The Cup That Cheers

The 4th Annual Cat Rescue Tea Fundraiser in San Jose!

2012-02-12T23:08:00.000-08:00

AntiqueClipArt.com Tickets are now on sale for the13th St Cat Rescue Fourth Annual Tea Fundraiser Saturday and Sunday March 10th & 11th, 2012 2-4pm $30.00 includes a full afternoon Tea at a historic mansion & San Jose Landmark~~ Spend an afternoon sipping Tea for a Cause!Please join us as we raise money for our very own 13th St Cat Rescue. Spend an afternoon sipping tea in a beautiful

History for dinner: To Fricassee a Chicken.

2012-02-08T21:28:00.000-08:00

Instead of a picture of Chicken Fricassee, here is a picture of one of the ingredients, lemon. Image: www.public-domain- photos.com I read a lot of old cookbooks and occasionally a historic recipe sounds great just as it is, and once in a while, there will be one that sounds easy enough that I actually make it (I avoid beating egg whites until they're stiff, for example). Here is one that is

The Queen's Diamond Jubilee, and The Young Lady's Toilette, from 1858.

2012-02-05T17:51:00.000-08:00

Image: Simon Howden. Tomorrow marks the day when England's Queen Elizabeth II equals her predecessor Queen Victoria in one thing -- a reign of 60 years! Queen Victoria is the only other English monarch to live to celebrate her Diamond Jubilee, and hers was in 1897. The U.K. and the Commonwealth nations will celebrate this anniversary with speeches, a flotilla on the Thames, statue

San Francisco International Tea Festival!

2012-01-23T19:05:00.000-08:00

Ferry Building in San Francisco. Wikimedia Commons. I just heard about the San Francisco International Tea Festival from a tea friend. I had no idea that this event even existed, and now I totally want to go! It will be held at the Ferry Building on Saturday, February 25 and admission is $25 per person. Is anyone else going to this event? I've never been to this kind of event before, but

Downton Abbey is back for Season 2!

2012-01-08T21:31:00.000-08:00

Downton Abbey cast photo. Photo: Carnival Films. If you'd like to watch the Christmas Special, click here. It's on KQED for the next 6 or 7 weeks; the schedule is here. Lots of costume fun!

Happy New Year!

2012-01-02T22:20:00.000-08:00

AntiqueClipArt.com Winter Bread and milk for breakfast, And woolen frocks to wear, And a crumb for robin redbreast On the cold days of the year. -- Christina Rossetti 2011 was a hard year for me, as well as several other people I know. Here's hoping that 2012 will be better for us all!

Gluten-free, vegan, cane sugar-free, nut-free, corn-free and soy-free roll-and-cut cookies!

2011-12-31T11:14:00.000-08:00

Multiple allergy-friendly cuccidate! O.k., I made the attempt yesterday to create traditional Italian cuccidate that my aunt and cousin (who are allergic to wheat, gluten, corn, milk/cream, egg, cane sugar and nuts) could eat. I especially wanted the result to be tasty, and not weird-tasting or have a too-strange texture, and I think I can call the following recipe a success! My relatives

Gluten-free cuccidate: can it be done?

2011-12-27T17:10:00.000-08:00

My regular cuccidate. I love to bake traditional treats during the holidays. So far, I've done gingerbread cake (recipe from good old Betty Crocker), nut-free fruitcake with dried fruit instead of candied fruit, cake mix cookies made with a spice cake mix and topped with cinnamon red hot candy, my great aunt's cocoa-anise cookies, and my nut-free version of cuccidate, or Sicilian fig cookies.

Christmas and Its Customs, from Godey's _Lady's Book_, December 1855: part 5

2011-12-23T08:00:00.000-08:00

Furmity or Frumenty. Image from WDict. In many parts of Yorkshire, and other places in England, to this day, furmity (a dish made of new wheat boiled in milk) is the usual breakfast and supper on Christmas Eve. Can this custom be related to the ancient offering of a sheaf of corn to Ceres, at the Saturnalia? It is also common to give the women who go “a gooding,” as the phrase is (that is,

Christmas and Its Customs, from Godey's _Lady's Book_, December 1855: part 4

2011-12-22T08:00:00.000-08:00

Image from Grandma's Graphics The burden of the angels’ song for us is not for days, but to the end of time, and every year brings us more nearly to its full fruition. The same jubilant feeling, therefore, that hung the portals of the Roman houses with boughs indicative of victory and peace, that bound their brows with bacchanalian ivy, and their staffs with branches of the vine, may well

Christmas and Its Customs, from Godey's _Lady's Book_, December 1855: part 3

2011-12-21T12:00:00.000-08:00

FreeFoto.com In Ireland, the custom of burning gigantic candles still prevails amongst the Catholic community on Christmas Eve, and in the north of England it is also common. Light at all times appears to have been used on occasions of festivity and rejoicing—from the rude bonfire to the wax-lit drawing-room; but in these candles we trace another remnant of the ancient type of the season’s

Christmas and Its Customs, from Godey's _Lady's Book_, December 1855: part 2

2011-12-20T20:10:00.000-08:00

AntiqueClipArt.com It requires but little imagination to construe the beautiful fable of the golden age, which the old Roman Saturnalia commemorated, into a prophetic myth of the universal peace and good will which the divine teaching of the Nazarite was calculated to effect upon earth, and which doubtless it will effect when the spirit of His precepts guides, in its simplicity and truth, the

Christmas and Its Customs, from Godey's _Lady's Book_, December 1855

2011-12-14T08:00:00.000-08:00

from AntiqueClipArt.com CHRISTMAS AND ITS CUSTOMS. By Caroline A. White. THERE is something so congenial to human nature, so absolutely necessary to the health of mind and body, in the relaxation which festivals afford, that we do not wonder at the unwillingness which Sir Isaac Newton tells us the heathens felt to part with their holidays, on the introduction of Christianity amongst

We have been to the Dickens Fair!

2011-12-13T08:48:00.000-08:00

We went to the Great Christmas Dickens Fair in San Francisco/Daly City last weekend. We saw lots of pretty costumes. We saw Father Christmas. We saw a Celtic harpist (and his youngest fan!). We saw dancing at Fezziwig's. We had tea at Cuthbert's. We saw chimney sweeps (they climbed down the chimney into the tea room!). We saw the Coventry Carolers.

Thanksgiving Day.

2011-11-24T09:00:00.000-08:00

Image: http://clipart.edigg.com "THANKSGIVING DAY.—When shall it be? The last Thursday in November falls on the 29th. We petition each and all the State governors to appoint that day for our national rejoicing. Then all the land will be glad together and union among the people would be a sure pledge of heart-thankfulness to God, who has given to us, as a nation, such wonderful prosperity,

Another Regency recipe: Shrewsbury Cakes.

2011-11-19T15:59:00.000-08:00

Homemade Shrewsbury Cakes. Elizabeth Urbach. San Jose's South Bay Ladies' Tea Guild recently enjoyed afternoon tea at their Regency Tea and costume workshop, with a menu that featured recipes from Jane Austen's lifetime. Afternoon tea as a codified meal wasn't known in her day, but tea was a very popular beverage just the same. It was served in the morning with breakfast, after an early

A Regency recipe: Seed Cake

2011-11-12T21:18:00.000-08:00

Mrs. Raffald's Rich Seed Cake. Photo: Elizabeth Urbach This is the Georgian/Regency version of the Victorian Seed Cake recipe in an earlier post. I made a half recipe of this cake for the South Bay Ladies' Tea Guild's Regency Tea this month. Here is the text of the recipe as I received it: it's been slightly redacted for modern cooks. Rich Seed Cake Caraway seeds were enormously popular in

A delicious Victorian recipe: Seed Cake.

2011-11-08T18:23:00.000-08:00

Mrs. Beeton's Seed Cake. Photo: Elizabeth Urbach. This recipe is from Mrs. Beeton's Book of Household Management from 1861, but it has its roots in the 18th century, at least. The ingredient that makes it Victorian is the self-rising flour: chemical leaveners (baking soda/salaratus, cream of tartar/pearlash, baking powder) were not fully understood until well into the 19th century, and were

A Regency Tea, fit for Jane Austen herself.

2011-11-07T22:34:00.000-08:00

The Republic of Pemberly. Jane Austen, one of the most famous female authors of the western world, has many fans in the United States and England. She kept diaries and wrote many letters, as well as her well-known novels, and her writings record her love for tea and the fact that preparing breakfast and tea for her family was part of her domestic chores every day. She also wrote that she

Celebrate Halloween the Victorian way: with Parlor Amusements from Godey's Lady's Book!

2011-10-31T16:34:00.000-07:00

Bobbing for apples. Image: http//clipart.edigg.com Of course, you could pull out the old washtub and get some apples for traditional apple-bobbing, you could hang an apple from a string and have your friends try to bite it without using their hands, or play other old-fashioned games tonight, (even if you're going out trick-or-treating), but why not create some science "magic" in your own parlor

A new post (finally!): "Autumn Days" -- a poem from 1855.

2011-10-27T16:15:00.000-07:00

Image: Nikolay Dimitrov. www.eCobo-com AUTUMN DAYS. BY LOTTIE LINWOOD. ‘Tis Autumn time! the summer flowers Have faded ‘neath its golden feet; The birds have left their shady bowers, And winds chime mournfully and sweet; The maple boughs, whose folded leaves Have whispered through the summer days Like bright-winged birds, around the eaves Are flitting in the sun’s pale rays; I hear their

100 years of voting rights for California women!

2011-10-10T23:58:00.000-07:00

South Bay Ladies' Tea Guild celebrating the Woman's Suffrage Centennial at Satori Tea Bar! San Jose joins the rest of California in celebrating an important milestone: the centennial anniversary of women being granted the vote in California! In 1911 the Women’s Suffrage Amendment was finally passed by both houses of the California Legislature, and it was signed into law on October 10, 1911 by

Celebrate 100 years of California women's right to vote!

2011-10-05T00:24:00.000-07:00

Chicago Woman's Suffrage parade marching costume, 1916. Library of Congress. California was one of the early western states that paved the way for the national amendment, and California's woman's suffrage amendment was passed on October 10, 1911 after many years of work and education on the part of the state's suffrage supporters. This wonderful centennial anniversary is being marked all

"Indian Summer" is here!

2011-09-24T10:05:00.000-07:00

image from AntiqueClipArt.com How did the Victorians survive hot weather, wearing 3 or more layers of clothing year-round? They had their ways, which are just as helpful now as in 1852. Unsurprisingly, Godey's Lady's Book has suggestions that are useful for this time of year. Here is one tip for making cut flowers last longer: “To Preserve Flowers in Water.—Mix a little carbonate of soda

September 11: memorial events in the Bay Area

2011-09-11T09:15:00.000-07:00

from AntiqueClipArt.com Everyone over the age of 15 remembers the horrific events of September 11, 2001. The United States was affected in a way we have not been since the bombing of Pearl Harbor, but the attack that happened 10 years ago came from an enemy we were not actively at war with, and for religious, more than political, reasons. There are many lessons that we are still learning from