Recipe Tea Towels

As anyone who's read this blog knows, I love cooking, love recipes, and love collecting things with recipes on them such as recipe postcards, recipe rubber stamps, and now, recipe tea towels. I stumbled upon these quite accidentally with an Anthropologie purchase of a pair of towels bearing a recipe for Irish Soda Bread.  It was close to St. Patrick's Day at the time, and I thought it would be a wonderful way to wrap rustic loaves of Irish Soda Bread to give as gifts.  It was, the recipients loved it!  Foolishly, I failed to photograph the towels, the bread wrapped up in the towels, or buy an extra one to keep for myself.  Lesson learned there.  Ever since this initial purchase, I now seem to find recipe tea towels everywhere.  I also consider them to be a most practical souvenir to pick up whenever we travel.  I don't know that I'll ever make any of the recipes, but I enjoy reading and displaying them.  Try to come up with ideas for their use on your own, and please share them with me.

Here are a few of my favorites. 

A nice assortment of Manx (Gaelic) recipes on a very colorful towel.

Here's a recipe for strudel...in Italian!

I love this towel with both English and Spanish versions of a recipe for Paella. I'm not going to use it as a towel though, but will fly it as a flag at our next Paella cooking bash. 

I love this cozy kitchen scene and recipe for Yorkshire Pudding.

I love everything about the newest addition to my collection from the recipe to the curtain blowing in the breeze from the open window to the table full of delicious looking scones.

This tea towel features Cornish recipes, some of them sound pretty good. I'll have to start a new series of blog posts of recipes I've tried that appear on tea towels!

This post is linked to:
Mosaic Monday - Little Red House
Metamorphosis Monday-BNOTP
Brag Monday-The Graphics Fairy
Motivate Me Monday-Keeping it Simple
Amaze Me Monday-Dittle Dattle
Thrifty Thursday-Tales from Bloggeritaville
100 Ideas Under $100-Beyond the Picket Fence
Show and Tell Saturday-Be Different Act Normal 
Fall in Love - Decor to Adore
Mouthwatering Monday
Seasonal Sunday

"Le Coq" - A Rooster Tale

There is a Chickens & Roosters party going on at Note Songs blog today, so I thought I'd join in.  My entry is probably a bit different than most as I'm showcasing an event rather than an item, but since it does indeed surround a picture of a rooster, I thought it would fit right in.

Read on...

When people learn that I live in a house that is 119-years-old, one of the first things they ask, usually with a look of intense curiosity, is if it's haunted. I always hesitate before responding. I think the answer is a resounding "No!" and yet a number of strange incidents have occurred during our 16-year residency that defy explanation. One such event concerns this picture.

A particular favorite of mine, it hangs in the kitchen just over the door that leads into the dining room. It was rather late in the evening on the night before my annual Thanksgiving dinner many years ago, and I was busily working in the kitchen doing as much advance preparation on the meal as possible. My husband was seated at the counter in the kitchen with his back to the dining room door, so was unable to witness the strange phenomenon that occurred. I was stirring a large pot of leek and potato soup on the stove when I heard a sort of swishing noise. Swish...swish...swish. I turned to see what he was doing and immediately looked over his head. The picture was violently rocking from side to side, swinging back and forth on the nail on which it had been hung. The lower right corner swung way up to the right, and then back again bringing the lower left corner way up to the left. I stood gaping at it for a while, the hairs raising on the back of my neck. Before I could get the words out to my husband to turn and look, the picture stopped and leveled itself perfectly. That alone was strange since nothing in this house is level. I immediately ran upstairs to see if either of my boys were doing anything that might have caused this most unusual and, I might add, creepy occurrence. Christopher was quitely sprawled on his bed reading a Jeffery Deaver novel; Andrew was sitting in front of his TV blasting something on a video game. Neither one, they said, had done anything other than what they were currently doing for the past half hour or so.

It was a quiet night. There was no traffic on the street. No high winds were blowing, in fact there was no wind at all. The weather was cold but clear, so no thunder to rattle things hanging on the wall. There was simply no cause for the picture to move an inch, much less rock back and forth, and yet it did that one night, never before and never again.

I've never looked at it in quite the same manner since that night, and it took me a long while before I could even take it down to clean it. Occasionally while in the kitchen I'll glance at it over my shoulder, and I still get goosebumps when I do.


This post is linked to:

and

Amaze Me Monday

FAVORITE CUPBOARD - A View into my Kitchen

Okay, I confess, I love looking into other people's houses.  It's not because I hope to catch someone, errr, off-guard, but because I want to get a look at how they've decorated their homes and to peer inside their kitchens.  Since the kitchen is the heart of the home, I always like to see just how people use it.  I can always tell when a cook is in residence, or whether the family prefers fast food or dining out.

So today I'm joining SHELIA of  NOTE SONGS

who is hosting a

FAVORITE CUPBOARD PARTY

 and I'll be giving you a slight glimpse of what our kitchen holds.

This cupboard actually belongs to my husband.  He bought it years ago (read: before we were married) at a garage sale, and since he is able to scope out a real bargain, I suspect he got it for a very reasonable price. It fits perfectly on this wall in our kitchen and, since our house is 119-years-old, storage is at a premium.  This holds a ton of stuff, and I like the glass doors allowing people a glimpse of what I happen to have on display at the time.  Some of these items have actually changed since the picture was taken.

I love being greeted by bright colors in the morning.  The Fiestaware is always fun.  Every color complements very well with the blue and white Nikko "Tea Rose" patterned plates standing up along the back.  I can get a lot of different looks interchanging various plates including the dark green Portugal Majolica plates visible just beneath the stacked bowls.

Some of my favorite items are contained in this cupboard: the yellow chalices, the pewter fish pitcher, and the only piece of "Walking Ware" that I own, purchased on a trip to England.  I was glad to get it home with both feet in tact!

These are not visible in the photos above, but there is quite a story connected with them.  It was earlier in the winter, I was freezing cold, we'd been running errands all day long and I just flat out refused to get out of the car again until we got home. Jim wanted to stop at TJ Maxx, but I told him that I'd wait in the car. I needed nothing...NOTHING at all from TJ Maxx. In the past, you see, every time I've needed nothing I'm come away with something (sometimes a LOT of something), and he knows this. He told me it was too cold to wait in the car (yes 15 degrees probably was too cold) so I had to go in. 
So I went in and didn't even get a basket because I knew I wasn't going to buy anything. But then I saw these. These Dario Farucci bowls for...wait for it... a dollar each. A DOLLAR. ONE! EACH! Now come on! I couldn't pass these up, could I? I mean let's face it, a package of Chinet bowls would run about the same and you'd toss them after using. These were just so festive, and so perfect, and go so well with my Fiestaware that I HAD to get them. Had to! Can you blame me? 
Once I made this decision I went ahead and got a basket and ended up with 4 of these bowls, a couple of pairs of warm "Made in Vermont" socks  (I love those -- Vermonters...Vermontians? really know their socks), and a Rice and Rissotto cookbook. All of this was around $10, and guess what? Jim even paid!  Oh, and the next day I went back and bought the four remaining bowls so I have service for 8.  I guess it was a good thing that I got out of the car.


This is linked to:

Increase Your Brain Power and Brighten Your Kitchen at the Same Time

I was reading an article by Oliver Sacks in the New York Times yesterday about New Year's resolutions and how few people resolve to change and strengthen their brains in the same way they resolve to strengthen and change their bodies.  So, this year in addition to resolving to make yourself better physically, learn a new skill to make yourself better mentally.

Here is a picture of just one way you can increase your brain power and go green in the New Year.  It's inexpensive and fun, and always appreciated -- hand-knit dishcloths made of cotton yarn.  For about a dollar (when on sale or with a coupon) you can buy a skein of cotton yarn in a variety of fun colors to use to knit a very effective, colorful, and REUSABLE cloth for washing dishes.  No more purchased wipes that trap bacteria, don't hold up to being thrown into the washer, and need to be purchased again and again.  These are lovely, fun to use, and make a great hostess gift when rolled up and tied with a ribbon.  I have a red one that was made well over 2 years ago and it is still very bright red and going strong. I also have pale blue, dark blue, purple (shown), am working on a multi-colored French-style cloth, and another of my own design with a contrasting-colored scallop shell in the center to gift a friend the next time we visit her and her husband at their shore house (If you're reading this Carol S., act surprised!). 

There are ten patterns in this book and I plan to make them all, but many patterns are offered for free online at various web sites like this one.  My husband likes them so much that, two years ago when we went to Austin for a month-long fellowship, I knitted some in the car on the drive down so we'd have them to use while we were there.  So break out the knitting needles, clip out the Michael's coupons and get started!  Do it for your brain, and the planet; both will be better for it.

This post is linked to  Sunday Favorites

Martha's Snickerdoodles

A must in the creation of a theme-type of cookbook like Martha Stewart's COOKIES is to be certain to include old favorites along with new recipes, and Martha has done just that.  Today I felt like something simple and homey, so chose Snickerdoodles.  My grandmother used to always make these during the holidays so just the smell of them baking reminds me of Christmas.

What cookie reminds you of Christmas?

This is linked to Cookbook Sundays.