Meet My Family of Delicious Food
March 27, 2010
Lucky me! Several years ago I met a wonderful and adorable young woman named Samar whose family originates in Jerusalem. I’ve always been fascinated and enchanted by ancient cultures, particularly those of the Mediterranean. I love the food, the smells, the colors, the textures, the language. I love it all!
Samar and I become very close. As I was helping her find direction in life, she would regale me with stories about her family and their culture. I was amazed. I come from a very small family and she has over 300 family members. I wanted that!
Seeing the perfect opportunity to bring something great into my life, I asked her straight out if her family would adopt me.
She said that they would and I took her at her word. And you know what? It’s turned out to be totally true. Three years later, I am totally part of the family and I love it.
Her mother who is a total gem too. She makes the most delicious food in the whole world. Honestly, I’m NOT exaggerating. She is someone whom I would love to learn every little secret about life and cooking from.
Picture this – a table spread with exotic riced, home-made hummus creamy as butter, olives and homemade pickles of different kinds, delicious pita bread which is often homemade, vegetables, sometimes chicken or fish…..you get the idea!
A bounty of delicious, savory and exotic food. It’s exotic in taste, smell, color, texture – truly a delight of the senses.
Oh and that’s not all. That’s not even the half of it. After we eat there is always tea. But this is not just any tea. This is the most delicious tea in the world. I don’t know how she makes it. She makes it look so simple but my tea never tastes like this. It’s Mamma’s special blend.
She makes mint tea, ginger tea, sage tea and cardamon tea, always served in the most beautiful glass cups with just a hint of sugar. They are so amazing and delicious and the smell is absolutely to die for!
I just sit, smell and sip to my heart’s desire. Ahhh…..this is life at it’s best.
But we’re not just finished with tea. As if that wasn’t totally enough, then we have her very special hand ground coffee. Yes as you guessed this is not just any old coffee. It’s a very fine ground that she combines with just a hint of cardamom. It is dark, thick and rich like dark chocolate and comes served in the most beautiful gold edged cup. 
What could be better than this??? Nothing.
I leave their house feeling full, happy, loved, nourished and as if I just took a trip to an exotic foreign country. Ahh, life is good.
I always wanted to be part of a big family, but I never expected this unexpected bit of grace. So I am happy to say that I am part of a 300 member family who really knows how to make some amazing food!
One day I’ll learn myself and then share some of the secrets with you. Everyone should have a Mamma and a family like this. I send a big hug out to my loving, good-cooking family of good food.
Tea Cup Sweetness
July 20, 2009
beautiful teacup
I have such good friends in my life! A few week’s ago I wrote a story called, “Life Cracks Easily” about how my favorite tea cup had broken into bits (boo hoo) and then a few days later I was on the scene of a terrible bike accident.
When the tea cup first broke I couldn’t understand why but I decided that there must be a good reason. Then only two days later when I came across this woman bike rider fallen on the road with head trauma, I suddenly made the connection – life cracks easily and we need to be aware that every moment is precious.
I have kept in touch with the friend of the woman on the bike. She had some pretty severe injuries, including a fracture in her skull, but she is doing ok and is in rehab. I am going to visit her this week. I have a sense that she needs me, this woman that I’ve never met.
Strangely enough in the past two weeks, I have been on the site of two more accidents. One at our local bookfair when an older woman fell and hit her face. She was ok but blood was gushing everywhere, and even though there was a small crowd of people around her, I felt instinctively that she needed me. I’m not sure why but I just knew it, so I pushed my way in to help her.
The odd thing is that my skills in the healing field are exactly what is needed at these times and I’ve never ever been on the scene of accidents before. But I’ve learned these things about how to help at the scene of an accident:
1. First get as calm as you can yourself. See if you can really breathe and bring your energy down so that you are very quiet inside and relaxed. Everyone else is usually rushing around frantically and that is the last thing the injured person needs.
2. Second is to talk to them calmly and gently. Tell them to breathe and take a few nice deep breaths. Say this in the calmest steadiest voice you can. That will do more than anything. This will help their focus go inside their body, rather than on their pain. It will also lower heartrate and blood pressure. It also puts them more in a proactive state, rather than reacting to the shock of the injury. Don’t say (as one ambulance technician did), “Don’t cry”. That is the worst thing you can do! It actually stops the natural healing process. Geez, I just about decided to go give some training to ambulance techs after this faux pas!
3. Last, if they will allow you to hold their hand or touch them somewhere gently, that seems to help too. But again calm is the key. If you are frantic, your words and your touch will only make it worse so back off!
I’ve successfully calmed and helped three people now. The third was my next-door neighbor who fell down our back steps. When I heard her crying I thought, “Oh my gosh not again” and even though her boyfriend was there, she needed the calming technique as well. She and the older woman are both fine.
But here’s the sweetness to the story. My dear friend Pam who owns my favorite Tea Bar told me that she had something for me. And lo and behold it was a new flowered tea cup with a gold rim. Gorgeous!
I could tell that she really went out of her way to buy it and pick it out just for me. I’m not sure what I did to deserve such a good friend but she really is one. I didn’t even know that she’d read that story on my blog. But after she read it, she went out and got me the cup.
Life is sweet. Life is precious and it should be savored every day with a nice cup of tea. In fact, I’m going to have one right now, a cup of earl grey in my new favorite tea cup.
Take time and savor today.
Story of the Week – Dreams of Tea
May 31, 2009
The Charming Tea Bar
Last year a wonderful thing happened, a new Tea Bar came to my town of Chestnut Hill. I LOVE tea and so I was very excited and I went racing down there at 8 AM on the first day it opened!
I loved the Tea Bar right from the start. It’s an adorable charming place with a lovely little garden. What I found was not just wonderful tea, but a wonderful tea creator who had actually quit her high paying corporate job and gone out on her own to do something more fulfilling. A woman after my own heart!
Tea Bar Owner, Pam
I loved Pam immediately and I began to regularly frequent the Tea Bar. I made it my personal mission to try every single tea, but I failed miserably at this because I got to love certain teas and couldn’t move past them. Oh well, the life of a tea taster can be fickle like the muses themselves.
Pam and I became good friends as we share alot in common. We are both entrepreneurs who care alot about doing business well and creating something good for our community. I offered to tell stories to promote the Tea Bar and Pam agreed and we began our first venture of the “Summer Storytelling Series” which was quite a hit.
Storytelling at Tea Bar
All of my wacky story characters were able to come out and play at the Tea Bar. Folks enjoyed the presence of Madam Olga, Psychic to the Stars who did Tea leaf readings. Madam Olga is a bit fiesty however and maybe some folks got more than they bargained for when they asked questions!
We also had a visitation from Zizzi Love Goddess. The Tea Bar was filled with the scent of love and chocolate and afterwards one of the audience members suggested that a tea be created in the love goddesses honor. Little did I know that Pam was listening from the other room and a week or so later she called me to come try something. Much to my astonishment, she had created a very special “Love Goddess Tea” blend which had all of my favorite ingredients! And she didn’t even know what I liked.
The Love Goddess Blend is Lavendar Earl Grey tea with rose petals. Wow! It knocks your heart right open. She packaged it up beautifully with a heart shaped label and it’s been a hit at the Tea Bar ever since.
In case, you’re interesting in tasting it, you can find the special Love Goddess blend here: https://thehillteaonline.com/handblended_tea_store.html#
The best part about my friendship with Pam though is that she is an amazing business woman who really puts alot of time and energy into making a great business and serving her community at the same time. In addition to sponsoring my Storytelling performances, she has hosted shows of artists and musicians, plus hosted workshops, networking events, wine classes and created her own book of tea recipes. Talk about a go-getter, Pam is unstoppable! I love going down there for tea because every week she has a new idea. And because I know she puts her ideas into action, it’s alway fun to see what she’s ‘brewing’ up (couldn’t resist the pun).
This is a woman who took a risk and went for her dreams. It’s not easy to leave the corporate world in general, but very few would have the courage to leap into a dream about tea and make it work, but she has. We’ve been talking for awhile about how she can use this successful business model to help other women build their own dreams.
I’m proud of you Pam for what you stand for in the world and for taking a risk! Thank you for being who you are - a wonderful listener, the tea blender extraordinaire and a good friend.
If you’re reading this and you’re inspired to know more about Pam and her dream of tea, check out her blog at: http://www.thehillteabarblog.blogspot.com/
- Tea Love
And definitely try the Love Goddess brew, it’s magical. Love definitely comes in through tea :>)
Story Video – Tea is Love
May 31, 2009
I love this beautiful short video about Darjeeling ‘first flush’ tea. Darjeeling is a very special tea which is called the champagne of teas, grown in West Bengal India. It’s very touching to hear how much spirit is related to tea. I love the phrase, “Tea is love, enjoy tea.” Here’s to finding the spirit of love through tea. Read also our story of the week about Tea Artisan, Pam McLaughlin.
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