The Keeping Room: Boleslawiec Tea Party

Tuesday, June 21, 2011

Boleslawiec Tea Party

(Click on photos to enlarge or to "embiggen" as Country Girl says!)

After being hauled around in the Colonel's carry on luggage through several airport layovers, these little Polish beauties are safely on my table. I have admired Willow's Boleslawiec mug often featured in her sidebar. And more than once, I have passed up one of the mugs at T. J. Max. I do struggle with my I-Need-New-China habit. I recently visited a unique gallery, The Cat's Meow, in Pine Mountain, Georgia which offers very handsome prints, framing, and a huge collection of Boleslawiec pottery! I oohed and aahed for a long time, but I was strong, and left empty handed. Shopping for a gift in Ramstein, Germany, my dear husband came upon a similar stunning display and confessed it was hard to make a decision. The Colonel knows me well. "Hmmm, blue and white, teapot: dishes!" Trifecta! Yes, this lovely set is a big hit at Graystone Cottage this morning! Cuppa tea?

(Click on blog title to visit the official website for the pottery.)

7 comments:

Hollace said...: What a great gift. I love it! I struggle with a china addiction, too. And I fight it but love to be overcome...; June 21, 2011 at 6:18 PM
Thistle Cove Farm said...: So beautiful! I've seen this at TJMaxx also but only purchased a mug...which I adore and use almost every day.; June 21, 2011 at 7:54 PM
Tess Kincaid said...: Hey, this is pretty! I've not seen this pattern. TJ Maxx is the best place to find this stuff! I love it!; June 22, 2011 at 1:20 PM
Rowan said...: Very pretty and what a lovely gift. I have one or to small pieces of Polish pottery too though not this make. I pick them up occasionally at Country Living Spring and Christmas Fairs where this particular company has a stand.; June 27, 2011 at 10:18 AM
{ T G L } said...: A beautiful tea service and it looks a little 'Delfts Blue'-inspired. If you're the tea-drinking type, by the way, feel free to check out my Give Away. I found you through Country Girl :)

Blessings,
This Good Life; June 27, 2011 at 6:28 PM
Tom Atkins said...: Very pretty! Nothing like a nice tea set to set a table off.; July 11, 2011 at 10:18 AM
Betsy Brock said...: I love dishes of any kind. Blue and white is just a wonderful combination!; July 15, 2011 at 9:05 PM

Here is what I often call Crumbly Gingerbread

I found the recipe on a postcard I sent home to a friend when I visited Grasmere in 1986. This is very close to the gingerbread sold at St. Oswald's church there in Grasmere. This is marvelous with your hot tea. The real secret is adding the sugar at the very last-not blending it with the margerine. I use either a fork or pastry blender to "rub" in the margarine with flour and oats. I have copied it as it appeared on the postcard and added my American interpretation of measurements for certain ingredients.

9 oz brown wheatmeal flour
(1 rounded cup wholewheat flour)
3 oz porridge oats
(1/2 cup Three Minute Quaker oats)
3/4 level tsp bicarbonate of soda
1 1/2 level tsp cream of tartar
3 level teaspoons ground ginger
9 oz hard margarine
(1 to 1 1/2 sticks od Parkay-the less you use, the more crumbly the texture)
9 oz soft brown sugar
(1 rounded cup)

Set oven to 325 degrees or Mark 3. Well grease a shallow tin 14" by 9". Put flour, oats, bicarbonate of soda, cream of tartar, and ginger in a bowl. Add the margarine cut into small pieces. Rub in well with fingertips until the mixture resembles breadcrumbs. Stir in sugar. Put into tin and press down firmly with a floured fork. Bake for 20 to 30 minutes until pale brown. Cut into squares whilst warm and leave in tin until completely cold. Keeps well in airtight tin.

The Secret Heart

Here is my Valentine to every parent who remembers looking on a sleeping child...and lingering in the moment....
Enjoy & linger,
Firelight

by Robert P. Tristram Coffin

Across the years he could recall
His father one way best of all.
In the stillest hour of night
The boy awakened to a light.

Half in dreams, he saw his sire
With his great hands full of fire.
The man had struck a match to see
If his son slept peacefully.

He held his palms each side the spark
His love had kindled in the dark.
His two hands were curved apart
In the semblance of a heart.

He wore, it seemed to his small son,
A bare heart on his hidden one,
A heart that gave out such a glow
No son awake could bear to know.

It showed a look upon a face
Too tender for the day to trace.
One instant, it lit all about,
And then the secret heart went out.

But it shone long enough for one
To know that hands held up the sun.

May 20th is the 400th Anniversary of the Publication of Shakespeare's Sonnets: Sonnet 116

Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O, no! It is an ever fixed mark,
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.
Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come;
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
If this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.
William Shakespeare

Tuesday, June 21, 2011

Boleslawiec Tea Party

7 comments:

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