Junior League Brunch

I hosted a brunch for my Junior League small group and it could not have been more fun!  The theme was “make your own mimosa and pancake bar”, so I cooked up some great food and everyone brought fresh fruit and other toppings.  Our bar area had quite the selection!

 

I cooked up a tomato and basil frittata, caramelized bacon, espresso chip muffins, cranberry scones, pumpkin puff pancakes, an orange poppy-seed salad, candied walnuts and more!  I give myself bonus points since most of the recipes were from the Junior League of Seattle cookbooks Simply Classic and Celebrate the Rain.  I love a good relaxed weekend brunch and it gets even better when you add some great company. 

Healthy, Fresh and Zingy

I headed back to my favorite cooking school near South Lake Union to learn some new “Healthy, Fresh and Zingy” recipes.  We learned how to make a red and yellow pepper soup, sesame encrusted tuna and mango salsa.  I can’t wait to make all the recipes on my own!

You are one glassybaby

I am officially addicted to the epicness that is glassybaby.  After hearing the founder speak at a fall Junior League meeting, I invested in my first two votives and immediately wanted more. 

The company has such an incredible story and a great product.  They not only produce all their glass items in Seattle, but pay a premium to the glass blowers so they have the means to pursue their own artistic interests AND give 10% of their sales to various charities (not profits!).  The founder (Lee) had some great stories of how she built the brand.  For example, one of Lee's friends wanted to give their friend Martha some candle votives as a gift.  That Martha turned out to be Martha Stewart and Lee was featured on Martha's first show after she got out of jail!  Lee also talked about getting contacted (or maybe "seeked out" is more appropriate) by Jeff Bezos because he wanted Amazon to carry the product since he was such a fan.  Talk about being a big deal... 

We had an evening Junior League social at their flagship store in Madrona where they make all of the glass masterpieces.  We got to see all of the artisans at work.  There are actually 5 people that work on each and every glass votive at different points in the process.  So of course I had to purchase two more to match: a dark gray called ‘brother’ (because I love mine!) and a red one for the holidays entitled happiness (because we could all use a little more in our lives!). 

…and of course I dragged my mom a week later to their store since I knew she would love it and bought two more: a super cool multi-colored one and a green one just in time for the holidays!  Maybe I need to go on a 12 step program or something, but I guess there could be worse addictions in life.  An earring tree, great quote block and artistic collection of candle votives...I feel like that is getting to be Pinterest status! :)

Weekends are meant for tea parties.

This weekend I had the privilege of going to not one, but two fabulous tea parties.  That is right!  Someone had the best weekend ever and I am pretty sure it was the girl who got to go to two tea parties!

Queen Mary Tea Room

A friend from dance classes had told me that a place existed (and not too far from UW) that serves a proper tea complete with fancy linens, matching tea sets and a wide range of tea selections.  So I finally decided to see for myself whether a place so magical indeed existed so close to my alma mater. 

Apparently people only visit the tea room for special occasions and our waitress sort of gave us a funny look when we said we were there to celebrate life.  Isn’t that enough?

 

I was beyond impressed when I walked into a British tea wonderland…and they even had colored sugar to put into your tea and timers for how long to steep the tea.  Of course we just had to get the proper full afternoon tea for our enjoyment and it came on a three-tier server.  

Everything there was branded and fabulous…from the nice China plates to the teapot.  I can only imagine how much work went into making sure all the personal touches were perfect!

Before heading out, we took some more pictures and did some shopping.  Such a great afternoon activity! 

Treehouse Tea!

I headed to the gated community of The Highlands in the Shoreline neighborhood for the most exquisite tea party I have ever been to in the most incredible house I have ever seen.  They had paintings by famous artists, an extensive baseball collection, all rooms decorated immaculately and a Tiffany stained glass window (see below!).  The house was owned by a former Microsoft executive and his wife, who had recently finalized the divorce.  They let complete strangers have free range on their property for events like this…well I guess if you shell out enough money.  At the end of the day, we were all there to support Treehouse for Kids, so it was an amazing day AND benefitted a great cause!

 

The house had sweeping views of the water, statues and seriously looked like it was a castle that belonged in Europe or something (complete with a water fountain too). 

 

And inside was a wonderland of all kinds of incredible hats.  Yes, every tea party needs some good hats.  I actually heard the house’s owner tell a little girl that she loved this event because she could wear her favorite big hat and not stick out since everyone else in the room was wearing a hat too (since not many people wear hats in this day and age).  Too adorable!   

There were literally hundreds of hats (mostly designer) that were sorted by color.  

 

You could walk around and try on hats of all different sizes colors and yes, containing all types of feathers.  So much fun!

 

The meal itself was very lovely and held in the house’s marble ballroom.  Sadly, my house growing up did not have a ballroom like this place.  Everything tasted amazing and looked amazing.  The butter was even carved into a rose.  Who does that?  Seriously, it was incredible.  If that wasn’t enough, I even saw a lot of my fellow Junior League ladies there!

I can’t even imagine if living in that house was part of my life…living in a mansion with a marble ballroom, paintings a museum may be envious of and with the most amazing accessories.  I feel blessed to have seen it and it makes me way happier than you can imagine that the owners are willing to open up their estate to let others enjoy to raise funds for a great organization!

Cupcake Decorating!

Some friends and I headed to Yellow Leaf Cupcake Company in Belltown one rainy Tuesday night before Halloween to learn some tips and tricks on how to frost cupcakes like a pro.  They said they are always hiring for part-time bakers and that they use the class to see budding talent.  Unfortunately not a single one of us were asked back to work at the shop, but we were all in an Italian buttercream coma and had a lot of fun!

The class started with a description of how to make the delicious Italian buttercream frosting that is signature for this specific cupcake company.  Armed with pastry bags and four cakes, we learned how to do four couple different frosting methods: dome (which turned into an adorable pumpkin for Halloween!), signature leaf pattern (which I decorated with red “bloody” bone sprinkles), multi colored frosting (which I decorated with spooky eyeball sprinkles) and tubing (which was used for an apple pie cupcake that had a pie crust bottom and apple pie filling)!

I have not yet used my new frosting techniques, but the skills I learned in this class are sure to bring my cupcake creations to an entirely new level.