Tea party

I don’t get invited tea parties every day. Actually, I don’t think I’ve ever been invited to a tea party, although I have had my share of fancy-pants high tea, complete with triangle sandwiches, scones, and clotted cream. So, when Eleanor invited me to her house for a tea party, I was expecting an afternoon of sipping cups of tea with good friends and not much more, but Eleanor had something else in mind.

When I arrived at her apartment, Eleanor had on the most adorable outfit: a cartoon character apron and slippers made by Colin’s mom. She was also busy making crumpets. I was giddy. I had no idea what crumpets were (although I associated them with nursery rhymes) and was excited for my first crumpet experience. I asked Eleanor if I could watch and sat myself on the stool, just enough out of the way. Eleanor questioned the batter. It hadn’t risen to twice its original volume and had only two perceptible bubbles. We suspected that it probably wouldn’t rise much more, and Colin, when he arrived, agreed. Eleanor then set about frying up the crumpet batter in a buttered cast iron skillet.

Colin prepped the tea, readied the table, and had me choose my tea cup. When Shari arrived, we sat down to tea. Eleanor had also made a lemon tart with a pine nut crust, which she sliced and served, and laid out Digestives (something I hadn’t seen or eaten in years). We dug in. The lemon tart was superb, not too sweet with a good amount of tang and a crust that was buttery but not cloyingly so. The crumpets, with the consistency somewhere between a pancake and an English muffin, were, as Colin described, like “afternoon pancakes.” And, the Digestives, were just as good as I remembered them. It truly was a tea party.