By this time of the year everyone has had it with the weather. Every little bud on a tree or bush, every little spring flower peeping through is cause for celebration. And what better way to celebrate than with a beautiful tea party?
Did you know that the late afternoon tea party was invented by a very annoyed and very hungry English Duchess in 1840? Well, you will now. Anna, Duchess of Bedford was tired of nothing to eat until the dinner hour, which in those days wasn’t until around eight o’clock. After a fashionable early breakfast, and equally fashionable light lunch, Anna was ravenous by five o’clock.

One particular afternoon she’d had it. She was hungry! So she had the kitchen staff whup her up a couple of dainty little sandwiches and, oh, yes, while they were at it, bring along some of that nice cake leftover from last night.
Anna enjoyed her late afternoon pick-me-up so much that she started inviting a few close friends over to share in the fun. Since they were all on the same fashionable mealtime schedule too, I don’t suppose many of them turned her down.
Lo and behold, the Tea Party was born. Out of desperation, like so many other great inventions. And now…some 160 years later, the tea party has made a comeback. Tea is the hot new drink. (OK, I admit it. Pun intended) In my humble opinion there is nothing quite like a good hot cup of Earl Grey to put your back on your feet late in the afternoon. The English have always known it. But after we turned the Boston Harbor into tea soup Americans quit imbibing. Mostly out of spite. But that was then, and this is now, and now there is every reason to enjoy again The Duchess of Bedford’s excellent idea.

A tea party can be as elaborate or as simple as you wish. If you are the only one invited, brew a cuppa, add a buttered-white-bread-with-a-few-thin-slices-of-cucumber sandwich, add two cookies and there you are! A pleasant break in the day. Or go all out and invite a few friends to share in the fun.
Here are some tea rules you should know. Even if you don’t follow them, at least no one can accuse you of ignorance.
Use a nice china teacup and saucer, mugs are tacky. Use milk, not cream, if you like your tea milky. Use cloth napkins…paper towels are real bad form. You do not need to crook your little finger, honey. That’s an affectation, and you do not want to accused of being prissy.

Scones are very nice with a cup of tea, but nowadays you can buy lovely ones in all sorts of flavors ready to warm up and enjoy. I know this is about cooking, but I also know just how far you are willing to go.
However…there are some lovely little things you cannot buy…and those I’ll pass on to you. Here is a small selection of tea sandwiches…yummy bites of this and that. And so easy to make.
Curried Chicken Salad

4 chicken breasts, cooked in canned chicken stock, cooled and diced.
¼ cup med sized apple, diced, or in the summer diced nectarines are fabulous!
¼ cup dried sweetened cranberries, cut in half
½ cup small red pepper, diced
6 green onions, sliced, green tops and all
¼ cup white raisins
¼ cup slivered almonds

Mix with:

1 cup Salad Dressing, not mayo
1/3 cup raspberry vinegar
2 tablespoons cider vinegar
2 ½ tablespoons sugar
3 tablespoons hot (as in spicy, not heated) Spice Islands curry powder

Spread on thin sliced white or one of the multi-grain breads with nuts (remember, no crusts) and cut in cute little triangles.

Veggie Tea Sandwiches

Cut circles out of one of the ten or twelve grain breads, generously butter both sides, top with thin slices of cucumber, and some with thin slices of red edged radishes. Yummy!

Cream Cheese and Olive Finger Sandwiches

1 eight ounce package of cream cheese (the real stuff please) soften to spreading consistency with a few teaspoons of the brine in a jar of pimento stuffed olives. Twenty (or so) pimento stuffed olives, sliced. Mix the sliced olives with the softened cream cheese and spread on slices of wheat bread. Cut in cute little fingers. This is soooo good you will also enjoy it for regular sandwiches. Or on a big fat bagel.


Ham and Asparagus Roll –Ups

1 stick of butter (the real stuff!) softened
4 ounces of cream cheese, softened

Blend the cream cheese and butter together

Blanch about 24 stalks of asparagus in rapidly boiling water until just crispy tender…this only takes a few seconds. Rinse immediately with cold water to stop the cooking.

24 slices of honey baked ham from the deli or the pre-packaged kind is fine
24 slices Pepperidge Farm Extra Thin Sandwich Bread. Trim the crusts off the bread, then roll each slice a rolling pin to flatten it. Spread those flattened out little slices with the cream cheese mixture, top with a slice of ham, trimmed to fit, and place a stalk of asparagus on one edge. Roll it up and place seam side down on a tray. Do not allow your family to see these, because they will eat them all before your guests arrive.

Ginnie Bivona is the author of Ida Mae Tutweiler and the Traveling Tea Party as well as Notes From A Chameleon, Sort Of A Memoir and The Seductive Chef, A Cookbook & More For Lovers. She is available for book reviews, tea parties and other fun stuff. Check out her web site (designed by her ever-so-clever darling youngest daughter) www.ginniebivona.com

January Blog....And Letter to Friends

Well, the party is over. And it’s reality time again. Darn it! I don’t know about you…but I had a fabulous Christmas. Lolling about on a glamorous cruise ship in the big middle of the Caribbean Sea, meeting amazing people, reading a 1012 page book (Ken Follett’s World Without End) with nothing else to do but eat, sleep, read, eat, and sit in the sun. Oh, yeah, and eat. It’s so relaxing they actually have to put a carpeting insert in the floor of the elevators to remind you what day it is! And did I work on the script? Um…well…no. I have plenty of excuses though, if you’d like to hear them.
Today is the 9th of January, it’s freezing outside (like 16 degrees) and my little office is worse than a tomb. The window leaks, frigid air is spilling over the window seat like a waterfall. Or should I say glacier? Yeah…it’s a glacier. I’ve stuffed towels and blankets all over the seat, and up onto the window, but it’s still c-c-c-oooold! So, the heck with it, I’m going to ignore it. That’s something I learned from my time sitting with a Buddhist group. If you cannot fix it, or change it, well then, focus your attention elsewhere.
I’ve had to learn to do that frequently in my life. From nagging little aches and pains, to giant problems that seem overwhelming and insolvable, I just focus my attention elsewhere. Right now I’m focusing on what I’m writing, and the cold (except while I’m writing about it) is not in my field of vision, if y’know what I mean.
Christmas required some of that focusing elsewhere thingy too. It’s was the first time ever in my entire life that I spent the holiday away from my family. For a sentimental mush like me that’s heavy. However, I suppose that being on a gigantic ship, with all the excitement and endless entertainment and thousands of people all around made the focusing my attention elsewhere pretty darn easy.
I wondered (OK, I’ll admit, only briefly) about the millions of lonely people who never have spent a holiday with loved ones, or even worse, once had loved ones and now they are gone away.
I don’t know how they deal with it, and I hope I never have to find out. My life is filled to the brim with family and friends, and I am deeply grateful for every single one of them. They make my life what it is.
Joyful, exciting, fulfilling, and definitely not boring. Who could ask for more? And may you, dear reader, have the new year turn out to be your best year ever.

Warmest Wishes

Warm. One of the frequently used, most pleasing words in the dictionary. What’s better than a nice warm hug, a cozy warm bed, a toasty warm fireplace, and I could go on and on but maybe I ought to just get to the point. It’s freezing outside but here in my little house it’s lovely and cozy. And warm. What could be better? Well, I’ll tell ya….

I’m not decorating for Christmas this year. That’s because for the first time in my life I will not be here for that happy holiday. I will be cruising for an entire week in the Caribbean…on board a luxurious sailing ship. I’ll confess, I’ve got mixed feelings about it, too. I’ve never spent a Christmas away from my children. Ever. And I’m such a sentimental mush face that I am sure there’ll be a tear or two about that. On the other hand…life is an everlasting adventure, if you allow it to be. And adventure means you’ve got to step out of your warm little comfort zone, change things up, flap your wings harder so you can fly to new destinations. Who knows what I will experience, new friends I might make, new sights to see, new ways of living. I’ve got my sparkly evening outfits, an over my toes floor length cover-up for my bathing suit, and enough Chico’s tee shirts to last all week.

Picture this; I am sitting in the lovely warm sunshine, on an elegant outside deck of the Voyager of the Seas. The Caribbean sparkles all around me. At my right hand is a cup of foo-foo coffee (for those of you not in the know, foo-foo coffee is flavored coffee, chocolate raspberry being the #1 choice, but I’m certainly open to others as well) in front of me is a laptop computer. I’m working on my new movie script, title: Liz Estrada. Now, can you think of anything more fun than a scene like that? Stay tuned, I’m going to make it happen. Of course, I’ll take pictures.

Now it’s time to wish all of you who might read this, the warmest holiday wishes, laced with love and hugs and hopes for a happy new year. I’ve got to start packing.

Ain’t It Awful?

Last week I had lunch with some old girlfriends. I mean really old girlfriends…we’ve known each other since our kids were toddlers. Now the little buggers are all in their forties and fifties. It didn’t take very long for the “Ain’t It Awful” dirge to begin. Actually even before the meal hit the table.

“Oh, Lordy, it’s not like it used to be.” It referring to anything and everything about our lives today. The ladies leapt right in…one after the other…listing the woes and wrongs in this world so unlike what we grew up with. Apparently, the old world had far less crime, far less abuses from the government and business, far happier, simpler lives. And the ultimate horror of horrors; that damn computer. An invasion of our privacy, a confounder of honest innocent minds, the destroyer of children and so on and so on.

I’ve heard those stupid comments long enough. So, being the reticent person that I am (not) I leaped into the fray. “Spare me that crap,” I said daintily, “ old farts have been saying that since Og built the first mud hut.”

“Looky there,” said the OF’s. “He thinks he’s too good for a ordinary cave! He’s got to have his own custom designed cave! Humph. If it was good enough for Grannie, it’s good enough for the likes of him and his snooty girlfriend.” Then they all sat around the fire, chewing on mastodon bones and grousing about how much better things used to be. Back when they were kids and live in those nice peaceful trees. It seems to be a tradition…get to be about sixty, sixty-five and all of a sudden the world goes to hell in a handbasket.

I’m not buying it. The world is not any worse, but it sure is different. Different is not bad…different is simply…different. Yes, there’s a lot more crime. Reported. Back in the old days you didn’t get the nightly news listing the death and destruction count for the day. It happened, but it simply wasn’t reported. Nobody knew. And as far as governmental and business crime…well, we get that on the news every day, too. And it’s just as bad as it ever was, except now, the bastards are far more likely to get caught and exposed that they were back in the Robber Baron days. Exposed and shamed on the world wide stage. Goodie. They deserve it.

And as for the computer…well…it’s changed my life. I am a writer. An honest to God real writer. That never would have happened if I hadn’t learned how to use the computer. Learning cut and paste was one of the best days of my life. I revel in the knowledge that is right here at my fingertips. For my “maybe a new novel” someday I needed to know what Italian women wore in the 30’s for their wedding. Not a problem. Look it up…there’s pages and pages of pictures. There is nothing you can’t find an answer to, discover anew, see for the first time, learn, expand your mind, your life, your world. It’s glorious!

Children think so much faster now than we do…solve problems quicker, learning to cooperate in game playing with kids all over the planet. We have fabulous new connections to other human beings in places so far removed from our little isolated hamlets. Connections that may well be the answer to peace.

So yeah…they’re right. Things aren’t like they used to be. And that, dear reader, is the good news.

The First Annual Big Question Contest Wanna be Rich OR an Artist? Pick One.

Great Prizes! Publication! Attention! Adulation!

Every Sunday Morning (OK, almost every Sunday morning) I have a lovely chat with my "boyfriend.” He lives in New York and I live in Dallas, But that’s fine…we enjoy our Sunday morning conversations. We’ve known each other since the fourth grade. He was sort of really my boyfriend in high school, we dated a few times until, he claims, my father terrified him so much he asked another girl to the senior prom. I’ve forgiven him, but clearly am still the teeniest bit miffed, or I would never have brought it up, would I?

We have these lovely, interesting visits, enjoying this friendship that began in, as best I can figure, in either 1939 or 1940. After high school it went on hold until our Fiftieth High School Reunion. A tsunami had passed over the dam for each us by then, but we picked up like it had been only a few weeks.

Donald, ( I call him Don, but he prefers Donald) spent his whole life as an artist. He was a designer for Gorham Silver, his work is in museums all over the country. You can look him up…Donald H. Coleflesh. He’s considered one of the top silver designers of the Twentieth Century. Pretty impressive, huh?

I’ve been an artist too, ever since I picked up my first crayon. I’ve experimented with dozens of mediums…I’m not going to go on and on about that, but you can ask my kids. They never saw me without some kind of artsy-craftsy project going on. I’m still at it and so is Don. Artists are like that. They can’t stop. They may switch mediums numerous times, (how many actors are also known as painters?) but they never just sit down and announce that they are done now. Lost interest, tired of messing with it, calling it quits for good.

We talked this past Sunday morning about the fact that only a lucky few artists ever make it to the top of their game, getting rich off their talent. The rest of us just mudge along, doing our thing and we’re delighted if ten people know about it. And the money? Huh.

Don designed stunning silver pieces, I’m sure the museums (Dallas Museum among ‘em, and the Smithsonian to drop just a few names!) paid a pretty penny for them. He has no idea who owned them or who sold them but you can be sure that more than a few dollars changed hands. Not into his hands though. As is usually the case.

Now here comes the big however…when I asked him this morning, if he’d rather been very very rich and able to buy anything he wanted, or would he rather be an artist, it didn’t take but a minute to decide he’d far rather be the artist. And I understand. I cannot imagine my life without the ability to create, to take an idea that just pops into my head and turn it into a reality…even if it’s just a new necklace, a short poem, a new blog…whatever. It’s who I am and how I am. But that’s me. You may differ totally.

Which brings me (finally!) to the contest. Are you an artist? Any art form qualifies, if you can see it, hear it, feel it, or even smell it, it’s an art form. For the purposes of this contest you have to answer the question “Would you rather be a millionaire OR would you rather be an artist?” You can be one or the other, but not even halfway both. Tell us what/why/how you choose. There’s not a penny for an entry fee. It’s free. You can’t beat the price!

And oh, yeah, please read the rules below. (You’d be amazed at the people who don’t)

Here’s the Contest Rules:

1. Entries may be any art form suitable for reproduction in print, that will fold and fit in a #10envelope. Both options are encouraged as an entry, do not think you have to choose the artist’s life to qualify. We really want to know both sides of the question.Drawings, writing, poetry, photography…anything goes as far as an entry, just make sure it fits and can be returned in the same size envelope. Be passionate, be funny, be crass, but not crude. Crude will be burned, not returned.

2. Send THREE copies of each entry. Entries must fit on ONE 8.5 X 11 page. ONE entry per envelope. please.

3. Send your entry by mail only, e-mail entries will be deleted. If you want your work back please include a stamped self addressed envelope. Mail to:

The Big Question Contest
101 S. Coit Road
Suite 36-177
Richardson Texas, 75080

4. Deadline is Aug 1, 2009. Announcement of winners will take place Sept 30, 2009.

Prizes: Publication on the web for sure…with announcements of all winners on Facebook, and Twitter, all winners web sites and blog links posted as well. And if we get enough entries…print publication! Yep, We’ll publish a book of the best entries of both views. It will be available on Amazon.com. Winners will get 5 free books with their entry in it, and be able to purchase books at 55% off for resale on their own web sites, at book shows, art shows, or your coffee table.

The Girls Group

We call ourselves The Girls Group. Don’t ask me why…it just sort of happened. Our little group began one holiday season when Helen decided that she needed to have a party while her house was already decorated for the Christmas tour. We were all members of the Historic Preservation League, so we were invited. We had a great time. And decided we should do it again in a month. Or something like that…nobody really remembers for sure. That was about 20 or so years ago. Another thing nobody remembers for sure. But, what we all do remember is how much fun we have had through those many years.
Carla has always been our style guru as well as our home décor advisor. Nobody ever saw her less than perfectly made up, fashionably dressed and bedecked with fabulous jewelry.
At some point in time, our Christmas dinner became a Carla thing, in her beautiful home on Normandy. We loved going there, it was always so pretty and so festive. Just like Carla herself.
What did we do for fun? Well, a little bit of everything, but our focus for many, many years was the Historic Preservation League, now called Preservation Dallas. We did fund raisers; glamorous events at the Art Museum, at the Gas Building and other interesting venues. Putting on one of those events took team work, dedication and lots and lots of time. Carla led the pack in our effort to make those events memorable. More often than not, she was in charge of decorating the tables, because we knew perfectly well they’d be standout if she did it.
Then we got the Farmhouse. And with it, the Mystery Dinners for special guests. We entertained Stanley Marcus, not to mention many other notable Dallasites. It was so much fun!!! We loved our house and we all worked very hard to make those dinners perfect. Just like Carla wanted (expected) them to be. Most of the time we pulled it off beautifully. Still, one or two times we had to drop back and punt, but nobody ever knew. The disasters stayed hidden behind the kitchen door. Mostly.
Carla loved that farmhouse so much that when Joe asked her one year if she would like a nice new car for Christmas she said no, she’d really rather have a nice new roof for the farmhouse. She got it.
We all know that Carla is an artist. No question about that. Who else would be creative enough to put a little doll chair on every stair step in the Richardson house? And on a bathroom wall as well.
In March we had a fabulous dinner party at Carla’s. It was a gathering of The Girls Group, a very special occasion, Helen had flown in from Seattle to be there. As you can well imagine, putting all of us together at one table, the conversations are non-stop, half of us talking all at once and, um, well, a teeny bit loud. Over dessert Carla announced that she was going back east to visit her college, Mary Baldwin, for a special event. Helen only heard the Mary Baldwin part.
“What!” she exclaimed, “Marry Baldwin??? Who is Baldwin??? I never heard you mention him before!!”
Well, we all lost it. We’ve hung out for years, and we’ve had a lot of laughs, but I don’t think we ever laughed like that before. It was totally hilarious! Carla nearly fell out of her chair she laughed so hard.
But up until the Second Sunday Supper Club dinner in April, I never knew that Carla painted. It was her turn to host the club. While we were all at the table that evening, she casually mentioned that she had painted the picture hanging on the wall. I spent the entire night staring at that picture. It was a lovely piece. Perhaps I shouldn’t have been so surprised. After all, her whole life has been devoted to art in one form or another, hasn’t it?
The whole evening was well done, in a beautiful setting, inside and out, delicious food, wonderful conversations, lots of laughter, a celebration of a marriage announcement, presided over by our gracious hostess, making sure that everything was perfect. Carla knew she was not well, but never a word did she say. It was a party, not time to talk about illness.
How like Carla to be throwing back to back parties in the last two months of her life! Who else do you know that could pull that off?
We’ve all heard the “I’m going to Marry Baldwin” tale several times since then, and I’m quite sure it’s not the last time. I think it’s destined to be one of the prize memories of our Girls Group. We’ve shared a lot over the years, happy times and sad times and sometimes even heart-wrenching painful times. Our lives are sewn together like a beautiful patchwork quilt. We stick together, through storms and sunshine, and I think each one of us truly believes that among our many blessings, one we are most grateful for is our treasured friendships in The Girls Group. Carla will always be a part of that.

My Clock Runneth Over

indeed the Lord is my Shepherd

but if he leadeth me to green pastures

it’s difficult to see them for the miles

and piles of neatly stacked papers

all waiting to be read or filed or

acted upon in ways I have long ago

intentionally forgotten

and even if I live a hundred years

lo and behold most of the stacks

will have crumbled into dust

hopefully long before I do

and that I suppose is the good news