I was re-introduced to this drink at a “new-hire” lunch with the CEO of my former company and other fellow newbees. We sat down to our fancy meal and the CEO ordered an Arnold Palmer. Practically everyone at the table followed suit. It’s funny how that works at restaurants…even if you aren’t purposely trying to copy someone, you hear something that sounds good that you didn’t think of yourself and you immediately want it. Anyways, the Arnold Palmer was delicious and I was successful at making a first impression. Even if that impression was of my watermelon nail art toes that reminded him that I was closer in age to his twelve year old daughter than himself.

In case you don’t want to wait for an excuse to go out to lunch, you can make a batch today!

Arnold Palmer Drink

Tea:
2 1/2 cups boiling water
2 tea bags (black tea such as English Breakfast works best)

Lemonade:
1/2 cup sugar
2 cups water
1/2 cup freshly squeezed lemon juice (3-4 lemons)

Steep 2 tea bags into 2 ½ cups of hot water for at least 5 minutes. Once steeped to a dark brown color, discard the teabags.

To make the lemonade, put the water, sugar, and lemon juice in a small pan. Put on medium heat until the sugar dissolves.

Mix the lemonade and tea together, pour over ice, and enjoy!

Maybe where you are, you can start drinking Arnold Palmer’s this week. I, on the otherhand, am hoping tomorrow’s forecast of snow doesn’t come true!

Which is when I find myself in Starbucks.

photo credit

So, I walked into Starbucks for the first time in Zurich and I ordered a chai latte. At home, I would never just order a chai latte; it would be a grande, three pump, nonfat, chai latte. But, I was scared and didn’t want to sound like the picky American girl.

The second time, I got a little braver, but I tried to simplify my order so they would understand. I went up to the counter and said, “Can I have a grande chai latte, with a lower fat milk, and can you possibly make it a little less sweet than normal?” The girl behind the counter asks, “Do you want nonfat or lowfat?” I replied, “Nonfat please.” Then the girl behind the counter turns to the girl making the drinks and says, “grande, nonfat, three pump chai latte.”

Ahhh. A smile immediately formed on my face. What a relief. Starbucks is still as normal as ever.

Since then, I have been back once or twice (I’m not made of money and these Swiss Starbucks ain’t cheap) and my normal order has worked like a charm. The one thing that is different here is that my name is not common in Switzerland, so the baristas’ spelling is always interesting. At home, the spelling was usually wrong, but it was at least a version of my name. Here I have gotten “Kidney” and “Kitelin” to name a few. I found it a little funny since this type of thing hasn’t happened to me before, so I did what any social media savvy girl my age would do and posted it on Instagram.

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Let me back track one minute to preface the rest of this story.  There is this free pop culture magazine that comes out every Friday called 20 Minuten. The most popular section is called In and Out which shows you what fads are “in” this week and what is sooo “out.” I’ve heard that the Swiss live by this, especially the teenagers, and read it every week so they know what to wear and how to act. Swiss follow the rules, and I guess this In and Out section supplies the pop culture rules to live by. I’ve always been intrigued to see what it says but I can’t read it because there are no pictures, and let’s face it, my German knowledge is nichts (I even had to look that up- it means nothing I think).

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Ok, now back to the day I posted my Starbuck’s cup on Instagram. I was on the train on a rainy Friday afternoon and was checking out the 20 Minuten magazine. I scrolled through and looked at the pictures of train-wreck Lindsay Lohan and outfits to buy this Spring. It’s amazing how fast you can read a magazine when you only look at pictures. Some twenty-somethings sat down next to me, drinking their beers, and talking in English because it seemed one of their friends only spoke English. They grabbed the 20 Minuten and started reading the In and Out section out loud. My ears perked up because finally I got to know what it said! It turns out headbands are very in right now and so is some singer that I have never heard of. As it also turns out, it is sooo last week to update your social media sites with pictures of how Starbucks baristas misspelled your name on your cup. Thank goodness I am no longer a teenager, because instead of being mortified, the pure coincidence made my day.

I guess in my search for American normalcy, I am a Zurich outcast. Luckily, I already knew that.

Due to myself being a tea (and cookie) lover, I had two separate friends send me the exact same recipe for these cute teabag cookies. They are simply…how do I put this… sooo “me”. They combine tea, chocolate, baking, cookies, and cute decorating- my favorite things. That being said, I just had to make them and unsurprisingly enough, I had the perfect occasion- a tea party.

I really like peanut butter and chocolate together, so instead of a traditional shortbread cookie, I swapped in a peanut butter shortbread cookie. Really, any type of shortbread cookie will do, so make them as you wish!

Peanut Butter Shortbread Cookies

print me!

Recipe from Rosie’s Bakery Chocolate-Packed, Jam-Filled,  Butter-Rich, No-Holds-Barred Cookie Book

Ingredients:

• 1 ¾ cup flour
• 1/8 teaspoon baking powder
• ½ teaspoon salt
• 1 ½ sticks butter (12 tablespoons)
• 7 ½ tablespoons smooth peanut butter
• 5 tablespoons granulated sugar
• 6 lightly packed tablespoons brown sugar
• ¾ teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 large egg

Supplies needed for teabag cookies:

• 6 oz chocolate chips
• String
• Fun paper
• Scissors
• Glue
• Frosting tip or small straw to cut a hole in cookies

Sift together the flour, salt, and baking powder in a small bowl. Set aside.

Cream the butter, peanut butter, sugars, and vanilla with an electric mixer until smooth. Add in the egg and mix. Now slowly add in the flour mixture. Mix on low speed until everything is smoothed.

Refrigerate at least 1-2 hours before rolling it out, or put it in the fridge for a few days like I did until you have time to do the tedious part.

When it’s time to roll them out and bake, be sure to cover your cutting board in flour. Roll the dough out just as you do when you are using cookie cutters for sugar cookies.

Since I didn’t have a rectangular cookie cutter, I just cut the tea bags out by hand. To do this, cut a few parallel lines in the width that you want the cookies, and then cut perpendicular for the length of the cookies.

Once you have the rectangular shape you want, trim a triangle off the top two edges to make it in the shape of a tea bag.

Now get out your frosting top or another circular cutting object (straw maybe?) and make a hole at the top where we will insert the string.

Bake at 300 degrees for about 20 minutes, or until golden brown.

Once cooled, we want to dip the bottom of the cookie in chocolate to make it look like there is some tea in our tea bag cookies! Either melt the chocolate in the microwave for about a minute, or melt it in a metal or glass bowl over simmering water. Just dip the bottom of the cookie into the melted chocolate and let it dry on wax paper (preferably overnight or put in the fridge to speed up the process). Once you have your finished cookies, all you need to do is put some string through the hole. Now cut a colorful piece of paper into a square, trangle, heart, etc and glue it to the ends of the string.

And lookie what we have here! These cookies sure do resemble that sacred little bag of tea I cherish every morning.

On our trip back from Europe last week, the flight entertainment system decided to not work. TWELVE HOURS of no movies, music, or TV. Since I was wide awake for 7 of the 12 hours, I made the best of it and took the time to plan my tea party menu.  There were some last minute tweaks but here was the final menu:

Sandwiches: Crab Egg Salad and Cucumber & Cream Cheese rolled in chopped chives

Scones: Cinnamon Raisin & Lemon Poppyseed

Scone Toppings: Strawberry Butter, Lemon Curd, Devonshire Cream, and Raspberry Preserves

Salad: Fruit Salad with strawberries, kiwi, apples, oranges and pineapple juice

Desserts: Hello Dollies and Peanut Butter Shortbread dipped in chocolate tea bag cookies

Tea: English Breakfast and Peppermint

Like any sandwich, tea sandwiches are best when prepared day of. I did what I could to prep for this by making the crab egg salad ahead of time. I love crab deviled eggs so much, that I figured crab egg salad would be just as good and it sure was.

Crab Egg Salad

Adapted from Group Recipes

• 8 hard boiled eggs, deshelled
• 1/2 cup finely chopped onion
• 8 ounce can of crab meat, drained
• 3/4 cup mayonaisse
• 2 Tbs. mustard (Dijon is best)
• 1/2 Tbs. dill
• pinch of salt and pepper
• dash of paprika

Put the de-shelled eggs into a medium sized bowl. Roughly chop the eggs in the bowl and add in all the ingredients, besides the crab.

Once it is all mixed, gently fold in the crab.

To assemble the sandwich, put about ¼ cup of mixture on a slice of bread. Close the sandwich with another slice of bread. To make “proper” tea sandwiches, trim off the edges and cut in half diagonally.

Cucumber & Cream Cheese Sandwiches

Spread a thin layer of cream cheese on each slice of bread. Place four thin slices of cucumbers on one side, close the sandwich, slice of the edges, and cut diagonally. Once cut, roll the two short sides in chopped chives.

I made these scones from Annie’s Eats before, and they were so good that I had to make them again. This time I swapped in some cinnamon and raisins for the blueberries. These take a bit more time than a normal scone, but they are totally worth it. Just get ready to get a little messy!

Cinnamon Raisin Scones

Adapted from Annies Eats

• 8 tbsp. (1 stick) unsalted butter, frozen whole
• ½ cup whole milk
• ½ cup sour cream
• 2 cups (10 oz.) all-purpose flour, plus more for dusting the work surface (up to ½ cup)
• ½ cup sugar, plus extra for sprinkling
• 2 tsp. baking powder
• ¼ tsp. baking soda
• ½ tsp. salt
• 1 tsp. finely grated lemon zest
• ¾ cup raisins
• 1 tbsp. ground cinnamon
• 2 tbsp. unsalted butter, melted

Pre-heat the oven to 425 degrees. Whisk together the milk and sour cream in a medium bowl and set aside in the refrigerator until ready for use.

In a medium bowl, mix the flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and lemon zest. Grate the frozen butter into the mixture.

Mix the butter and flour mixture with your hands. Slowly fold in the milk mixture with a spatula until all the ingredients are mixed together.

Heavily flour your cutting board. Place the dough onto the cutting board. Start kneading the dough, add in flour as needed. The first time I did this, I was hesitant with how much flour I added, but it was a sticky mess. My advice is to add flour generously! Don’t be shy, just throw more flour on until you actually can roll it with your rolling pin. Speaking of the rolling pin, roll that dough out to about a 12 inch square. Then fold it in thirds.

Then thirds again. Now stick it in the freezer for about 5 minutes.

Bring it back out, roll it to your 12 inch square again. Place the raisins and the cinnamon in the middle third of the dough.

Roll it like a log and put the flap side down on your baking sheet. Cut the log into 4 or 5 pieces, depending on how big you would like your scones to be. Then cut the pieces in half diagonally to create your scone slice.

Brush on the melted butter, and sprinkle some more cinnamon and sugar on top.

Bake in the oven for about 18-25 minutes, or until golden brown.

My favorite serving for scones is lemon curd and Devonshire cream. I bought some lemon curd in London, so I served that at my tea. But I made some fresh Devonshire cream. I had made some before with cream cheese, but I think mascarpone cheese makes it taste like the real stuff.

Devonshire Cream

Recipe from Joy of Baking

• 4 ounces marscarpone
• 1 cup heavy whipping cream
• 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
• 1 to 2 tablespoons granulated sugar
• Zest of lemon or lime (optional)

Whip all the ingredients together with an electric mixer until it forms soft peaks, about 5 minutes.

For dessert, I made my mom and my favorite Hello Dolly cookies. I also saw these cute teabag cookies that just were too cute not to make.

I had helpers add the strings on for me! Look out for the recipe to come later this week.

My mom’s friend who lives too far away to make it sent these cute and delicious chocolates for party favors.

My table can squeeze in just about 10 people and the perfect amount came! We just relaxed, drank tea , cheersed my mom who was there in spirit, and chit chatted the day away. In my opinion, there is no better way to spend an afternoon than tea and treats with lovely ladies.

The quote of the day was said by none other than my grandma. When asked if she wanted the fruit salad she replied, “I’m not going to waste my time on that!” With all the scones and desserts to be eaten, we all laughed but agreed. I only made it in case someone wanted something not flour and sugar filled.

Happy 60^th Mom. We love you and miss you.

This party was made possible by the Foodbuzz 24×24 program. Thanks Foodbuzz!

The concierge led me to a five star hotel, the Grosvenor House, for tea in the Park Room. Jon was off working, why not treat myself to a fancy pants high tea? Let’s call it a business research expense. The hostess sat me at a table by the window which couldn’t have been more perfect. I could sit and people watch the Hyde Park walkers with tea in hand. I decided on “Anna’s” Tea service and was very pleased with my decision.

To start, the waiter brought me a fruit salad in mango juice.

Then he brought me my three tiered beauty, filled with tea sandwiches, scones, and mini desserts.

And let’s not forget the English breakfast tea.

There was so much food and I knew I wouldn’t be able to finish so I devised a plan. I took one bite of everything so I could go back and just eat my favorites. I’ll pat myself on the back for this one since I wasn’t even able to finish some of the food I wanted to eat. My favorite part of the whole thing was the two scones with clotted cream with jam or honey.

I’m sure people were staring at me…the tourist sitting by herself taking pictures of everything before she even took a bite. Though, I enjoyed every minute of it and was nice to have the alone time, sans technology or chit chat to distract me from the delicious food and wonderful tradition. And just look at all the desserts! I was in heaven.

The next day after some shopping in Covent garden,  I popped into the ritz to see if they had room for one for tea. I got a weird “ya right” look from the hostess and was told you need reservations two to three months in advance and no street clothes were allowed (as she gave me the once over.)  The attitude wasn’t appreciated so I went on my merry little way. I ended my day with a final shopping trip to an insanely cheap and crowded Primark store, along with some fish and chips with Jon and his coworker at a local pub.

Overall, it was a great start to the trip, but it took a little toll on my overflowing suitcase.

A Vital Tea tasting experience goes like this:

You sit at the bar and get a cute little tea cup.

A nice lady brews the tea, teaches you about the benefits of the tea, and serves a  taste to see what you think.

You taste the tea. Beware, some taste like dirt, popcorn, or even a farm.

Then you look at the teas along the wall and request to try some more. (Or  be like me and wait for the twelve year old sitting near you to do it so you don’t have to be embarrassed to only like the fruity teas with no health benefits)

Then you might find try a tea you really like and want to take it home with you. Yep, I chose the fruity one. Strawberry red to be exact.

And lastly, you bond with your friends over tea and burnt tongues. Pretty darn special.

Shortly after tea tasting, I got two emails from Jeff. The first was to tell us about the wonderful health benefits of our new “blue” tea that we all bought. And the other was just a fellow tea lover that wanted to share his excitement over his new teas. I won’t embarrass him too much, but I will say there were some oh my goshes, talk of subtle flavors in the tea, and the great antioxidants. Not what I expect from a 26 year old male, but I’m 100% ok with it.

I think it’s blue tea before bed time.

First we met Herman the Sturgeon at the fish hatchery.

Then we had some crazy delicous Salmon Chowder at Skamania Lodge.

We stopped by our Uncle Bruce’s house in snowy Sandy.

Nothing better than drinking tea in a winter wonderland.

We sampled some beers at Deschutes Brewery.

The Dunn Family has very different beverage choices.

I met my “little sis” at Stumptown in downtown Portland for some hot chocolate.

My Grandpa told me that Portland used to be nick-named Stumptown. I guess it was growing so fast that they had to clear the land out quickly, and for a while there were just tree stumps, no city. He is full of fun facts.

The men had a plaid party.

We got one last tax-free shopping trip in (where I found supplies for numerous craft projects to come…) and we were off! A quick but fun weekend with Gillette’s.

Makahiki — ”ma-ka-hee-key”

Hou — “ho”

Happy New Year!

I spent the last week in Maui with 24 family members and friends and what can I say other than it was wonderful. You can’t go wrong with the beach and 75 degree weather in the middle of winter . I brought back some Hawaiian tea and am trying to imagine sitting on the lanai looking out the ocean instead of being in the office staring at the computer.  It’s not working.

Instead I will just stare at my pictures and plan my next vacation.

We ate Cheeseburgers in Paradise.

And even won an eating contest.

We kayaked and snorkeled and saw lots of sea turtles.

(would insert picture if someone I know had remembered their underwater camera!)

We had a beer pong tournament.

We played ukeleles like IZ.

We luau’ed for New Year’s Eve.

And we just plain hung out.

Where we off to next year, Gram?

This is not as exciting as homemade egg nog, but I was wanting a tea latte this morning and thought about how good an egg nog latte sounds sans coffee. So, down to fillmore street I went and bought myself my first carton of egg nog this season. I also searched for one of those cool frother things at the grocery store so I could make a fancy latte but none were in sight. Maybe Santa will bring me one in my stocking this year?

There are a few simple ways you can do this:

1. Just add egg nog to your black tea as you would milk

OR

2. Warm up about half  of a mug full of egg nog and fill up the rest of the mug with steeped black tea for a latte. Froth the egg nog if you can!

I bought light egg nog, but the full fat stuff is even tastier if you want that. Isn’t the Santa cow cute?

And you got yourself an egg nog tea latte to keep you warm on these cold winter nights.

Sitting on top of the heater vent, listening to “Glee Holiday” Pandora station while drinking your egg nog latte is advised for the best possible experience.