Rose Chintz and Baseball Season

This morning is a ball park morning. I got up early, made breakfast, running around the kitchen plating one thing at a time as it was ready: pancakes, cheese eggs, grits, bacon, refills of juice and milk. I sent up children to get dressed, brush teeth, and brush hair. I ran up upstairs to find misplaced cleats. I ran back down to help locate hats and ballbags. I rushed everyone out the door with their dad for pre-game practice, only to realize I had never eaten my breakfast!

So I decided to take a little while to enjoy it since the games don't start for another hour! I made a little breakfast tray, adding the potpourri from my earlier post here.

Until recently, I shied away from a lot of pinks and pastels on the table. But, I have fallen in love with the Rose Chintz pattern by Johnson Bros.  I found four dinner plates at TJ Maxx for 3$ each. Whoo hoo! (I have 24 snack plates, too. You can see them in my daughter's post here. They are a very unusual shape. To die for!) Here I am using the dinner plate with my Fortecrisa pink swirl glass dinner and salad plates. The glass plates are a little smaller, more like the size of a luncheon and a bread and butter, so it's a perfect fit!

Old Master by Towle.

A sterling goblet.

A sterling sherbert with potourri.

And a rose napkin! I will post a tutorial ASAP, but the ballfields are calling!

 All in all, it was really nice to take a breather. Now I have to run to the ball field and cheer on the Cardinals and the Screamers! This is my favorite time of year!

And later that day...

My littlest at bat getting ready to make the first hit of her game, and my middle one at the fence cheering his sister on. I love ball season. :)


Happy Saturday!


-Andrea


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The Pinkest Party on Earth!

In my city, March brings a festival which celebrates the blooming of over 300,000 Yoshino cherry trees. It is truly a sight to behold! Time to “think pink”!

Pink pancakes, pink poodles, balloon glows, free cherry ice cream being served in one of the downtown parks – just of few of the sights and tastes that we enjoy this time of the year. Even the local newspaper prints a pink edition each year.

We have our own cookbook, which contains only recipes using cherries as one of the ingredients. I will share one of the recipes with you at the end of the blog – White Chocolate Cherry Tart. Yum!!

My contribution this year is a luncheon table setting for six friends to enjoy, before going to the annual tour of homes. In keeping with the spirit of the season, almost everything is pink!

I so enjoyed bringing all of the pink together, but I started with a white “Peyton” tablecloth, which is made by Ralph Lauren and I bought it at Dillard’s. I thought that the pink would photograph better on white.

Pink placemats purchased at Big Lots for a ridiculously low price were added on top of the tablecloth.

Pink napkins and “pearl” napkin rings were purchased online.

The white plates on top of the placemats are Lenox Opal Innocence Carved. I love these plates – they are dinner plates, but large enough to use as chargers for older china patterns.

On top of the Lenox plates are smaller plates with marbleized rims. They are actually Johnson Brother’s “Rose Chintz” accent dinner plates. There are roses in the centers, but you cannot see them under the smallest plate.

The plate on top is a salad plate made by Narumi and is the pattern, “Mountain Cherry”, which fits into the theme perfectly!

The tall pink water goblets are from an unknown maker, although I saw some similar blue ones for sale on Etsy that were advertised as having been made by the Dugan Glass Company. I bought mine from Replacements. My daughter loaned me the other lovely footed pink glasses.

The pink centerpiece holding the flowers is an Indiana Glass compote in the “Teardrop” pattern. I bought this one on Ebay, but I have owned a clear glass one for many years. It belonged to my mother.

Also, decorating the table are two pieces in the Fostoria “Fairfax” pink pattern. One is a mayonnaise bowl.

The other is a bon-bon basket. I will use it as a butter dish with a round mound of butter in the center.

Pink Hocking “Block Optic” footed salt and pepper shakers are used at one end of the table.

Hanging from the chandelier is a Japanese paper lantern – who could resist, when setting a table to celebrate Japanese Yoshino cherry trees?

The place setting sterling flatware is “Strasbourg” by Gorham.






My favorite things on the table consist of the other two pieces of sterling silver. The pattern is a very old Blackinton pattern, which is named, “Cherry Blossom”! One piece is a master butter knife and the other is called a large cream ladle, although, it does not look that large.

I wish that all of you could join us in my city to enjoy the beautiful spring weather and witness the look of thousands of cherry trees bursting out in blooms at the appointed time, as though some magical alarm clock woke them just in time for our glorious Cherry Blossom festival!! Enjoy the recipe!

WHITE CHOCOLATE CHERRY TART

1¼ cups butter, softened

¾ cup sugar

2 eggs

1 teaspoon vanilla

1 bar, 3 ounces, white chocolate

Crunchy Almond Pastry Shell

Cherry Topping

¼ cup toaster sliced almonds

Cream butter until smooth. Gradually beat in sugar until mixture is smooth and fluffy. Beat in eggs one at a time. Blend in vanilla and white chocolate. Spoon into Crunchy Almond Pastry Shell. Chill until firm.

Spoon Cherry Topping over tart. Chill up to 8 hours. Remove from refrigerator about ½ hour before serving. Sprinkle with toasted sliced almonds to serve.

Crunchy Almond Pastry Shell

1 cup flour

2 tablespoons sugar

¼ teaspoon salt

1/3 cup butter

¼ cup diced toasted almonds

3 tablespoons water

Combine flour, sugar and salt. Cut in butter until mixture looks like coarse corn meal. Stir in almonds. Blend in water to form crumbly dough. Pat into bottom and sides of a 9-inch tart or pie pan. Chill 20 minutes. Bake in a 400 degree oven for 15 minutes or until lightly browned. Cool.

Cherry Topping

1 can, 21 ounces, cherry pie filling

2 tablespoons brandy

3 tablespoons sugar

¼ teaspoon almond extract

Combine cherry pie filling, brandy and sugar. Boil 5 minutes, stirring constantly. Blend in almond extract.

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Sweet Thirteen

 

I am not sure how many times you have visited our blog, but I am the one in middle school, Emma. I have just gotten into tablescaping with my mom and grandmother this year, though I have played in the china since I was little.  I have been thinking that I can design my own table for my 13th birthday. Today is the first of many  ideas I am considering. I also want to do all of the food if I can, so everything you will see today is something most 12-year-olds can do.

I decided to do a beautiful buffet. Snack plates that I just adore sit at one end next to the silver. My mom's silver is Sir Christopher by Wallace. My silver is Francis the 1st by Reed and Barton, but I don't have 12 salad forks yet. I wanted to use her cocktail forks, but she only has 8 of those I think.

My mother loves snack plate and cup sets. These snack plates are Johnson Brothers Rose Chintz pattern.  I like how they have a place for the cup. They have blue, brown, and green in the pattern, too, so they would match different kinds of rooms.

My mom actually bought these plates to go with the punch bowl set. She bought the punch bowl set from a woman in New York off eBay. The 24 cups, the bowl, the stand, and the ladle were less than $40 including shipping, she said. After she bought the set, she wanted 24 plates to go with them. She doesn't have the actual cups in the pattern, but she said she doesn't need them because the punch cups fit. She found 24 of these great plates on Replacements.com. I am only using 12 of everything on this table.  I really adore these plates. They look white here, but they are actually cream. I still wanted to use the white tablecloth, though. I think they look fine on white.

For the food, I decided to use anything we had that didn't require cooking. 

I used fresh vegetables and ranch dip.

And I had crackers and cheese.

We have bought a lot of Girl Scout cookies lately, so I included those and some of the Valentine's candy we still have.

The grapes were pretty on the table. My mom bought this bowl and the matching chip and dip at an Oneida outlet store many years ago.

I think you can tell from this angle and some of the other pictures, I had peanuts on the table. My little sister and I love peanuts and peanut butter. As a baby, she called it teeny butter, and we still call it that in our house.

We also always have several kinds of juice. This is a punch I made with CranGrape juice. I found the recipe on the internet, and I have copied it at the bottom.

I added potpourri in a crystal basket and rose petals in a crystal bowl. They are the rose petals from my mother's earlier post about making frosted potpourri. Those were just for decoration, not eating, of course! I also had topiaries and a vase of flowers. My grandmother bought the vase in Ireland, and it was a gift to my mother. The pattern is Lismore by Waterford. 

The napkins are some my grandmother gave to my mother before I was born.

I like this look for a thirteenth birthday party. I would want to add a meat if it were close to a meal time.  The best part about this tablescape is that after my mom helped me take pictures, we ate this for lunch. Not all of it of course, but it was fun to make a buffet for ourselves!

Thank you for visiting me and trying the recipe!

Emma

CranGrape Punch

2 quarts of cranberry-grape juice, chilled

1-6oz can of frozen pink lemonade concentrate, thawed

1-32oz bottle of sparkling water, chilled

Mix the juice and lemonade concentrate in a punch bowl. Stir in the sparkling water just before serving.


From: http://www.freecookingrecipes.net/beverages/sparkling-cran-grape-punch

We used lemon juice and water to substitute for the pink lemonade concentrate and Sprite for the sparkling water. It was really good!


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