Calling all Chocoholics-the All About Chocolate Tea Party from my book Tea with a Twist was created just for us. Christmas time is the perfect time of year to indulge and treat you and your friends to a chocolate party from first sip to last bite-savoury to sweet! In my next blog, I will be sharing my microwave chocolate truffle recipe with you that you will want to make for yourself and as gifts for friends-so easy and sooo good!
Christmas is the time of year that I really embrace being a part of the Chocoholics group. I recently returned from Chapel Hill, North Carolina where I was invited to a cooking demo and book signing at the most fabulous "foodie" store you could ever step foot in-A Southern Season and the All about Chocolate Tea Party was the main event. Going back into A Southern Season really took my mind back 20 years to the first time I stepped foot in this store. It was in a different location and much smaller, but still wonderful all the same.
I had just graduated from California State University at Fullerton and moved to Durham, NC. I was waiting tables to earn money while I looked for a job and met Anna who was also a waitress and finishing up at UNC. She was my guide to realizing I didn't fall off the face of the earth moving from California to North Carolina. It was Anna that took me to A Southern Season for the first time and I remember thinking how wonderful the store was and wanting to buy everything. Anna and I lost touch over the years and we have just reconnected on facebook this year.
Life really does come full circle and there is a season for everything just as God says. Twenty years ago, I would have never dreamed that I would be a tea specialist with 2 books published and one of them award winning! It was truly surreal for me to be standing in A Southern Season's Viking kitchen with a sold out class and Anna sitting on the front row. After the class, I signed books.
You see 20 years ago, not long after visiting A Southern Season, I became a widow at the age of 25 and it was Anna that was with me the night I found my first husband had killed himself. God has an amazing way of carrying you through something that you never think you can recover from. How awesome it was for me to present a cooking class in the same town that almost twenty years ago, I thought I would never return to. Now I have begun new memories in Chapel Hill-good ones and a reconnection to a dear friend. How blessed we all are that seasons only last for a while but I do hope that A Southern Season is here to stay.
Wednesday, December 9, 2009
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I know Anna and love her too--she is truly one of God's special people. I can't wait for you to come back to NC so I can meet you! Best of luck. (Anna's Ann #1)
ReplyDeleteGreat story, Lisa. Hope you are enjoying your awesome life! God has had his hand on you all along. Tami Halliman
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing this beautiful story, if a little painful as well. These emotional connections are what life is all about, and I've found that tea has been a force that takes one on all sorts of interesting journeys. Congrats on your beautiful new book. We just got it into the shop.
ReplyDeleteAnother interesting connection with your new book>> the Tonquin Brown Royal Staffordshire teacup you have several photos of in your book, is the same pattern as my grandmother's dishes, which I love and now have. I also used this cup on my tea journal cover! You can check it out at my Wild Orchid Tea web site.
Elaine Terman
Elaine's Tea Shoppe & Wild Orchid Teas