happy argo day

If you were born today, you're an Aquarius, you share a birthdate with famous folks like the late Paul Newman and the living Ellen DeGeneres and David Strathairn, and if you live near an Argo Tea Cafe and belong to their LoyalTea Club, you can get a free small drink from their extensive menu.  If you were born tomorrow, you're still an Aquarius and you can still get the free birthday drink.  And so on.  Birthdays come but once a year, so choose wisely.  And if it's not your birthday or you don't live near an Argo, you can still listen to their online radio playlist anytime you please.


Pictured:  Two Women in a Cafe -- Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, ca. 1927

keep calm and drink tea

A $3.99 purchase at TJMaxx.  We are most amused.

tea and chinoiserie

Teavivre.com was nice enough to send me some samples of tea all the way from China (as Leonard Cohen says) and I hope to start reviewing them soon.  I've already tried their Unbridled Love Fruit Tea, because it's got a name that's hard to resist and is a tangy-sweet blend of apples, rose hips, orange peel and black currants.  Liked it very much and will have another cup or two around Valentine's Day.

A major Chicagoland celebrity tea happening comes from Billy Corgan of the Smashing Pumpkins, who recently announced plans to open a 1930s French Chinese decor tea house in Highland Park at the former Ravinia Station post office.  With a varied selection of teas and and tea treats, including vegan options and coffee on the menu amidst probably what will be a really lovely setting.  

Pictured:  Tea caddy, Chinese, circa 1780, with caddy spoon by silversmith Elizabeth Morley, 1805. Exhibit in the Indianapolis Museum of Art, Indianapolis (Daderot photo from Wikimedia Commons)

kwik and keurig

A popular gift this holiday season seemed to be the Keurig brand of coffeemaker, which I love the convenience and variety of but I'm still not fully on-board with the taste.  There's just something a bit unfinished and forced about the brew, but if you have only two minutes to make coffee in the morning rush and one person wants Tully's French Roast and the other Green Mountain Dark Magic, this is probably the best option.

There are also reusable K-Cups for your own blend, or disposables for tea, hot cider and hot chocolate -- the latter reminding me of childhood ice skating memories from a rink where there was a rundown but wonderful hot chocolate machine that spurted out a syrupy brown cup of cocoa after a great deal of wheezing and rattling and whirring.  The Gloria Jean's French Vanilla K-Cup fills the room with a distinct aroma that takes me back to how the forever-brewing pots of flavored coffee at the Wawa at 17th and Arch in Philadelphia used to smell (and probably still do).  And then there's the Donut Shop experience, which allows me to remember a lackluster temp job and a nearby now-closed Dunkin Donuts by the CTA's Clark/Lake Blue Line station, with its tasty cranberry-orange muffins and staunch refusal to ever honor Dunkin Donuts gift cards.  All this making the Keurig not just a coffee machine, but a fast as lightning beverage time travel chariot as well....

best wishes for a fruitful new year full of good news and fine champagne

Still Life with Fruit, Champagne Bottle and Newspaper -- William Michael Harnett, 1881 (image courtesy of the-athenaeum.org)