Scotland, ho!

We spent Christmas in the wee town of Falkland, which is about a half hour's drive from St. Andrews, and still in Fife. Our friends, Tara and Nick were away for the holidays and asked us to mind their two lovely cats, Misha and Sylvan, whilst staying at their beautiful old farmhouse in the middle of Falkland Estate. Learn more about the history of the town and Estate here.



Debi's office is also on the Estate, in the old stables. A far cry from NYC and cubicles, eh?
Just outside her door is a wee hill, atop which is an old church. Beyond that, is the majestic Falkland Mountain.












Most of the farms are organic, and there's a great one called the Pillars of Hercules. They have a restaurant and store, where you can buy fresh organic produce from their farm and other natural supplies. We had some tea and amazing soup on their outdoor patio. Quite wonderful. More on the Pillars, and the great projects undertaken on the property are here.







The cats are loving and playful, and we enjoyed their company very much. They're quite masterful mousers, and we received many fruits of their daily hunts. We'd reward them with a bowl of milk and dispose of the poor murdered creatures whilst the furry huntresses were lapping up their bounty. We got in a good deal of play time and relaxing with them by the fire. The fireplaces were a great comfort, and I enjoyed gathering and cutting wood as much as I liked sitting before a fire with my tea and my sweetiepie, twa wee cats a-purrin'.

Hey, all!

Sorry there hasn't been a real update in a while. We have plenty of photos and stories to share, we've just been really busy. What else is new, eh?

We promise to do some posting in the next few weeks, and certainly once exams are done.

Wishing you all happy holidays, and great things for the New Year!

David & Debi
From a wee farmhouse in the middle of Falkland, Fife, Scotland.

"It was bound to happen, really..."

As many of you well know, we're tea fiends. We're simply mad (mad I tell you!) about the dried leaves boiled in water with a drop of milk in.




Although, we favor black varieties, we also like green, white, and red. Even purple-stripey with little yellow-and-blue flower petals mixed in with a dash of bergamot (colour unknown) will do occasionally, just for the sake of something completely different.

"Strange how a teapot can represent at the same time the comforts of solitude and the pleasures of company." ~Author Unknown

Though becoming more and more of a necessity as the weather gets colder and wetter (I've begun taking it to class in a small vacuum thermos), neither of us can really remember a day without it for the past five or so years.

I've been drinking it since I was about twelve. Amongst the very few "fond" teenage memories I have, my favourites are the afternoons spent with Granny in either Zabar's, hunting down loose tea, or sitting in their little bar stools by the window...

(or at our dear, departed Cafe La Fortuna), sipping and talking away...


Then there were the times we went to the Cloisters and had tea on the grass, looking out over the Hudson.

On the night that Debi and I met, tea played a great part in bringing us together. After seeing each other across the crowded room at SoHa, we adjourned to French Roast, where we had Jardin Bleu tea and talked until the very wee hours of the morning.
Since, we've spent many long hours in La Fortuna (sniffle), La Lanterna, the Tea Spot, and other fast-disappearing small cafes around NYC.

In High School, I was introduced to the Gran Caffe Degli Artisti, in the Village. Alas, it's gone now, but what an amazing old place it was. I can't even find an image to show you here, nor one of Cafe Bianco.

"Preserve your memories, they're all that's left you!"

Le Figaro Cafe (also recently gone the way of all small businesses in NYC) was a favourite of my father's in his youth, and, along with Cafe Dante across the street & Minetta Tavern up the block, was usually where I could be found when I lived on MacDougal in the late 90's.




I used to keep a tin of Twinings, a mug, and a slotted spoon in my locker back in High School. I was actually voted "most likely to move to England and live off croissants and Earl Grey Tea."

I believe this was put into the yearbook as a catty jab, but although I'm not overly fond of butter-laden pastries (or Earl Grey for that matter, though I still get nostalgic and have a cuppa on occasion), and England, though a close neighbor is a far way from Scotland in many senses of the term, in the end, I'd have to say they got the gist of it at any rate. I guess they had me pegged, in a way, after all!

So, now as I sit in my thick wool cardigan, enjoying a nice black, brackish cuppa in an outrageously-ornate china cup, I figured I'd dedicate this post entirely to it.

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy has a great deal to say about it, as does the Guide's author, Douglas Adams (click the links to read the entries).

There is also this thread, as to why tea is so demmed splendid.

"There is no trouble so great or grave that cannot be much diminished by a nice cup of tea." ~Bernard-Paul Heroux

We set about looking for a proper teapot only a few weeks into our stay here. We managed to score a lovely set on a popular online auction site, which we are extremely happy with. It's taken a bit of TLC but it's quite snazzy now.



After that, we extended the search for individual cups, as we'd left our favorite morning cups behind in New York.

"Harry found the [tea]... seemed to burn away a little of the fear fluttering in his chest." ~J.K. Rowling

Debi found "Basil" at a shop in town, and it was love at first sight.

"Tea is drunk to forget the din of the world." ~T'ien Yiheng

I liked the ridiculousness of mine, and thought it'd be a fun cup in the morning.



We brought "Palomina" (that's her perched atop the kettle, below) with us from New York. We saw her at Alice's Tea Cup back in the spring of '06, and adopted her right away.




Since I've started bringing tea to school, and having a sip after class or whilst waiting for my next lecture, I've found it always starts a conversation. I've also noticed that the idea has caught on quickly, and now there are several of us sipping out of our metallic cups between lectures.

For those of you still in NYC, we highly recommend visiting Franchia, our favorite tea house in the City (though Alice's does a nice job of it as well). There's also Lady Mendl's in Gramercy Park, which is a real treat.

"You can never get a cup of tea large enough or a book long enough to suit me." ~C.S. Lewis