Effortless Entertaining: Afternoon Tea edition

When your kids want birthday cake, but your family is done with birthdays until spring?

Have a birthday party for your eldest son's hobby horse Christmas Horse III (known to his friends as simply Horse). Horse joined our family the weekend of our small town's Oktoberfest, and as such his birthday is observed as a moveable feast, the first Saturday in October. We celebrate his birthday with afternoon tea, which is both an easy and economical way to entertain. I estimate I spent about $20 on groceries- not bad for a gathering of thirty people. Since nothing save the tea is served warm, this meal lends itself well to being made ahead. If you have an older child, the two vegetable items could easily be made by them.

Menu
Cucumber Slices with cream cheese and tomato
Celery Sticks with Pimento
Deviled Eggs
Curry Chicken Salad Sandwiches
(Imitation) Crab Rolls
Scones (by Neighbor 1) with Apple Butter
Cookies (by Neighbor 2)
Never fail chocolate cake with ganache (also excellent made with coffee or red wine in place of beer)
Rooibos tea
Chai
I meant to put out a bottle of sherry, but forgot and no one seemed to find anything lacking.


 

This year we had 10 adults and 8 eating children in attendance. I made a dozen each of the sandwiches (2 lb chicken breasts and 2 packages imitation crab), 1 dozen deviled eggs, and 2 dozen of the cucumber slices. No one went hungry, but there were not many leftovers, either. I had one large slow cooker full of chai (could have used more) and made two pots of the rooibos tea over the course of the afternoon. The adults used bone china, but since the kids had theirs al fresco, they used tin cups from the picnic basket.

A horse is a horse, of course, of course....

Easy, economical valentines

 

I am so grateful that our parish school held the Valentine's Day parties before Lent, but that meant we spent last week making these cards. Inspired by a recent magazine feature, my four year old son and I made these valentines for his classmates (and about half of our small town). 

We split the project over a couple afternoons. On the first day, I drew designs onto unlined 3x5 index cards with a white crayon and he used last year's school paintbox to watercolor over the design. After they had a chance to dry overnight, I helped him with the text, and we taped on an Andes mint (possibly the least expensive individually wrapped chocolate). The whole project was basically sunk cost, aside from the candy. And since index cards come in such large packs, we were able to make cards not only for his classmates, but our neighbors and other people who feature largely in his life... like the butcher.

Preparing for Winter

Copying country-bred Mr. Ray who always "put down" staple foods for the winter, Joe and Betsy stored in their basement a barrel of apples and baskets of potatoes, turnips, and onions.  But it was Aunt Ruth's idea to lay in a big sack of flour.  "In Butternut Center they used to say 'Uneeda loaf of Ruth Willard's bread,'" she told them roguishly.
(Betsy's Wedding, Maud Hart Lovelace)

I am the first to admit: with a butcher/corner grocery store three blocks away (who delivers!), I was not in the habit of keeping a lot of food on hand in my pantry.  After all, if I had no plan for dinner, I could walk down or phone the butcher for a whole chicken, a few sweet potatoes, as well as a head of broccoli, and have two night's dinners for $10. But with multiple little ones and the treacherous conditions of our cobbled streets after snowfall, I needed a better plan for the winter.

Although my 1883 Victorian house does have a root cellar, it is only accessible through a hatch in the backyard and runs a bit warm for perishable food storage. But I am fortunate to have a floor to ceiling pantry cupboard in my kitchen. (My only complaint is that it is too deep, since it was built the same width as the range. First world problems...)

I took the advice of Mr Ray, and buy a five pound bag of carrots, potatoes, and flour, as well as a few pounds of celery, onions and apples every time I do my staple grocery shopping (about every other week). That way, if weather intervenes to keep me housebound, I can still make a few days worth of nutritious meals for my family. I find that for four eaters, this is the quantity we can eat through before the produce stored at room temperature goes bad. I don't kept powdered or evaporated milk on hand; in our climate, storms don't tend to come up suddenly, and we have never been truly housebound. If you aren't prone to losing power in storms (we are) I would also recommend keeping a bag of frozen chopped spinach in your freezer- it adds a lot of freshness to dishes.


Here are a few favorite pantry meal combos:

• Canned clams plus onions and potatoes= Clam Chowder
• Dried beans plus canned tomatoes plus carrots and onions = Minestrone Soup
• Dried black bans plus carrots and onions= Black bean soup 
• Dried beans plus dried chiles plus canned tomatoes= Vegetarian chili
• Lentils/beans plus pasta = Pasta e Fagioli
• Dried chickpeas can be cooked into hummus, served with carrot and celery sticks
• Dried chickpeas plus olives plus sun-dried tomatoes plus couscous = Middle Eastern dinner
• Canned salmon becomes salmon patties, served with potatoes
• Potatoes plus onions = Potato pancakes
• Potatoes plus onions plus canned pimentos = Delmonico potatoes
• Pasta plus canned clams plus canned tomatoes = Linguine with Clams
• Pasta plus canned tuna or shelf stable smoked sausage plus capers, olives, and canned or sun-dried tomatoes = Pasta Puttanesca
•  Apples are delicious for fresh eating, applesauce, and baked apples.
• Flour plus vegetable shortening = biscuits or pie crust

What are some of your favorite pantry meals?

St. Clare, Seamstress

From First Things, a story in which a conservator at work uncovers an eight-century-old story of a very famous church lady.

Quotes: Celebrating the Liturgical Year

We're on the cusp of a liturgically packed time of year, especially when it comes to our domestic churches. All Saints' and All Souls' are this week, and Christ the King and Advent are just around the corner. Given that, I thought Mary Reed Newland's reminder to take any hitches to our best-laid plans in stride was particularly timely:

"We planned things that never quite came off. We planned things that fell through. Sometimes the family didn't respond, or the order of the day was disturbed by some unexpected event and we celebrated not a thing, except perhaps by way of a passing thought that today was to have been different—if only it had turned out right. But looking back, some of the most valuable lessons are learned with the failures, because this is a way of life we hope will perfect us in doing God's will, not in having our own. Once St. Gertrude complained to Our Lord that He didn't send her the grace to enjoy one of the greatest feasts as she had hoped to do. He replied that it would have pleased her to enjoy it, but it pleased Him more to have her offer the lack of Joy to Him. So sometimes He teaches us best by letting us get nowhere."

 from "The Year and Our Children"

Sunshine on a Cloudy Day

A little preview of tomorrow's meatless recipe.

I can't even begin to tell you how fragrant my dining room is right now.

Jam-spiration

Margaret at Ten Thousand Places has just opened her jam shop for the season, and her flavors sound so wonderfully adventurous (Plum and Crabapple with Lavender, anyone?) I'm especially intrigued by the savory offerings, including a Pinot Noir jelly (for cheese tastings, of course!).

This post describes her stock, as well as promising details in future posts. Or, you can just head straight over to her shop to peruse.

Around the world in 48 hours

I followed this decoupage tutorial to give new life to an old wooden folding table that my husband bought his first year of graduate school, and had been loved with ink stains etc since. If I lived in a house and tended to keep things in between craft projects, the only thing I would have bought was the polyacrylic. I painted the table legs blue, and used my old Eurail map as the top (I skipped building a second top, as the piece was unfinished). It’s a great way to give new life to old treasures and a facelift to old furniture.

If I was doing it again, I would:

-trim out the corner squares. My hospital corners didn't look as neat after the polyacrylic.

-dip the whole map in the medium (as one would for wall paper). I ended up with a few wrinkles, despite my best efforts.

Uplifting the mundane

This take on a dry erase board has been making the rounds of various ladies' magazines and blogs and it really is a nice addition to my kitchen.

Supplies:
large picture frame with glass
light colored fabric 1" larger than the back w(edges serged or treated with Fray check)
stapler
masking tape (optional)

Remove carboard backing. Wrap fabric around it, smoothing away any wrinkles. Open stapler, and staple fabric in place on reverse side. Place inside frame, fabric side forward, and seal back (either with masking tape, or replacing the original staples etc).

The whole process took 5 minutes, start to finish, and cost next to nothing. It would make a lovely hostess gift or dorm-warming present.

N.B. If you have little ones or a tile floor, I would recommend making sure the frame is hung with wire rather than relying on the backing loop for support, in case the frame gets knocked.

Making it beautiful

A thing of beauty is a joy for ever

Its loveliness increases; it will never

Pass into nothingness; but still will keep

(Keats)

I have been occupied lately with an impending move, that has required packing up my beloved scullery.

In the process, I've come across a number of jars carefully saved. The jars themselves are quite lovely. (I haven't decided whether I buy Inglehoffer mustard for the mustard or the jar- I love their little potbelly shape, and they are the sweetest bud vase for a casual table.) Glass jars are so handy and timelessly beautiful for coralling sundries- but I didn't feel the need to annonce for eternity that this jar once contained creamy horseradish.

That's where my good friend contact paper comes in (and this was nothing fancy in the way of contact paper- my husband picked it up at the hardware store). I traced circles as large as the bottom diameter, then cut rectangular strips the same length as the circumference, and smoothed it all together.

Voila- pretty little jars for pennies. My next project will be to re-cover the lids of my spice jars, which are almost all re-purposed condiment jars, since I buy spices in bulk.

Also check out my new bud vase for larger blossoms (originally a bottle of Redemption bourbon). I like its lines.

Reclaiming the Rag Bag

An impending move has me mercilessly weeding through my posessions, and I came across two bundles of potentiality that had been lingering in the ragbag for many years. T-shirts and other knits get claimed as rags rather quickly, but old garments unfit for donation might have a long stint, as I am not much of a sewer. The menfolk of my kin are hard on dress shirts, and that compromised a large portion of the ragbag's contents.

The shorts (right) are nothing to write home about- I traced a pair of my infant's shorts for the pattern, then sewed an elastic casing to the top. It's nice to see an old shirt of my brothers' passed on to a new generation.

But I am rather proud of the pants. Since I do most of my sewing by hand, I try to keep the original seams in a garment intact. I cut the arms off an old dress shirt, and again used an existing infant garment as a pattern, leaving an extra few inches in height at the waist to make the elastic casing. All it took was two seams- one between the legs and one around the waist. The inseams of the arms are the inseams of the pants, and the cuffs are a darling detail that allow the pants to grow with the child. If someone in your family has an outgrown plaid shirt, those could be turned into darling preppy pair of pants for your little one.

Sew Homegrown

A coworker of mine just introduced me to Sew Homegrown, a blog that has all kinds of Anthropologie-inspired home-making ideas to pique a Church Lady's interest. From having a cleaner house in less than an hour a day, to recipes, gift ideas, home decorating and much more, it's definitely worth a look.

For all the Jane of Lantern Hill fans- do you think Aunt Irene's chocolate peppermint cake was anything like this?

Kinfolk

I just finished reading Issue One of Kinfolk: A Guide for Small Gatherings online, and it was chock-full of inspirations from kindred spirits. The gatherings range from coffee for two, to dinner parties, to a picnic in a meadow, with an emphasis on simplicity, the better to enjoy each others company. I can't say how much I loved the fact that the first section is Entertaining for One, (i.e., alone time). I even came away with a few insights relevant to my prayer life, as those articles focused on making time to be quiet every day, both outside and in.

Do read and enjoy, pluck something for your quote journal ("A house is no home unless it contains food and fire for the mind as well as the body."), and walk away with some new ideas for your next gathering of two or twenty.

(Cloche tip: Margaret Perry)

A thought for the weekend

Source: funkyvintagekitchenblog.com via justcrazyjane on Pinterest

Considering this quote in the light of Catholic theology (i.e., that we are all meant to conform ourselves to God, who is the Creator) ought to give you more than enough to ponder for the weekend.

Myself, I've been feeling quite creative lately; something about the change of seasons always does that for me. I have a nearly-finished Father's Day present on my sewing machine, along with a shirtdress for summer dinner parties; several less-worn items in my closet are slated for reworking or embellishing to get them back into the rotation; the sprouts in my little garden are starting to look promising, and I'm hoping to tackle some home improvements in the near future.

What creative things have you slated for the coming week?

Lucy the Chair Lady

"[Rose] had also begged from an old aunt at Beverley Farms a couple droll little armchairs in white painted wood with covers of antique needlework. One had 'Chit' embroidered on the middle of its cushion, the other 'Chat.' These stood suggestively at the corners of the hearth.

"'Now Katy, said Rose, seating herself in 'Chit', pull up 'Chat' and let us begin.'"
[Susan Coolidge, What Katy Did Next]

You really can get just about everything here at Church Ladies- recently, there's been everything from spirituality to college football to needlework to great art to recipes. What can we say? We're women of many interests.

Here follows a double endorsement- both for the Katy books and for taking a stab at upholstery. Let's start with the former.

The Katy books chronicle the life of the Carr family in 1860s America. It is a lovely series about a family living out Christian values and a beautiful testimony to the friendship between siblings. Although the fictional Katy Carr is contemporary with Laura Ingalls Wilder, she has a very life. Katy grows up in a well established small Midwestern town, goes to boarding school out East, and travels to Europe; her siblings are a part of the great expansion of the West. I think the Katy books would make for delightful family reading- they are wholesome without being moralizing, like most literature branded Christian fiction.

Now for the heavier topic. Yours truly has a big heart.... especially for lonely chairs. It started innocently enough. I needed an extra chair for living room. Enter a nice chair from the consignment store. Then came the Holy Rosary parish rummage sale. It took 3 trips with my compact car, but I hauled 5 hand-carved cherry chairs home... for the grand total of $25. Another one of my collection, found on a street corner in a college town, is the most historic. When re-covering it, I discovered a manufacturing sticker dating the chair's construction to Matoon, IL, 1912 and freighted to Boise. I can only image the stories it could tell. And over Memorial Day weekend this year, I found a solid cherry captain's chair on my way to the market.

Changing the seat cover on a chair is one of the easiest skills. My mother taught me how when I was 5. All you need is a screwdriver and a staple gun (with staples at least 1/2" long).

If you are starting with a reclaimed chair, wash the wooden portion with oil soap. Dry it, then unscrew the pad. This is also a good time to rub the wooden frame with Old English scratch cover, in light or dark wood as appropriate.

Examine the condition of the chair cushion. If it's intact and clean, you can cover right over it. However, if the cover is in poor condition or has holes with padding exposed, you'll need to re-cover it with vinyl (more later).

Now comes the fun part, the trip to the fabric store. Don't panic- upholstery fabric can be expensive, but 1/2 a yard will cover 2 chairs, if lining up a motif isn't necessary, and some of the chains often have 50% off sales on decorator fabric. Also, check out the clearance/remnant section. Apparel or quilting fabric alone really isn't strong enough for upholstery, but if you find a print that's absolutely perfect, you can fuse it to a heavy-weight fabric, although it will be more prone to stains, since it isn't scotch-guarded like upholstery fabrics. If the original chair pad is a bright color or in poor condition, you will also need some lightweight vinyl in the same quantities as the decorative material.

If you are a handy needle-woman, you might be interested in embroidering or knitting a cover. Napa Needlepoint has some helpful guidelines for material & design selection for embroidery; here is a delightful knitted seat.

Re-covering the seat is as easy as can be. You use the same technique whether you are starting with vinyl or decorative fabric. Cut your fabric into a rectangle about 6-8" bigger than the pad, with the motife located as desired. Put the chair pad on the ground face up, then use a few straight pins to put the fabric in place. Flip it over, and pull a side taught, then staple in place about 1" from the edge, and again 3" from the edge. Repeat all the way around, taking care at the corners, then trim the excess. Screw the pad back in place, remove the pins, and you're done!

And the greatest of these is love

A heart-warming story from the New York Times:
"Open Adoption: Not So Simple Math"

In the months before I gave birth, when my boyfriend and I were just getting to know the couple we had chosen, I was able to comprehend the coming exchange only on the most theoretical of levels, but it seemed like gentle math: Girl with child she can’t keep plus woman who wants but can’t have child; balance the equation, and both parties become whole again.

During those months, my son’s mother, Holly, observed that birth mothers have to accomplish in one day the monumental task of letting go that most parents have 18 years to figure out. Days after his birth, when I struggled with letting go, Holly sat with me and cried — for the children she never got to have, for the fact the adoption would bring her joy while causing me pain, and out of fear that she had already grown to love a child I might not give her.

I signed the papers on a hot August day in 2000, sitting at a large conference table with my sister, my son’s adoptive parents and agents from Catholic Social Services. I’d sat there several times before but hadn’t yet been able to say the words to relinquish all rights to my son. Each time I was left alone to think and, hours later, was sent home with him.

My pen rested at the intersection of two vastly different futures, and I struggled to see into the distance of each. It did not seem that a gesture as small as scribbling my name had the power to set me down one path while turning the other, its entire landscape, to dust. It was such a small gesture, but it was the first sketch of my life without a son.

The comfort is seeing my son with his family, whom I can no longer imagine him or myself without. He is an earnest child who seems to kick hard to keep his chin above water in the world, but his mother has a certain lack of sympathy that is good for him. When he wants to retreat into his own head, she pulls him back into the refuge of his family and makes him smile. I am ever astounded that I was able to see in her something that would still feel so right so many years later. [full story]

Lucy Learns to Sew: Project 3

Pattern:
None, really

Fabric:
XL Skirt ($4.50, Goodwill)
Small amount of navy batiste (sunk cost from another project)

Other Notions:
Zipper (re-used original)
Interfacing (.50)
Hook and Eye: (1 @ $1.29 a dozen)
Negligible amount of white and navy thread
Sash from summer dressing gown (free)

Total Cost: $5.13
Time: About 2 hours
New Sewing Techniques: adaptive reuse

I found a brand new Coldwater Creek skirt at the thrift store awhile ago. It was made from an excellent quality fabric, but was too wide at the waist and too long.


I originally planned to turn this skirt into a tiered skirt, but after I trimmed off the beads and cut the skirt yoke pieces, I realized there was more fabric than I needed for a skirt and a lot of nicely finished seams. As an architect, I have long been intrigued by adaptive reuse. I saw the potential for a maxi dress- perfect for summer road trips and barbecues.

I turned the yoke upside down (the hips now became the bust). I cut out about 1/4 of the remaining fabric divided evenly over one seam, then gathered the remainder gently. I liked the current hem length, but needed a few extra inches at the top, so I raided the scrap bag for some navy fabric, echoing the skirt's original waistband. I folded it double and reinforced it with interfacing in between the fabric layers. I attached the band to the bodice and the assembly to the skirt, and worked in a few back darts. I sewed the new side seam, replaced the zipper, then made straps from the surplus skirt fabric. A few sash loops, a hook and eye, and this project was ready to go!

If you are starting without a pattern, this helpful tutorial demonstrates how to turn an ill-fitting skirt into a dress; the book New to Old is also full of adaptive reuse ideas with minimal sewing- always key in my book!

Lucy Learns to Sew: Project 2

The progress continues,

Pattern:
Simplicity New Look 6872, Option B ($3.99, Joann)

Fabric:
2ish yards, won at parish raffle

Other Notions:
Interfacing (1/2 yard @ .99)
Red thread (1/4 spool @ $2.29)
2 yards of 1 1/2" Ribbon ($1.17)
Hook and Eye: (1 @ $1.29 a dozen)

Total Cost: $6.22
Time: About 4 hours, at least half of which was because I sewed by hand
New Sewing Techniques: interfacing, zipper

Comments: I picked a trendier cut for this skirt because the fabric looks very dated, so my net effect is "vintage."

Sts Pepetua and Felicity

The day of their victory shone forth, and they proceeded from the prison into the amphitheatre, as if to an assembly, joyous and of brilliant countenances; if perchance shrinking, it was with joy, and not with fear. Perpetua followed with placid look, and with step and gait as a matron of Christ, beloved of God; casting down the luster of her eyes from the gaze of all. Moreover, Felicitas, rejoicing that she had safely brought forth, so that she might fight with the wild beasts; from the blood and from the midwife to the gladiator, to wash after childbirth with a second baptism. And when they were brought to the gate, and were constrained to put on the clothing— the men, that of the priests of Saturn, and the women, that of those who were consecrated to Ceres— that noble-minded woman resisted even to the end with constancy. For she said, "We have come thus far of our own accord, for this reason, that our liberty might not be restrained. For this reason we have yielded our minds, that we might not do any such thing as this: we have agreed on this with you. " Injustice acknowledged the justice; the tribune yielded to their being brought as simply as they were. Perpetua sang psalms, already treading under foot the head of the Egyptian; Revocatus, and Saturninus, and Saturus uttered threatenings against the gazing people about this martyrdom. When they came within sight of Hilarianus, by gesture and nod, they began to say to Hilarianus, "You judge us," say they, "but God will judge you." At this the people, exasperated, demanded that they should be tormented with scourges as they passed along the rank of the venatores. And they indeed rejoiced that they should have incurred any one of their Lord's passions.
[From the Passion of Sts Perpetua and Felicity]

Image: The Ascent of the Blessed, Hieronymus Bosch, 1500-1504

A Dress a Week

Goodness, there are some ambitious bloggers. First, there was the lady who cooked a crockpot recipe every day, and now, via Betty Beguiles, I find this lovely new blog, Sew Weekly. And not only is the blogger finishing a new dress every week, but, so far at least, they have all been from vintage patterns!

Enjoy!