The days are beautiful now with no humidity left to speak of and the nights are comfortable for sleeping with the windows open. I love fall. It is my favorite time of the year. There are still crickets that lull me to sleep and there are still a few baseball games left and if you are like me, you are starting to plan for the holiday season. You might think, “that girl is ca-razy” but when you have a shop to take care of among other things, you have to be a few weeks ahead of “normal time”.
The fall tea that arrived this past week includes some really nice dessert teas. What are dessert teas? Well, they are designed to be had slightly sweetened with a touch of milk. The teas that lend themselves to this treatment are the pumpkin, the chocolate hazelnut, the orange chocolate, all of the chai teas and hot cinnamon spice. Even if you are a purist about your tea, (meaning you take it straight up plain), the creamy teas are really a delight and are a lovely change of habit.
September blew by fast and we had one last mini vacation hurrah earlier in the month, I can’t believe we are already checking out candy to give out to this year’s trick or treaters. Last year, we chose Combos. One little kid that came to our door said to her mom, “woah, Combos!” It was kind of funny. Hey, some kids like savory.
This year, my husband and I will be hosting Thanksgiving in our new tiny house so there’s that. It has been ages since we hosted Thanksgiving and we are ready to accept the challenge of fitting about fifteen or so friends and relatives around our table. This basically means we will have to shift literally every piece of furniture in our house, but that is the fun part! My dream Thanksgiving would be to have the whole thing outside if weather permitted. Instead of the traditional roast turkey I would do a buffet of everything you can think of that you can make with turkey. Turkey sausage with peppers and onions on good buns, Sriracha teriyaki turkey meatballs, pumpkin turkey chili, turkey burgers (from the grill naturally), turkey tacos, turkey gyros, turkey stroganoff, turkey sloppy joes, BBQ turkey meatloaf. I have the capacity to be the Forrest Gump of turkey. I did say my DREAM Thanksgiving dinner but I know my extended family are traditionalists and I would not want to bum anyone out. Or do I? Hmmmm, food for thought.
With baking season upon us, remember that The Stillroom has fresh vanilla beans and fresh nutmeg and graters!
In the planning of the upcoming months, I have decided to re-open the tea shop in Saxonburg just for the holiday season. By the time we moved from there to here, got settled and me opening up at Diamond Antiques, I finally have it together enough to open up a second location at the Saxonburg State Street building. Now, this just cropped up in my head this past weekend and it’s definitely in the works. I’m in the gathering stages of finding some antique display pieces to put in there and will be moving fixtures and tea in over the next couple of weeks. I have no firm days or hours in place yet.
In the meantime, I’ll be at Diamond Antiques on September 24th and 25th if you want to come in and talk tea, antiques or just stuff and junk.
The Stillroom 
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