A Brave Writer's Life in Brief

The Little Tea Book

COMPILED BY
ARTHUR GRAY

Compiler of Over the Black Coffee

ILLUSTRATED BY GEORGE W. HOOD

Thank Project Gutenberg for this wonderful Internet copy of the literary classic. Inside, it houses poetry, the history of tea, odes to the kettle, descriptions of Chinese and Japanese tea traditions as well as the endless veneration heaped on the humble leaf by the British and Australians, the globe’s most devoted (addicted) black tea drinkers. Here’s a sample of one of the descriptions found in this delightful tome:

DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON drew his own portrait thus:

“A hardened and shameless tea-drinker, who for twenty years diluted his meals with the infusion of this fascinating plant; whose kettle had scarcely time to cool; who with tea amused the evening, with tea solaced the midnight, and with tea welcomed the morning.”

Feel free to print your own copy of this book. It is in the public domain.

Over Christmas break, a friend sent me a photo from when my oldest three were five, three and one year of age. In it were a bunch of bread bears we’d made with neighbors for a tea time. I had forgotten all about the thrill of bread bears! So I pulled out the big Kitchen Aid and with my now 10, 12 and 15 year olds, we had a teddy bear teatime last week.

The how-to’s follow in the next post with photographs of my kids enjoying the process.

Here’s how you do it.

Find a good whole wheat bread recipe (we use Fannie Farmer’s cookbook).

Measure and mix ingredients in a Kitchen Aid or use the old fashioned version known as wooden spoons and upper arm strength. 🙂

Hand knead the dough (even if you own a dough hook) because it’s just too much fun to plunge your fingers into that spongy stuff and to get flour all over your dark t-shirts.

Let that dough rise in a warm place.

After it’s risen, divide a two loaf recipe into two big balls. From those balls, you will need to create eight smaller balls. One ball for the head, four mid-sized balls for the paws, one slightly smaller ball for the snout and finally two little balls for the ears. Take remaining ball of dough and flatten into a large circle. Attach the smaller balls using a bit of water on your finger tips and massage the dough together where the balls meet the body. Let it rise again.

We added raisins for the eyes, etc., however that was a mistake. When baking raisins, they puff up and burn. You might want to add them afterwards with a dab of honey (which is what I remembered doing last time once we made this mistake on this round of bread bears).

Cover the bears with a glaze of beaten egg. We cracked an egg into a bowl (yolk and white) and whipped it with a fork. Then we used a paintbrush and wiped the surface with egg. Then bake!

Serve with honey, jam, butter and of course, tea.

We’re in our 4th week implementing The Writer’s Jungle…it’s been a fabulous experience! My kids LOVE copywork and our Tuesday Teatime. I’ve attached a picture of today’s Tuesday Teatime — that’s grape juice and apple juice in the glasses 🙂

Tea time on the fly, almost literally. Starbucks’ muffins while driving the Pennsylvania Turnpike, on the way to visit Grandma. We were listening to a book on tape, The Daughter of Time, by Josephine Tey. No poetry per se, but preparation for reading Shakespeare’s “Richard III.”

Oct. 10

Warm, sunny afternoons are disappearing fast, so we took advantage of this one to have afternoon tea on the deck. Tea sandwiches and cookies, apple juice and tea. Candlelight, even if it is a “bug candle.” Chickadee on the birdbath. Catbird in the dogwood tree. Poetry and prose. And it all turned out to be such a wonderful, connection-filled, CM, Bravewriter “moment.”

I read a couple of poems from Got Geography, which had come from the library that day. My young teenage son worked very hard at not smiling while he read the funny poem he had reluctantly pulled from one of Jack Prelutsky’s wonderful anthologies. Then I read a story poem, “The Cremation of Sam McGee” by Robert Service, and the hidden smiles turned into outright laughter. (Note to self, maybe Service is someone to look into for poetry for teen boys.)

Another serving of nibbles and then I read “The Knight’s Tale” from Geraldine McCaughrean’s version of The Canterbury Tales. We both agreed; there is a reason why people still read Chaucer; he tells great stories. But we didn’t think the story had much to do with the movie.

Then my son wanted to read to me, from Pete Dunne’s The Art of Pishing. “Pishing” is what birders do, making funny noises to try to entice wild birds to come nearer so you can get a better look at them through your binoculars. Pete Dunne writes very well, and is very funny. We were laughing away when suddenly Dunne introduced the term onomatopoeic. My son reads aloud excellently, but this word was a challenge! And we were presented with a lesson on poetic forms, when we least expected it.

Now, we’ve heard birders “pish” birds. We’ve heard Pete Dunne “pish” birds. We’ve even attempted it ourselves, without much success. But the next day we decided to go for a quick bird walk in the park before the rain came. The park was gray, overcast, and silent. The only sound was a lawnmower at the school nearby. Not a bird to be seen.

One of us, I don’t know which, started “pishing” and suddenly — magic! — birds were everywhere! A flock of Warblers, some kinds we had never seen before. Chickadees. Titmouse. In the distance Blue Jays started screaming and then came flying in to see what was going on. Rain started “spitting,” but for thirty minutes the birds kept coming.

Nature and tea. And poetry and prose. And poetry. And Nature. Connections.