Showering with Love

So, yesterday was Val's bridal shower. I would post pictures of the shower but I left my camera on the counter at home so I have to wait until Val's mom emails me the pictures from her camera. So I'll just have to write about it (I am a writer, after all.)

Because we are redecorating the house, we had the shower at the Market Tea Room, which is tucked in an Antique Mall near the airport. It's a little place, only about 6 tables, but everyone agreed that it was very cute. I had made a reservation ahead of time and when we got there they had a large table all ready for us. Each place was set with mis-matched china for a quaint, eclectic feel. Each woman chose her own pot of tea, which came wrapped in a tea cozy that kept the tea nice and warm for the two and a half hours we spent there. Most of us were "no-caffeine" people (most by choice, me by necessity) and it was very nice that they had a large selection of roobios (red) tea to choose from (which is naturally caffeine free) as well as a tisane (what tea purists call herb tea.) We each also chose either a soup (choices that day were tomato basil, turkey noodle and broccoli cheese) or a quiche. Then came large three tiered servers with an assortment of finger sandwiches, scones and desserts.

The food is all homemade at the Market Tea House by chef/owner Carolyn Geiger, who came out several times to talk to us and see how we liked everything. The finger sandwiches were delicious, with open-faced chicken salad, made with nuts and cranberries, a lovely cucumber and cream cheese with dill (my favorite since I love cucumber sandwiches), egg salad and tuna salad. There were apricot, cherry coconut and apple cinnamon scones and while I prefer a moister scone my mother thought they were wonderful. But the house made clotted cream and a lovely strawberry jam was a truly wonderful accompaniment.

The soup and quiche portions were small, but that was okay because by the time they arrived we were getting pretty full. (Finger sandwiches always seem so delicate but when you eat six of them they can be a substantial meal!) I had he tomato basil soup, which had great flavor but was a little odd in that it was a brothy, chunky soup where I am used to it being a more pureed and smooth consistency. I didn't try the quiche but my mom said it needed work. After speaking with Chef Carolyn, who has a background in garde manger, I knew why the baked good were really the weak link in the chain. The quiche and desserts were just okay. The chocolate cake was alright, but it should have been denser and had way more chocolate flavor. My mother said she didn't even know what the carrot cake was (it neither looked nor tasted like carrot cake) and the bread pudding cubes were odd both in texture and flavor. None of the desserts were bad, just nothing spectacular either. Now, I can be a tough critic because I know when I can do something better, and I wanted to volunteer to do her baking. But it was still a lovely meal, the few hiccoughs aside.

We played a couple of games, one suggested by Maura. Where I handed out little engagement rings an if someone said the word "wedding" you could steal her ring(s). it was hard to not say wedding at a bridal shower, especially when one of the other guests was a bride-to-be as well. We also did a word scramble and one game where I took the labels off of some small jarred candles and they were passed around with everyone trying to guess the scent. This one was fun and easy since the prize was the candles!

Val got lovely presents, but nothing risque. Everyone seemed to have a really good time and it was nice and relaxed. The Graminator even had a good time, especially because one of the attendees brought her baby and The Graminator just lit up when she saw the child. it was fun to see her laugh and giggle with the little girl.


My friend Traci made these wonderful chai tea soaps that were given to guests as favors. They smelled so good! Everyone exclaimed over how nice they were and how yummy the scent was.

I made hand-decorated bride and bridesmaid cookies to use as place settings. They turned out really cute (although I over baked them just a bit.) The same cookies go for around five bucks apiece on the Internet. (And I saw one site that charges eleven dollars apiece for them!) My mom thinks they are so cute that I should sell them on the Net myself. I could do the wedding ones as well as ones for baby showers, birthdays and holidays. There are several companies that do them so I'm not sure how I could carve out my niche but it wouldn't cost me much to set up a website to 'test the waters'. My cousin does website design so maybe he could help me set up a simple site and we can see if any orders come in. I'm going to bake up some samples to decorate and photograph. What do you think, Loyal Readers, would you pay $3 a cookie?