Bridge Buddies and Azaleas

Several weeks ago, when my azaleas were at their peak, I invited my bridge group here for lunch.

I can't remember what kind these are, but I love to mix them with these tiny, fringy native azaleas.  They are exactly the same color, but add a really lovely texture.

This organza and pique tablecloth is perfect for this spring table.  It is so sheer, that I layer it over a white caterer's linen cloth.

I just love the embroidery and the fabric combination.

I chose this white Portugese wicker patterened charger, with a lime green dinner plate from Target.  Then, just for this photo, I put the majolica pink cabbage leaf that I use for a bread and butter plate on top.  The flatware is from World Market, but I only have place settings for four, so I used a different pattern, but still in green at the ends of the table.

I layered the napkin over a plain hot pink linen one and used a lucite napkin ring that holds water to keep the azalea fresh. 

These dainty little placecard holders are perfect for the girls, and I added some white china birds here and there. 

These cranberry glass goblets made just plain water beautiful.

I love to include a menu card and I'm always surprised how many people take it home.  The quote that I used this time from Henry Van Dyke reads:  "The first day of spring is one thing and the first spring day is another.  The difference between them is sometimes as great as a month".  

The salt and pepper set is nestled in a wire basket.

This dish held Splenda and lemon wedges.

Here's the way the coffee/tea tray looked.

This was such a happy day and a happy table.

When the girls arrived, we had what we call "bridge tea" in the bar.  It is a calorie-free ginger tea. These glasses are from Ikea and so are the napkins.

This tray is from Ikea, too.  I used it for spoon shaped pastrys topped with pimento cheese and garnished with chives.  The spoons are just refrigerator pie crust with seasoning sprinkled on top and then baked.  I saw this in some magazine this spring and it said that Crate and Barrel had a spoon shaped cookie cutter.  When I went shopping for it, they said they never had such an item, so I just cut one out of light weight cardboard and cut around it.  They were fragile, but oh, so good!

Asparagus soup was the first course, garnished with pink sour cream and chives.  I found these little lidded ramekins at Homegoods several years ago.  The green plate is vintage depression glass and I added a paper doily.  The soup spoons are vintage silver plate.

The main course was a luncheon salad that was a riff on procuitto wrapped melon.  The greens were wrapped in procuitto, and then the plate was napped in melon coulis, small melon chunks, and toasted pine nuts.  I first had this salad at a bistro in State College, Pennsylvania called Zola's when were were there for a Penn State football game.

What better spring dessert is there than strawberry shortcake?????

It was a lovely day with lovely ladies and I am so grateful for their friendship.  I love to set a table and cook for them, as their appreciation is deep and genuine.  The day just ended too soon.

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Tom Turkey and Me

It seems that I'm being stalked!!!!  There is a peeping Tom at my house!!!!  I have a creepy new friend!!!!!

Last Monday morning,  I heard a knocking at the entry door into our terrace level.  An insistant, constant knocking.  As I was still in my jammies, I crept down the stairs, trying to figure out what the noise was.  This is what I found.......a tom turkey with his feathers all fanned out.  Isn't he a beauty?  He was hitting the glass with his bill.....over and over and over.

Then on Tuesday, he was back.....same thing.....banging on the door with his head.  Same time of the morning, too.

And Wednesday. 

And Thursday.

And Friday.

And HELLO!  He was back today!  How freaky is this????  What do you think he wants????  Any ideas?  I told him that I have enough turkeys for friends, but he won't go away.

Robin for Lunch

One of the sweetest women I have ever met came for lunch one day a while ago, and I am just getting around to posting about it.  Frankly, my interest in blogging has been waning, and family stuff has taken precedence, but today, I want to share with you a very special afternoon.

Several years ago, when I first started blogging, I was struck to discover that one of the bloggers that I had been following lived in my little town, north of Atlanta.  I was thrilled to get together with her and found her delightful and inspirational.  Time passed and I thought about her fondly, but it was just this April when she accepted my invitation for lunch.  It's Robin from "All Things Heart and Home"!!!!!  

Here's the table I set in my breakfast room for the two of us.  After I showed her around our home, we sat down and chatted like old friends.  We shared about our lives, our loves, our children, and all of our precious grandchildren.  How refreshing it was to be with a woman of such depth and class and quality.  Her faith is real and so is her joy for life, and I treasured every minute that we shared.

From following her blog, I knew Robin was a girly-girl, so I chose to start planning the table with my Grandmother's Haviland china.

Grandma's name was Rose Ellie, and mine is Linda, so I guess I was meant to get her Rosalinde pattern.  She gave it to us as a wedding present and it is so special to me.

Here it is on a soft green dupioni silk cloth.

I picked up the pink roses and lavender in the pattern for the centerpiece.

Since this was a small table for two, I kept the arrangement small and low in this pink tole cachepot.  A little bit of lamb's ear softened it just a touch.

I also wanted to use this majolica patterned plate, so that is what I chose for dessert which was a lemon curd pavlova with raspberry sauce.

Just for photos, I stacked these with green depression glass plates and a pink cabbage leaf plate, which I actually used as a bread and butter plate.

A pink linen napkin was held in a silk apple blossom holder and I chose this French flatware with cream handles. 

This pink etched cranberry glass held water.

Here's the cabbage plate.

The accessories included these Imperial glass salt and peppers,

a pink LuRay platter with Waterford cream and sugar,

and a French glass water bottle that I placed in a Waterford wine coaster. 

I embellished things just a bit with these little paper boxes since it was just before Easter.

And, as a little take-home favor, I made a packet of embossed bunny tail stationery for her.  Robin is such an accomplished DIYer, that I thought she would appreciate it! 

It was such a pleasure to host this lovely woman, and even though it's been a while since we were together, I'm still thinking about our conversation.  Thanks, Robin.....let's do it again soon.

A Mother's Day Guest Post

Sometimes life sends you a friend that you'll have the rest of your life.  I was lucky enough to find such a friend many years ago, and she has been a follower of this blog since I started it.

Can you imagine my surprise and honor when she asked me if she could be

a guest blogger for me?  For Mothers' Day?  I said "yes" with tears in my eyes!

 

It is with great fanfare that I send you this Mothers' Day post, written from my dear 

friend, Jan.

My friendship with the creator of A Toile Tale began in 1987 in Cincinnati, Ohio.  A new family had moved in at the end of the block and they had two teenage daughters; that meant two possible babysitters!  If my memory serves me correctly, I packed up my 4 year old daughter and my 2 year old son and headed down to meet the new neighbors. Linda Peterson opened the door and with a warm smile, welcomed me and the kids in. That was the beginning of a 26 years (and still going) friendship with Linda, Larry (Mr. Pressed Pants), Amy Peterson Gralnik and Susie Peterson Yuhasz. 

Though many miles separate us these days (Linda and Larry live in the Atlanta area, Amy and Susie and their families live in the Cleveland area and I am in the Los Angeles area) we are still very present in each others’ lives.  I attended both Amy and Susie’s weddings and have watched them become accomplished adult women and most importantly, wonderful mothers of boys (who you know thru Linda’s postings). 

There is so much to share about why I love the Petersons, but since it’s Mothers Day, I’m choosing a story about my dear friend Linda – mostly because I want to honor her.  I’m not sure Amy and Susie know this story about their mom, but considering the age their boys are now, I have no doubt this heartfelt advice from their mom to me will surely might come in handy if not now, someday soon.

Linda wrote me this very important message after we had been talking on the phone.  I had been sharing some frustrations about one of my boys.  (Michael was age 15 at the time, so does this surprise you?)  After we hung up, these very wise words came to me via email on May 13, 2001.  I printed and saved these sentiments and have shared them with friends.  The paper they are printed on is old now and the edges are crinkled.  

No matter how long ago they were written, this note from Linda always provides me with the strength I need to be a good mom/right mom even now that my children are adults.  My guess is these thoughts have/will apply to you and your life as well.  It’s a Mother’s Day wish from me to all  A Toile Tale’s readers.  These words never cease to bring me to tears and make my heart hurt wishing I still lived right up the street from my dear friend Linda. 

Jan – I’ve been thinking about you today.  Mother’s Day is really all about you and where you are in mothering right now.  It is so much easier to give a bottle in the middle of the night than it is to wait for a teenager to come home in the middle of the night.  It is so much easier to watch a child who’s new at walking than one that’s new at driving.  It is so much easier to plan play dates than to counsel a child on who or what to date.

You are in the trenches right NOW, Jan.  I just hope you see that you are successful at your ”job”.  Your children are all so delightful and I love being around them.  They are caring, sensitive, talented and most of all, loving.  They are quality people.  Their character and their values are so special and that’s because a good mother has mothered them well….very well.  Please pat yourself on the back today.  Look at their sweet faces and know that you’re doing a damn good job.  You can’t make their every moment perfect, but you shouldn’t.  They need to learn to shoulder disappointment as much as they need to shoulder responsibility.  You’re not in charge of their happiness, just everything else in their life; their safety, their education, their meals, their haircuts, their dog, their clean sheets….everything else.  Then, when you have done your job, they get to go and make their own happiness.  We’re moms, not fairy godmothers.  There’s no magic wand….just day after day of lessons and discipline.  Here’s a hug to one of the best moms on earth.  Love, Linda

Happy Mother’s Day to all of the mothers who try so hard and love so fiercely.   Thank you Linda, for always being there for me, no matter what.  You’ve taught me and modeled for me some of the most important things I needed to know about mothering. 

Xoxo, Jan Kincaid Clifford

Also remembering, with love, Mary Dora Bancroft Kincaid (1921-2007) and Patricia Gray Clifford (1931-2000)

There is nothing more to say.  Jan has written such a beautiful post and I love her for this.

Easter Greetings!

Happy Easter to you all!!!!!!

Our family has been visiting with us all week from Ohio, and even though the weather wasn't that great, the love and fun sure were!!!  Since they just left yesterday, we are having a very laid back Easter Sunday and there will just be the two of us for dinner tonight.

This unusual egg topiary caught my eye at the floral wholesaler, and I planned a soft, almost neutral table to go with it. 

These latex cabbage leaves are perfect for adding a spring look, so I used them under the chargers.

I picked up the brown and soft green from the eggs on the topiary with these linens.  I layered this polyester dupiani over a natural burlap tablecloth.

Then I chose tan and cream plates and cream handled flatware.

The scalloped charger and salad plate are from Z Gallerie and the middle, toast colored plate is from that fine tabletop store, Kroger!  The scallops aren't exactly the same, but they complement each other.

Not a lot of color, but very soothing and natural.

See the feather ribbon I used as a napkin ring?

It has the same feathers in the centerpiece.  I was sort of surprised when I found it in my stash, to be truthful.  A happy coincidence!

I gave brown and green glasses a try, but they made things look too fall-like, so I brought out the Waterford and it seemed so much better.

These candlesticks aren't old, but I love the patina on them, even though it's a factory applied patina, not the kind you would find on a lovely antique. 

These good old salt and pepper shakers were the only accessories I added, since I'll be serving our plates from the kitchen.

It's a gloomy day!  Here's a shot from inside the window at this table.  (Part of the gloom is the fact that our sunshine went back to Ohio with their mothers yesterday!)  Maybe that's one reason I chose such a subdued palate for tonight's dinner.

This is my usual Easter table.  See more of this table here.

And last year I did a bright yellow and green table.  See more here.

At this same table, I served Easter breakfast here.

I'm wishing each of you who celebrate this holy season a wonderful day!

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