Wednesday Review: Afternoon Tea Parties

The Wednesday review this week is inspired by my future cousin-in-law's bridal shower this past weekend. She had a bridal shower tea. Of course I love any reason to wear a hat!

Afternoon Tea Parties by Susannah Blake highlights 20 different types of tea parties you can throw and appropriate sweets and savories for each.

What I like:

·         There is a wide variety of tea parties highlighted in the book. Themes from different countries -English, Japanese, and Russian teas; different occasions - Mother's day, Bridal shower, and Christmas;  even tea parties you'd never think of - sweet sixteen, and teddy bear/circus themes for little kids.

·         The book has fantastic pictures. Not only does it make all the food look scrumptious, it has great ideas on how to display the food and drinks at your tea party.

·         The book begins with a history of tea parties and for each particular theme it includes more background information and little tips specific to that tea.

·         There are fun twists on ordinary things like peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. PBJs are one of my favorite sandwiches ever, but I thought them an odd choice for a tea party. However if you cut the crusts off and cut out a heart on the top slice of bread - wallah! FANCY.  

·         The book includes a list of useful websites where you can find bake/tableware, ingredients, and tea merchants.

·         Can't forget the conversion chart! American, Metric, AND Imperial!?!

I'm not going to do a "What I don't like" section for this book because I couldn't really find anything I didn't like. I really need to start having more tea parties. Time for some hat shopping!!

Wednesday Review: The Unofficial Hunger Game Cookbook

If you haven't noticed, I've been way behind on my posts this week. I blame the Hunger Games and taxes. I've been going crazy all week preparing for my pre-midnight-showing party and work has gotten pretty busy with April 15^th just around the corner. Since I'm making a few items from this cookbook, I thought I'd do a review. It's not super crafty, but it is super themey - which I lump in with crafty.

What I Like:

·         It’s the HUNGER GAMES. What's not to like??

·         It has food broken up into fun sections like Breaking Bread, "Sink or Swim - Seafood", and "Put Some Meat on Your Bones - Beef, Lamb, and Pork"

·         Each recipe has a corresponding passage from one of the 3 books in the trilogy explaining how the recipe relates back.

·         Each recipe has a "Tips from Your Sponsor" section that has suggestions for different ways of cooking or explanations/history behind some of the ingredients. There's some pretty interesting stuff.

What I don't Like:

·         The cookbook is organized by type of food for the most part (seafood, poultry, beef etc).  When I was planning out my menu, I wanted something from the Capitol and I had to do some searching to find appropriate recipes. It'd be easier if there was just a "Capitol" section.

·         Some of the recipes aren't written that well. Granted, I've only thoroughly read through the 3 recipes I'm making for tonight's PARTAY - but for the Lamb Stew, onion is listed on the ingredients list twice. I assume it's because you use onions 2 different times - in the beginning you sauté some in a pan, then later you add more to the stew. But why not just lump it together and say how much you need to use in the instructions? I'm also making mine in the Crockpot to which the book's instructions were basically "If you want to make it in a Crockpot, just throw all ingredients in a Crockpot." I have a feeling that it's a little more complicated than that. Hopefully it turns out okay!

Jury's still out on how things will taste. Come back next week where I'm sure all of my posts will be Hunger Games themed summaries of what I made for the party tonight.