Happy Mother’s Day to all mothers. I hope you were wonderfully spoiled today.
There are so many ways to celebrate Mom on Mother’s Day. Some years we have been travelling, other years we have gone to brunches at a favorite hotel restaurant, and other years we have stayed home and had our first lobster “feed” of the season (which is part of what we did this year, too). However, I decided to host a Mother’s Day Tea this year, also.
I love afternoon teas – they harken back to the genteel days where life moved at a slower pace and times seemed gentler. Hosting a tea is a wonderful, relaxing way to savour a light meal. Afternoon teas need not be extravagant (although they are wonderful when they are!). They can be very simple but, for Mother’s Day, the special day to celebrate mothers, it is nice to dress up the event. Do set a lovely table complete with pristine linens and your finest china (we all know that tea, for some reason, always tastes best when served in a china cup, right?)
Of course, Mother’s Day in Canada, falling on the second Sunday in May, always coincides closely with the opening of the Spring lobster fishing season in Prince Edward Island. The first traps were set on May 1st this year with the first catches being landed on the following day. Many families celebrate Mother’s Day along with their first official “feed” of lobster of the season. Many a lobster are cracked open and savoured on Mother’s Day weekend in PEI!
For my tea, I opted to make lobster the star attraction. I made lobster sandwiches and also tried a new recipe for lobster salad in puff pastry from the Spring 2012 issue of Victoria Classic “Teatime Bliss“. I was not disappointed. The delicate, flaky pastries filled with lobster salad were a tasty savory addition to my tea. For those not liking lobster, I included the quintessential cucumber sandwiches as well.
On the beverage front, I served Yellow Tail “Bubbles Rosé” followed, of course, with tea. My tea offering was “Traditional Afternoon” from Williamson Tea.
For the Mother’s Day cake, I chose a traditional teatime cake – the Battenburg cake. This is a sponge cake of two colors, assembled in checkerboard fashion, then covered in marzipan and iced with fondant icing. This made a colorful finale to a wonderful afternoon tea.
Sweets included an assortment of tiny cookies, French Macaroons, coconut macaroons, squares, Scotch cakes, and lemon Madeleines.
I highly encourage afternoon tea any time of the year as a relaxing way to spend some quality time and have some great conversation with those who mean the most to you. What a grand afternoon!
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