Time for tea

It’s once again time for tea on the other side of the world (New Zealand) with our hostess Su. Let me start with my favorite tea quote, favorite because it covers two of my great loves and is by someone I greatly admire and respect, C.S. Lewis. It also happens to be the tagline to my emails.

“You can never get a cup of tea large enough or a book long enough to suit me.”
― C.S. Lewis

But wait! We can’t just have tea, we must have goodies! Today I’ve made baked whole wheat doughnuts from Sarah Phillips’ Healthy Oven Baking Book. I’d like to include the recipe, but as I don’t see it online and I haven’t asked for permission, I won’t. You can find other baked doughnut recipes online, though, and if they use whole wheat pastry flower, you’ll get more fiber than if you use all-purpose flour and the taste will be good as well. These also use applesauce, are low-fat, and my whole family will vouch for the flavor. I bake them in mini-bundt pans so that they look mostly like actual doughnuts.

“A cup of tea would restore my normality.” [Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Screenplay]”
― Douglas Adams

I’m serving on and in Imari ware.

Imari ware (Japanese: 伊万里焼, Hepburn: Imari-yaki) is a Western term for a brightly-coloured style of Arita ware (有田焼, Arita-yaki) Japanese export porcelain made in the area of Arita, in the former Hizen Province, northwestern Kyūshū. They were exported to Europe in large quantities, especially between the second half of the 17th century and the first half of the 18th century.

Typically Imari ware (in the English use of the term) is decorated in underglaze blue, with red, gold, black for outlines, and sometimes other colours, added in overglaze. In the most characteristic floral designs most of the surface is coloured, with “a tendency to overdecoration that leads to fussiness”. Wikipedia

All right! Enough talk. Let’s eat, drink, and be merry! Although we may not have many rainy days in the desert, I’m all for this:

“Rainy days should be spent at home with a cup of tea and a good book.”
― Bill Watterson, The Calvin and Hobbes Tenth Anniversary Book

((Hot summer days are well spent this way too.)

(Full disclosure: Su’s tea time starts Thursday, but as it’s New Zealand, that’s still Wednesday here. Besides, I have doors to open on Thursdays.)