Edenbrooke Book Club Tea Party

Tea Parties and book clubs (I belong to three) ... are two of my favorite things, and clearly I can not get enough of either ... Tea parties I have held ...

Jane Austen Birthday Tea for the Jane Austen Society of Utah

Witches Tea Party

Mad Hatter's out of doors Tea Party

Downton Abbey Tea Party and Geneva Heights Eighth Ward Reunion

Private Tea to celebrate Price William's Wedding with my friend Stacy (No Prince William did not actually marry Stacy, but I'm not sure she would have minded if he had.

Grandchildren's Tea Party

... and a few misc assorted, non themed tea parties ...

 So for this tea party, our first to arrive is our own glamorous Shanna, our book club leader.  

She was later joined by Ginny and Lori ... yes our book club is very intimate in size, and two other regular attendees, sadly had conflicts. Missed you Lindsey and Alison!

 Above is our tea table, and to the right is out toast station, including marmalade, clotted cream and lemon curd ... yum.

Eating cold toast, Brit style is just different ... but delicious with the accouterments.

Of course cucumbers sandwiches are a must for any tea menu.  I have always made them with just butter and cucumber, with maybe a tiny slice of red onion, like the ones I was served at a tea house in Brighton, UK ...

This time, however, I found a recipe on line for Lemon Dill Cucumber Sandwiches, that I am in love with.  You can find the recipe here.

We read Edenbrooke by Julianne Donaldson, and we all loved it, except for Lori, who had to read it a second time to fall in love with it ... so really how much could she have disliked it, if she read it again?  Yes, this book is very Austenish ... which I love, her next book, which three of us have already read, Blackmoore is definitely written by Donaldson as a Bronte soul sister ...

 .. and during the discussion of the book, if a question arises ... the total wealth of human knowledge is just one pink ipad away!!

You all come back now, hear?

Chawton Garden Cottage Gets a New Sign Board

 Today I thought I would share a little project I did over the weekend ... I put together a new sign for 'Chawton Cottage' ... the old sign had ...

faded badly in the year a half since it was put on the garden house.  I spent much of Saturday, between watching sessions of General Conference for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints on TV, stripping the antique door header.  It had about eight layers of paint, and several thick chunks of paint were missing, so it would have look weird if I had just painted it.  I stripped it to smooth it out before painting it, but

 when I was done, I loved the multi-color levels of paint so much, I decided to skip the new paint.  After all, many of the windows that make up the garden house have shabby original paint.

Just as a reminder, the original Chawton Cottage is the house where Jane Austen did most of her writing!

I was very happy with how it turned out, in fact I like it better than the original sign that I put on the cottage when it was new in the late summer of 2012.  The letters are metal, and I think they will stay readable much long, at least I hope so.  Happy Spring everyone!!

Afternoon Tea in Austenland

 Oh you know me, such a fan of afternoon tea ... and this tea was just the best.  It was hosted by the Salt Lake Film Society as a fundraiser.  They were showing the Salt Lake Premiere of Austenland, and added an opening event of tea at the Grand America, where they host 'High Tea' every afternoon.

My friend Robin, who is also an Austin Addict, and member of the Jane Austen Society came along.  Here we are, all decked out in our finery ... ready for tea!

 We sat with two new friends, Sandy and Rebecca ... and as it turns out, Sandy lives on my nephew Andrew's street, and her sister-in-law, Rebecca, went to High School with my niece Megan.  Such a small world.

Here, Shannon Hale, the author of the book Austenland, as well as the screen play, talks about how she came to write the book ... and, like many, for her it started with the 1995 BBC Pride and Prejudice.

Austenland, the book, is one of my favorites, as are many of her others, such as Princess Academy and Goose Girl, both of which I read and loved before finding out she is a fellow Utahan, and lives 60 miles away from me.

 While Shannon was presenting, the dessert portion of tea was delivered ...

 Then it was time to say good bye to our new friends, and make plans to arrive back in Salt Lake at the Broadway Theater for the premiere some 3 hours later.

Here we are at the premiere with the cute photographer, complete with an antique top hat.

Robin and I were first in line, and got to see all the other Austenland and Austen groupies as they arrived.

Then we got to meet 'Darcy' for a moment on the red carpet!

Our friends Barb (Right) and Donelle (Behind the camera) joined us for a fabulous romp through Austenland.  We all loved the movie, though it was amazingly different in slant from the book.  We also got to meet Jerusha Hess, the Director (Most famous for her work on Napoleon Dynamite) ... all the insider stories were just delish!