A Bone China Legacy

Every home is born of a creative mind, though many would never consider themselves as such.

When my great grandmother passed away some years ago, I inherited her bone china tea service. Having a particular fondness for the afternoon ritual, my dad thought that I would put the tea set to good use. This collection of Royal Stafford English bone china is in the Bideford pattern and was a cherished part of my grandmother's china collection.

The box of fragile china survived 7 weeks travelling by ship without so much as paint chip before it finally arrived at my home in New England. Opening the box brought back a flood of memories from my life in England, but there was one discovery that I didn't expect. There were several pieces of china that were slightly different than the rest. As it turns out, my great grandmother had hand painted several pieces herself in the Bideford pattern. She took such attention to detail that I would have barely noticed had it not been for the delicately hand scrawled signature in place of the china brand name.

This discovery opened my eyes to a side of my great grandmother that I never knew. She too filled her home with artful moments and passed them on to her grandchildren.

Taste of the Week- The Art of Food

This week I am on the precipice of beginning a new creative home project. More to come on this later as I figure out the details. In the meantime, here's a taste of the week.

Early spring in New England has always reminded me of England. The landscape is filled with rich greens and browns, the air is cool and damp. With the cool and rainy weather marking the coming spring, nothing seems more fitting than listening to the raindrops falling while enjoying a hot bowl of soup. While potato soups originated independently in many cultures, potato leek soup is wholeheartedly British in my memory.

The recipe I used this week is quick, simple, delicious, and can be found here.

Enjoy!

Lessons I learned from Beatrix Potter

I have decided to start this blog as a way of sharing the creative and artful moments of everyday life.

This story, like most good stories, begins with a pie. 

Last night, my roommates and I held a family dinner, each making our own contribution to the meal. I made the dessert, by far the best thing to cook when preparing food for other people to eat. The final result was a perfectly homemade blueberry pie.

The recipe I used for this simple pie can be found here. 

As I placed the pie on the table for dinner, it struck me. This pie was not just a pie. It was something handcrafted by someone for the enjoyment of others. It was a work of art that, just a few minutes later, would disappear into a pile of crumbs.