My neighbor is suddenly planting right and left, vegetables of all kinds, in containers. We have a concrete apron on the patio. I had ny deck built on mine, leaving the borders for planting. Previous owners of her house paved the borders, too. Because twin boys and a dog. Endless tracking in of mud year round. It was self defense. So she has no borders to plant in. Hence containers.
Anyway there's a mini market garden in full swing there. She was reluctant to appear in the pix, despite being beautiful, funny how everyone dislikes their own looks. So I swiped a sneaky shot. I needed pix of east and west wings of the back forty.
It was she who gave me the pansies, which are flourishing in the chilly spring weather.
Latest controversial issue on QI, Brit comedy quiz show also seen on YouTube, mostly unintelligible to anyone who's lost track of the accents and vocabulary after being away:
Tea. Milk in first, MIF, or second, MIS? Brisk discussion in the comments, passionate sides taken, name calling ensues. If course it's milk in second, everyone knows that.
Anyway I realized they're debating this vital issue USING TEA BAGS! I ask you. Turn your back for 60 years and the place goes full speed over a cliff.
You pour the tea in first, from a pot, then add the milk to the color you want it. Tea varies with brand, water, pot (this is true, Brown Betty pot is best, but I don't have one), what order it's poured in, first cup weaker than succeeding ones, weather, news headlines, many factors.
But if all you're making is a poultice, I mean teabag, in a mug, it hardly matters whether you add milk first, last or simultaneously, standing on one foot. Not that I have any strong feelings on this issue.
My Mom used to say you add milk till the tea is the color of a golden sovereign. She remembered what sovereign coins looked like, long out of circulation, but it was less useful as a directive to people, her family, who'd never seen one. Nonetheless the milk in second rule held.
It's really true that tea tastes different brewed in different pots. Reading left to right, I have a beautiful unglazed clay pot, Japanese, which makes a bright tasting tea, a Japanese coil-built glazed pot which makes a tea with a rounded flavor, and my favorite little Chinese porcelain pot, decorated as you see, for the western market, which makes a big deep flavor surprising considering its size.
This is vital quality of life stuff. Full disclosure: my cup of tea went cool while I was writing this, and I heated it in the microwave..
Milk in tea? DISGUSTING. No wonder Britain lost the Empire.
ReplyDeleteWhat's the world coming to?
DeleteI'm not a milk in my tea person, but my BIL absolutely insists that milk HAS to go in the cup first or his tea is absolutely undrinkable. DH drinks milk in his tea and can't tell the difference whenever it goes in.
ReplyDeleteIt's definitely a passionate issue to some of us!
DeleteYour neighbor is beautiful. I wish she knew that.
ReplyDeleteI am not qualified to make any tea judgements whatsoever. I do have a teapot. Do I ever use it? Oh, well, no.
But I completely understand that there are rules that are meant to be followed!
And I was reminded by your mother's advice about the milk bringing the tea to the color of a golden sovereign to a recipe I read for gumbo once- stir the roux until it is the color of a penny. Perfect. And I do.
I like that kind of instruction. Like: add one nut of butter, meaning a piece the size of a walnut. Old fashioned assumption that you would know the size of a walnut in the shell.
DeleteI never have milk in tea. Couldn’t drink it that way.
ReplyDeleteThere's another school of thought, the no milk at all group!
DeleteIm not by nature a tea drinker (gasp) possibly because it seems more of a social drink than coffee, which I drag around the house with me, as company. Tea is more interesting with company, and i prefer it strong and black.
ReplyDeleteI love the idea of all those pots, and all that enclosed gardening. When all you have is pavement, you buy pots.
This summer is going to be plant fun!
ReplyDelete