It’s been a weird year for most of my friends. The litany of scary strangeness includes a cancer diagnosis, a messed up ankle leading to surgery, hip surgery x 2 (mine and a friend’s), a romance failure, car wrecks, shoulder surgery. There’s more but why write it?
A guy could dig a bunker after all this and stay there.
But that’s not what we did. None of us. A couple of days ago I thought about all my friends now the year is ending, I thought, “We’re all better off than we were this time a year ago. Every one of us.” It helped lift the cloud of depression that’s been hovering.
Last week, I read The Pavlova Palaver on Global Housesitter’s blog. The article attempts to resolve the debate about whether this marvelous dessert is Australian or New Zealander in origin. One of my best friends here in Heaven is Australian and a very good cook. She’d spoke of this mythical dessert many times, but so far hadn’t made it for any of our tea parties. I sent the article to her via text and she immediately texted back, “Regardless of the article, it’s still an Australian staple for parties.” Followed by a koala bear emoji.
I texted back, “I’m on your side.”
“Good.”
She’s a fierce and wonderful beastie.
We’d talked of doing something quietly festive for our friend who was house-bound from ankle surgery and whose husband had recently been through a battery of (we learned successful) treatments for a mysterious cancer-like-thing. In dark times, a tea party is a kind of solution.
Of course, my Aussie friend put the whole thing together and took it to our friend’s house. She made Pavlovas.
And we all felt better. ❤
Tea (and coffee and baked goods) can chase away a whole lot of gray!!! Have a blessed Christmas, Martha!
You too! ❤
Works for me! Merry Solstice!!
Thank you! You too. ❤
My favorite dessert — and so easy to make!
Once I saw it in real life, I realized I’ve made it several times. There’s a version in Switzerland that’s served only in winter — meringue, chestnut paste and whipped cream. Oh man…
That sounds delicious!
It’s amazing. 🙂
https://www.swissmilk.ch/fr/recettes/LM201210_77/vermicelles/ Sorry it’s French.
I would vastly prefer a tea party rather than another trip to the doctor! Lucky you. But, in case you drop by, I have a WW II tea set from Japan that Garry’s Dad brought back after the war … and it’s waiting for just the right people to sip from it! I even have the tea (an Indian friend sent it fresh from the fields of India).
Oh, I wish we lived closer. 🙂
I sent you this by email, but I don’t know if it will play properly, so I’m sending it this way too. The moment I heard it, I thought of you. Then I listened to it again and I still thought of you.
I got the email. It was really nice to hear this again. So many years out in CA I yearned to be here. A lot of those years I went to Montana, so that was OK, but there were a lot of afternoons I’d head up to the mountains cranking John Denver “I guess he’d rather be in Colorado.” 30 years of homesickness out there in the golden land of opportunity. OH well. Live and learn! Thank you, Marilyn!
Thanks for the mention Martha and your Aussie friend and I will just have to agree to disagree 🙂 By the way, love a good tea party!
She said the same thing about agreeing to disagree. I had to make her a copy of your post, she liked it so much.
Making a copy of my post? That’s lovely to hear she enjoyed it. Thanks for letting me know, Martha.
I’m pretty sure it will go into her Aussie cookbook. 🙂
Let me know if it does 🙂
I will. I hope it’s ok that I printed it out for her.
No worries Martha, a few other people have printed off blog posts I have written.
Thank you! 🙂
Delightful. It was on the Aussie news too. Not surprising. There was mention made of the Swiss pav. Thought I should let you know, but forgot (intentionally?). Oh well, broken dreams are liked smashed pav. Still delicious. 🙂
Oh, that’s a saying that’s both poignant and cynical. Wow. I’m keeping it. 🙂
🙂