Gingerbread Pound Cake and a Confabulation of Crows

We've had non-tea friends here, helping with driving as my eye heals, so I've not sampled anything new, but I did do something new in the way of tea accompaniments.  I'd been wanting some pound cake or gingerbread to go with my Turkish tea, so I decided to have both.  I accomplished this by using my go-to pound cake recipe from Baking with Julia (Child, of course) and splitting the batter.  The first half was the usual, the second I added 1/2 the molasses and spices one would use in gingerbread and Voila!  Gingerbread Pound Cake.  It was a great success.  The key to pound cake I have found is to follow Julia's recipe exactly, as to method, and it works beautifully everytime.


I got my Turkish tea at Amazon.  I believe they have four kinds, perhaps more.  Except for the Earl Gray, it only comes in one pound bags.  I am going to get one of those Turkish samovar type pots sometime soon and make it the traditional way.  Although the teas, to me, are on the earthy , as in clean fresh earth, side, they have no twigs that I can discern, being all very small leaved, perhaps chopped.

We were all so excited yesterday afternoon to see a large, beautiful Red-Headed Woodpecker at the bird-feeding station.  That is 4 types of woodpeckers who come to feed here.  There is also a Pileated in our woods, but I've not seen him yet.  To add to the nature scene, one young, two-pronged buck has acquired a small harem of 2 does and 2 of this years half-grown fawns.  They are quite lovely, but have too much of an eye for my hard won plantings.  For some reason the crows decided to have a huge meeting this morning and had so many arguements, I could barely think for all the noise.  I guess they have come to an agreement, as all is now silent.

Our flood workers have done a fantastic job.  Most of Owego looks almost normal, if you can ignore people's weariness, the flood lines on the houses, the closed shops, restaurants, the aid stations, the 5,000 people in the surrounding areas who are still displaced, and the boarded up homes.  There is much sadness and grief and anger, but there is hope and encouragement also.  I really cannot say enough good about all the people who have been here and continue to be here to help.  Many have worked to exhaustion to serve others.

Tea with Julia

This photo is of the Swiss mountains, near Darstetten in the Kanton of Bern, the hometown of my family. What you can't hear are the ringing of all the bells, large and small on all the animals - their sound fills the air with a constant lovely background.

I am a new blogger and this blog really is about tea. I've been reading a lot of blogs on the subject and thought I would add my 2 cups worth.

I was introduced to tea by my grandmothers, kind of gave it up in order to switch to the more "sophisticated" coffee in college. About 15 years ago I got serious about it and have had a great time ever since.

The blogger from Teavana reminded me that Julia Child would've been 97 today so naturally I had to raise a cup to her! After all, through her books and tv shows, she taught me to cook and perhaps more importently, to make light of mistakes - remember the dropped chicken? Julia was a spy during WWII, stationed on what is now the island of Sri Lanka, then known as Ceylon and the origin of Ceylon tea.

The only Ceylon I happened to have was Teas Etc. Ceylon OPI, which I had ordered as a sample. I wish I had some Kenilworth Estate, as that is where Julia was stationed. However, I made do. This is a pleasant tea - very dark dry leaves with an unremarkable but pleasant aroma. It brews up to a dark liquid, again nothing remarkable. The taste is the same, good but not great - the kind of tea to have for those folk who really are not adventurous. I will probably get some more to have on hand for days when I don't feel adventurous either.