I grew up in a household that loved hot tea. My maternal grandmother, Dessa Marie Tracy, enjoyed the English side of her heritage and served hot tea with sugar and cream in her prettiest tea cups every day around 3:00. Even my sister and I were allowed to drink from those cups. Coffee mugs or metal or plastic cups would never do. Grandma knew the tea would not taste the same. And you need the saucer to hold your spoon after stirring all that sugar we would add. My younger siblings continued to enjoy this treat after school with a slice of fresh homemade bread. She must have prepared early in her day to have that bread ready to come out of the oven at just the same time the school bus arrived at our door.
These are English tea cakes that are perfectly paired with a cup of hot tea.
Grandma Dessa’s favorite Bible verse:
After going to The English Rose tea room in Chattanooga, Tennessee this weekend to celebrate our cousin Natalie getting a new job as an airline flight attendant and moving to New York, what do you do?? Our idea? Make scones. They were much easier than we imagined.
I love dishes and I think it runs in families!! My mother and sisters and daughter and daughter-in-law all love them!! I have special occasion dishes, birthday dishes, Christmas dishes and fall and winter ones. Some dishes come with flowers and others with stripes. Of course solid dishes of all colors. But the most dearing of all are the ones passed down from my mother and grandmothers. It would be easy to put them away in a safe place and not use them but what purpose would that accomplish? My mother always said no one was more important than her family, so I took her advice and I use them. When I do, I like to share a story or a recipe from the person who owned the dishes before me. Someday, I hope, my children and then their children will do the same.
