work or home with children - meet on the fourth Thursday each month, except for November and December, at someone or another’s house. The whole idea is to talk and have an enjoyable time without having to anything to show for it. Generally, the hostess has a number of delicious food selections to offer from dips to fruits in season, cheeses, coffee cakes, bundt cakes, etc.

Several years ago,  my turn to entertain came right after my son, Sharif (in Japan) and his family canceled their plans to come to the USA at the last minute. I had a freezer full of bundt cake, cookies, and coffee cake and I decided to serve all items to my church group. The spread so intimidated them that they made a rule that the hostess should serve only two food items.

Since then, that rule has been violated more than observed, but at least hostesses don’t feel that they have to go 'whole hog' with food. However, this month our member Bonnie totally disregarded both the spirit and letter of the rule. First, she had a huge watermelon carved like a basket containing, of course, watermelon balls.

The jars with red tops contain little lights like fireflies that glitter on the crystals in the jar bottoms. Her table spread included little lemon sandies, little cheese and ham sandwiches, brownie squares with a chocolate filling and spinach cheese balls.

She also served a refreshing watermelon punch.

Also coffee, of course.

A lovely time was had by all.

Raccoon - Second Verse

The ghost raccoon is ghost no longer. For a couple of nights I observed him eat the birdseed from the feeder after I had previously rescued the suet cake. I thought, “Why worry about a few missing seeds from the bird feeder?” I thought again when I found the bird feeder on the ground in the morning, very much the worse for the wear. Although decidedly whopper jawed, it was still workable, so I replenished the seed (Boy! That raccoon knows how to clean a feeder.) and hung the feeder on the outside of the deck again. I now retrieve both suet cake and bird feeder each night. Since I don’t want to surprise the raccoon in a bad mood as I recover the suet and feeder, I bang on an aluminum pie pan to scare him (hopefully) away, if he happens to be on deck. So far I have beaten him to the larder.

To get his picture, and satisfy my husband that I am feeding all comers, I left a little pile of birdseed on the deck near the stairs. He was quite oblivious to the deck light, the camera flash or me as I took his picture from the door.

Suet Cake, Grackles, and the Ghost Raccoon

I am a feeder of the birds around our house. I love to feed the song birds on our deck.

For woodpeckers or chickadees I hang the wire suet feeder with it’s plastic box upside down to discourage the grackles from eating it. Supposedly, they can’t get to the suet if it’s only open on the bottom, but they sure try hard enough. Woodpeckers and chickadees are able to fed on the suet, but they don’t come as often as the grackles.

Earlier in the spring, I hadn’t seen any grackles in weeks, so I figured they weren’t in the neighborhood. I hung the naked suet in a feeder designed to be used by large woodpeckers. A grackle scout must have been near by, because within hours those nasty black birds had arrived and demolished the suet cake. For two days after that two grackle fledglings stood on the deck rail by the empty holder begging their parents to be fed.

Grackles aren’t my only problem. My other problem is our ghost raccoon that I have never seen. . He (or she) has devoured several cakes of suet that I’ve put out for the birds. At night he lifts the cake in the wire feeder off the hook on the railing and eats it there on the deck. In the morning, I find an empty wire feeder, a clean plastic container and his greasy footprints all over the deck and down the steps.

I wait a number of days after he has eaten one cake before I put out another one, but it still disappears. Apparently, he comes every night, and checks for the cake.. My sister-in-law, living a few blocks away, suggested that I bring the suet in at night. I now try to remember to do that.

I came outside this morning and found that he had tipped over our plastic two-gallon watering can spilling the water over the deck. No harm done, but I wondered if he had taken revenge against me for bringing the suet cake into the house last night.

Of course there are the squirrels…..

My husband has no sympathy for my selective largess. He feels that it’s only fair that if I feed one kind of animal, I should feed them all. Hmmm. Life’s not fair, is it?

Jane Austen and Teapots

People often ask me what we do year after year at Jane Austen meetings. We do discuss one or more of her six published novels periodically, as well as her unpublished novel, Lady Susan or her unfinished novel Sanditon. On the other hand, we have programs concerning the fashion, culture, and politics of her time (approximately 1775-1820) including the history, making and serving of tea.

So it should surprise no one that at our April meeting we discussed teapots. One member of our group, Virginia, collects all sorts of teapots, and several others had teapots they wanted to show off, so we had a grand time.

When we scheduled this program, I knew I would love it, but I wondered how popular it would be with our general membership…the English professors and other academic types. However, we had a big group, around twenty. Several visitors heard about our topic and asked to come. Several of the men members came, some whom had not come in a long time.

Virginia showed us her collection of teapots that ran from the sublime to the ridiculous, from tiny to large,
silver, porcelain, and pottery.

Here Virginia betrays some political inclinations for which we will surely make allowances.  Notice the teapot made of ceramic asparagus and the one shaped like a head of lettuce.

 Lorna's bacchanalian teapot was selected by her husband  when they were in Italy, in their youth, as she was browsing through a tea shop. 

Here Carol shows it off to the delight of the character behind her.  Be sure to click on the picture to get the full impact.

Pamela is showing off an elaborate tea cozy.

Here is a better view of the tea cozy.  The sweet flowered white teapot is the more standard selection that Lorna made in the Italian tea room. 

I brought a teapot that I had bought near Aswan in Egypt from a Bedouin merchant in a tent, while we were waiting to board the ferry to go to Philae Island to see the Temple of Isis.

 
 

 

 I want you to appreciate just how tiny some of  Virginia's tea sets are.
 
 
 



Finally, Virginia served delicious refreshments using
one of her lovely tea services.

 
All of these pictures, except the Bedouin teapot which I photographed at home, were taken by Dennie.  And I ecstatically thank him for letting me share them with you.