Vintage High Tea 2

My second high tea at Cafe de Rabey went splendidly. A fabulous day of great company food and champagne. Thanks to all my beautiful friends for joining me. I will post recipes separately.

Today's menu

Me ready to serve our high tea

Strawberries and Creme Cupcakes

Banoffee Pies

Vintage High Tea 1

On Sunday 29th May, 2011 I held my first Vintage high tea at Cafe de Rabey. I love cooking for others and I had the most fabulous day with some wonderful friends. I am already looking forward to my next one.

Cafe de Rabey High Tea Menu

Royal Albert Tea Service

Creme Brûlée

Baci Cupcakes

High tea service for two

 

Bali lunch Fri 27th May

A couple of my girlfriends were coming over for a Friday lunch so the night before I made creme brûlée. I really need to get myself a blow torch. The grill just doesn't cut it for doing toffee. My custard re-cooked a little, but it is still oh so tasty. Now with dessert made what shall I make for the girls for lunch tomorrow. Thinking Holubtsi if I get my act together in the morning. Looks like it will be a surprise lunch for them & me both.....

Well roll on Friday morning and I knew I would change my mind on what to cook for lunch with the girls. It's not even 8am and am thinking of Nasi Goreng and Satay chicken. Maybe it is the cool morning that makes me think of wonderful Bali heat. Bring back my summer I have had enough of the cold already.

Nasi Goreng

Satay Chicken

Anyone hungry?

High tea and afternoon tea

With my birthday looming I decided next Sunday would be a good time to get together with the girls for a high tea. It started off with a booking at Cafe at the Hyatt with a couple of my work friends but after much thought I decided to pull out my china and cook myself. Today being a cold lazy Sunday I spent it looking through copious amounts of cookbooks to put together the perfect tea party. I decided to call it my Vintage High Tea since it will be a combination of using my Old Country Roses china at the high table full of afternoon tea yummies. 

A modified example of my invite

Just in case you were confused as I was, high tea and afternoon tea is not the same thing.  Here are some interesting titbits about tea time, the high and the low:

Teatime originated with the Duchess of Bedford (1788-1861) who needed a little pick-me-up around 4 in the afternoon to fill that long stretch between the morning and evening meals.  At first, she snuck her tea snacks, but then she wised up and invited her friends, and made it the fashion.  My guess is somebody caught her sneaking cookies and she had to quick! pretend that it was the elegant thing to do all along. 

I also read somewhere that fashionable ladies didn't eat much at regular meals, due to their clothing, corsets and whatnot, and ladylike behaviour restrictions that kept them to a nibble.  So even if they could wait for dinner, they wouldn't ever have a fully satisfied appetite, and a little something in the afternoon would be just the thing.

High tea was eaten at a regular high table, hence the term "high" tea.  Afternoon tea was generally laid on small, lower tables, but obviously the term "low" tea didn't catch on.  Too many class connotations, probably.  Interesting that "high" tea was actually the dinner meal for the common people.  Taken later in the evening (around 6-ish), you would usually get more substantial food at high tea than the dainty little crust-removed sandwiches and sweet cakes most people usually associate with the afternoon tea ritual.

Most places that serve "high tea" are actually serving a variation on the traditional English afternoon "low" tea, and you'll usually get small finger foods and sweets with your tea.  

I have only got china for 8, 7 guests plus myself, so the first round of invites are out. Menu is in the planning. Wednesday I will drop into Harbour town to see if they have any matching serviettes, plus down to FAL to buy up chocolate in bulk. Let the fun begin.

Easter cooking

In Italy there is a saying- Natale con i tuoi, Pasqua con chi vuoi. Christmas with your family and Easter with whoever you like. Well that sums up what it is like with our family. We always spend Christmas together but when it comes to Easter we tend to share it around. Well this Easter was a bit like that. It was a foodie weekend for sure shared with some of our good friends. 

I try to be a good catholic girl who always has pancakes on Shrove Tuesday and never any meat on Ash Wednesday or Good Friday. So what was I going to cook this year that will make the taste buds sing. Heath and I have been toying with making chilli mussels for ages so that is what got us started so we invited Craig and Jess plus our neighbours Craig and Bec over for a seafood fiesta. Let the menu planning begin.

 On Good Friday we started with Pizza Pane. After dragging my bread maker out and making some dough we topped it with garlic and rosemary and baked it in the BBQ on our pizza stones. This was followed up with chilli mussels and basil coconut prawns and finished off with macadamia crusted barramundi and salad by Bec. Jess made us pumpkin tarts for dessert and we washed it down with port by the fire.

Easter Saturday night was spent at Marcus and Jasmine's with the Collier family. We ordered yummy takeaway Chinese followed up with a chocolate buffet all prepared by Jas. Oh my goodness there was truffles galore and how can one say no...I didn't bother to try.

Easter Bunny arrived on Sunday and Mr Lindor came out to play. Doggie chocs and Bundy don't seem to go hand in hand. He was a little hyper all day.

Easter Monday was also Anzac Day. At 430am we wrapt ourselves up in our warm gear and made our way to King's Park for Dawn Service. LEST WE FORGET. After service we headed back to the park closest to our car and cooked a BBQ breakfast of bacon and eggs and toast the diggers with a warming coffee laced with rum. After a small nap we got cracking again and had the Steven's family and Cosima and Tristan over for home-made pizza's for dinner.

As a child, I we always had holidays with my mother's family who were Polish (Granddad) and Ukraine (Nana). There were always Pierogi (which are Polish dumplings) or as mum calls them Pyrohy in Ukraine, pronounced a little like pillow-hee. Mum has made some Pierogi and has them in the freezer for me so I hope my sisters don't steal them. Over the next few months I will post you some pics when I get around to making some myself. I also want to get on and make some Golumpki (cabbage rolls). Even mum thinks mine are better than hers.

Good thing these holiday food orgies only come a few times a year!

Apple Coconut Muffins

Sue, Julie and Jo were coming over to visit this morning. I was wondering what to cook for morning tea when I found a can of pie apples in the back of the pantry. Here is the Muffins I managed to whip up for the girls. 

Apple Coconut Muffins

Apple Coconut Muffins

2 ¼ cups self-raising flour

¾ cup desiccated coconut

1 ¼ cup brown sugar, firmly packed

¾ cup canned pie apple

2 eggs, lightly beaten

¾ cup coconut milk

¾ cup oil

Demerara sugar, for sprinkling

Grease or line 12 hole muffin pan

Sift flour into a large bowl, stir in coconut, sugar, apples, eggs, milk and oil until just combined.

Spoon mixture into prepared pans and sprinkle with demerara sugar.

Cook in a moderately hot oven (190oC) for about 20 minutes, or until cooked when tested.

Stand for 2 minutes before turning out on wire rack to cool.

Burlesque Night

On a hot Saturday night in February I had the pleasure of attending Peggy's hens party with my good friend Sandra. The theme of the night was burlesque and believe me all the girls fronted well frocked. We all boarded a private boat and cruised down the Swan River down towards Dalkeith where we all participated in party games and dancing. Once back on land we all headed into Northbridge to the Universal Bar http://universalbar.com.au/home/ for cocktails and more dancing with a live band. Our costumes garnered more than a brief look.

Sandra and Barb down at the Dock

Princess Mel Mel

Mid February found me travelling to Bunbury for Mel's (sister-in-law to be) hens party. The day before mum came to Perth so I could take her shopping as she was starting to panic because a) she wasn't happy with her outfit for the wedding and wanted a new dress and b) we had to hunt down bling ribbon to go on the wedding cake that mum was making. Needless to say after many hours driving all over Perth we were still out of luck. The next plan was to leave for Bunbury early the next morning and stop at Rockingham shops for a last chance buy. We didn't find anything for the wedding but mum did find some new clothes anyway and a new bling top to wear to the hens party that night. After stopping at San Churro http://www.sanchurro.com/ for morning tea, Spanish hot chocolate and churros, which are mexican long doughnuts, we were yet again back on the road to Bunbury. 

 The hens consisted of Mel's favourite things. Everyone was asked to wear black and bling and the bridesmaids added a touch of Mel's favourite pink. We started the afternoon with champagne out on a private charter boat in Koombana Bay where we headed out for a cruise along the back beach. We headed back in to the bay and anchored for the party games. Whilst there we were blessed with a pod of dolphins frolicking around the boat.

Mel and her bridesmaids arriving

After the boat docked we all headed off to Barbados http://www.barbados.com.au/main_resto.php where we had dinner and followed up with dancing. My sisters Ginny, Michelle and I kicked on to a couple of nightclubs, but ending up at the Burly dancing up a storm to the live band, and making sure we had a great night out.

All the McLaren girls: Ginny, Mum, Me, Mel and Michelle

Audrey's Jugs

Watermelon and vodka cocktail

One fine Friday afternoon both Jessie and I had hair appointments. Not wanting to head straight home and do nothing for the night we organised drinks at The Royal http://www.theroyaleastperth.com/ Audrey joined us so our drink session turned into ordering jugs of cocktails and we know how much Auds misses her jugs. I must remember never to leave my phone laying around when Auds is drinking. My FB will never be the same.

Peninsular Tea Gardens

With our love of baking and good English china Liz and I from work decided that we wanted to try all the places that do high tea in Perth. So on the 16th January along with Judi and Marie from work we ventured to The Peninsular Tea Gardens in Maylands. http://www.peninsulateagardens.com/.
 

Me, Judi and Marie, poor Liz was taking the picture

It was a hot summer day and the location on the river delightful. It was such a shame that the service didn't live up to its reputation. Our tiered food arrived and we patiently waited for our tea and coffee. In the end we had to ask again for our drinks. Note to staff, when serving pre-made food allow to come to room temperature instead of serving straight from the fridge http://www.peninsulateagardens.com/thenewmenu.pdf  Oh well plenty more places still to try.

Old Country Roses china (green series)

A New Year

This years New Years Eve was a rather quiet one. We went around to our friends Gus and Kellie's house for a BBQ along with Craig and Jess. We had a bit of a laugh as Kellie had two single girlfriends over and one other single guy, let's just say the testosterone was flying. After playing Jenga with two stacks of blocks we called it a night.

Sunset at Coogee Beach

Over the rest of the New Year weekend we had another BBQ at home New Year night followed up with an afternoon swimming at Coogee Beach with fish and chips for dinner.