My friends Nigel, Deepinder, and I have been voting on the Oscars each year since 2003 (I think). One of these days I swear we’re going to have an Oscar party! Bascially we vote beforehand and then keep track who guessed the most correctly. It tends to make the long event more fun for the lesser-known Oscars. Every year Deepinder also tries to watch all the films nominated for Best Picture, but with 10 nominees this year I don’t think he made it.

Let me preface my guesses by the fact that I flip-flop between who I want to win and who I think will win.

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Whom have you met because of something related to tea? Share something about this person and how your relationship began and blossomed.

Most people I’ve met have been through something else when we discover we both share a love for tea. My best friend in high school, Anna, introduced me to The Secret Garden which I wrote about last week. I met Chelle through a local knitting meetup that would occur at a local cafe. We soon discovered we both enjoyed visiting Steeps in Vancouver. We’ve dragged Julia (another knitting friend) there a couple times.

I met Chan and Ruth via blogging, and we connected over knitting, then pets and tea too. When Ruth and her hubby visited Vancouver last February, we got to share our love for tea as well as the West Coast. I gave her an antique tea cup… and it is the same one on the Hot Tea Month button!

This past week’s topic/discussion prompt is: If I could have my own Tea House this is how I would run things…..

I have been to several tea houses, surprisingly not that many in England though. My favourite one is The Secret Garden Tea Company in Kerrisdale, an area of Vancouver. What I like about it is the clean, bright, relaxed atmosphere of it. I think if I had a Tea House, I would run it similarly.

Their space is a mixture of sit-down and shop. In the shop you can order treats to-go, smell all the teas, and purchase accessories. If you want to sit down for lunch, a cuppa, or even high tea, there are lots of spaces. One of the really nice touches at Secret Garden is the service crockery. They’ve collected old tea cups and saucers and even have a sign on the front door saying they purchase cups and saucers.

If you’re staying in, you are seated by a member of staff and given a tea menu. You and can either choose a pot of tea to share for the table, or each order your own tea. It comes in a teapot covered in a cosy (similar to the ones available to purchase) and you can have unlimited hot water refills. If you’re doing high tea, or demi (half) high tea, the menu is set, but if you’re doing lunch there are lots of lovely salads, sandwiches, and soups for a filling yet light lunch.

I love going for high tea, which I’ve only done a handful of times. The high tea menu changes slightly, but it’s delivered on a three-tiered tray with many miniture goodies. The bottom tier is savoury sandwiches and my favourites are mini croissants with brie and roasted veggies and the egg salad pinwheels. The middle tier has scones with devonshire cream and raspberry jam. The top tier is sweets… and as full as you already are, you cannot resist the goodies up there. Favourites influde lemon tartlette, chocolate mousse cake, and various other goodies.

The few changes I would make in my own establishment would probably just relate to the different menu items and blends of tea. I think that it would be so much fun to work on making blends of tea and pairing with foods. Just give it my own personlized touch with decor as well.

Week Two: January 10-16, 2010
“Tell us about your favorite teas. Do you prefer black, green, white, red, or herbal? Do you like added flavors such as fruit, flowers, vanilla, chocolate, or spices, or are you a purist?”

My tried and true is a cup of orange pekoe with milk, no sugar. But I love flavoured and fruity black tea as well as spiced chai made with milk instead of water. And occasionally I’ll have a white or oolong tea. I’m pickier about those kinds. I have a really nice peach oolong tea and a “cleansing” white tea that is really enjoyable after dinner.

I’m not much of a green tea drinker, but I do enjoy yerba mate every so often. I’ve tried a variety of roiboos teas and I do enjoy them but have yet to find one I absolutely love. If I want something calming or for my stomach, I’ll have chamomile or pepperment herbal tea.

Last year Ruth and Chan hosted Hot Tea Month Blog-a-thon at the Knit1 Tea2 Swap blog. This year, Ruth is going it alone at a brand new Hot Tea Month blog. I made some more buttons this year for Ruth and I’m also participating too.

Week One: January 3-9, 2010
“Tea as a mood lifter: How does tea improve your day? What is your favorite time for a nice, hot cuppa?”

My day always begins with a hot cup of tea, but my favourite time is in the late afternoon to just cuddle up with a cuppa tea and a book or a movie. Nowadays (winter time) we use tea to warm up. I’m nursing a cup right now, holding it to my chest and warming my hands… when I’m not typing.

As many of you know, I love making buttons for various projects and blogging initiatives. I just thought I’d share some of the recent projects I’ve helped out with and give them a little boost!

Serena of Savvy Verse & Wit and Anna of Diary of an Eccentric are going into their second year of the War Through the Generations Reading Challenges. The theme for 2009 was WWII and the theme for 2010 is Vietnam. Be sure to check out their War Through the Generations blog.

Ruth is hosting the Hot Tea Month blog-a-thon again this January. I especially enjoyed these buttons because the first one is of her teacups and the second one is a teacup I gifted to her!

In April, Jen of Jen’s Book Thoughts will be hosting a theme week: Detectives Around the World. Stay tuned to her blog for more details!

The booklist for Canada Reads 2010 has been announced. You may recall last year I mentioned Canada Reads when I posted my review of The Book Of Negroes by Lawrence Hill. It was a fantastic book and won Canada Reads 2009. This year, a few of us knitters have decided to try and read all the contenders before the Canada Reads debate begins on March 8, 2010. Now, without further ado, here are the books:

• Good to a Fault by Marina Endicott (defended by Simi Sara)
• Nikolski by Nicholas Dickner (defended by Michel Vézina)
• Generation X by Douglas Coupland (defended by Roland Pemberton aka Cadence Weapon)
• The Jade Peony by Wayson Choy (defended by Samantha Nutt)
• Fall On Your Knees by Ann-Marie MacDonald (defended by Perdita Felicien)

The way Canada Reads works is five panelists join a host for a week of debates about the books they’ve chosen to “champion”. The panelists are each supposed to defend their choice, to answer the question: Why should this book be a book that all Canadians should read? Every day during Canada Reads week (March 8-12, 2010) a book is voted out on air by the panelists, until just one remains. In short, Canada Reads is a battle of the books.

The great thing about Canada Reads is that it isn’t an invisible jury or group of judges behind closed doors. Also, the books don’t have to be published within any specific time frame (as is the case with most book prizes). Don’t get me wrong, I love book prizes that highlight authors and their works, especially local (British Columbian) and Canadian authors! With Canada Reads, the author must be Canadian; that’s pretty much the only criteria.

Curious to hear about this years’ books and their champions? Visit the Canada Reads website to see a video of the panelists talking with host Jian Ghomeshi.

I haven’t done the Friday Fill-in for a while.

1. Plans and schedules keep me sane .
2. I’m happy when things go as planned .
3. The last thing I drank was ginger ale and cranberry juice.
4. One of the most valuable things in my life are those I love .
5. I like anything except meat on my pizza.
6. Dear November, while you have lots of fun things, and smell great, and beautiful colours… please hurry up and get to December 20th already.
7. And as for the weekend, tonight I’m looking forward to relaxing, tomorrow my plans include recouping from this cold and grocery shopping and Sunday, I want to find someone to help me sort out my knitting!

This week I took Wednesday and half of Thursday off of work in an attempt to quell this cold. No I don’t have H1N1 or the regular flu… just a cold with a sore throat and runny nose. I was feeling dizzy and I know myself: if I didn’t take some time to recoup once I felt it coming on, I’d be fighting it for at least two weeks. So I’m relaxing, drinking lots of fluids, knitting, reading, and watching TV.

Speaking of knitting — I have been working on some Christmas gifts and working with some good quality yarn. Well, Henry has a history of licking, rolling in, chewing on, and kneading anything that is 100% wool, alpaca, llama, or similar. Yes, this has happened more than once. Yes, I need to store my knitting where my cat cannot reach it. Yes, I now need help figuring out where my stitch marker goes in a circular pattern so that the pattern isn’t thrown off whack. Uuuuugh. But because it is semi-secret it’s not light I can post a picture on the blog!

Oh and December 20th? That’s when I leave for Christmas in England. I’ve taken some time off work in January to go travelling because this will be my fifth Christmas in England and I’ve seen lots of London and Manchester, but not much else. My plans aren’t set but I’d like to go to Stonehenge, Stratford-Upon-Avon, Bristol, Bath, Leeds, Liverpool, maybe Dover… and I have a desire to go to Guernsey now… haha

My cousin has a miniature long-haired dachshund named Taffy. She has a little orange ball that she goes nuts over. My uncle recently discovered that if you put it in a cardboard box, Taffy will go crazy trying to get at the ball. We also found a mouse that Henry had lost, so Taffy started to play with that too.

Check out the video I put together (to the song “Dreaming Of You” by The Coral):

Well, I haven’t participated in Booking Through Thursday for a while! Here’s a quick one because I gotta get back to work.

Which do you prefer? Yes, I know, some of these we’ve touched on before, and some of these we might address in-depth in the future, but for today–just quick answers!

• Reading something frivolous OR something serious? —— depends on my mood
• Paperbacks OR hardcovers? —— both
• Fiction OR Nonfiction? —— fiction
• Poetry OR Prose? —— prose
• Biographies OR Autobiographies? —— neither
• History OR Historical Fiction? —— historical fiction if we’re talking about novels
• Series OR Stand-alones? —— both
• Classics OR best-sellers? —— both
• Lurid, fruity prose OR straight-forward, basic prose? —— depends on the book
• Plots OR Stream-of-Consciousness? —— plots
• Long books OR Short?—— medium I suppose. 300-500 pages is a good length. but if it’s a good book, it doesn’t matter really
• Illustrated OR Non-illustrated? —— no preference
• Borrowed OR Owned? —— depends on the book
• New OR Used? —— no preference