Primavera Tablescape + Printable Invite

We are well into April - my most favorite month - and it’s time to celebrate the colors of spring! Whether I’m experiencing the April Showers of Vermont or the hot skies of New Delhi, the allure of pinks and yellows on fresh green always calls to me. Here’s a table dressed for “my month” with a cloth in our Primavera collection – so appropriate for spring!

As nature mixes colors and textures in a garden, you can carrying a table to the next level by providing an array of coordinating placemats and napkins. Alternating between jacquard weaves and prints is a great way to add dimension to your table. Featured here is the Papillon Jade and Garden Pink woven napkins layered with the Eden and Madeline collections.

Some waffle weave tea towels await a warm dessert from the kitchen and our coordinating Primavera dishware serves as a punch bowl for some delicious fruity refreshment.

Here’s to celebrating the changing days as we wake up to a new season and herald the arrival of spring!

Click here to print/save this invitation for your spring party! (Fun little printout for little girl's tea parties as well). Enjoy!

April

Feel Beautiful Live Beautiful Be Beautiful

(For more information about Tablescape Thursday and all its beauty, click here)

Sausage & Pepper Pizza Recipe

Last weekend I had a few friends over for a casual get-together. Just wanting to enjoy the time with my company - I opted for a quick and fresh dinner! When a fancy dinner just won’t do, pizza is the perfect way to have fun, be creative and get everyone involved in the cooking. Your guests can bring a favorite topping, or a salad item.

Basic Pizza Dough

Makes three 12 inch pizzas

3 ½ cups flour, sifted

1 tbs. evoo (extra virgin olive oil)

1 tbs. salt

1 ½ cups warm water

1 tbs. active dry yeast

• In a small bowl, sprinkle the yeast in the warm water, and stir to dissolve it. Set aside until the yeast starts forming bubbles in about 5 minutes

• Sift the flour. Pour the flour into a large bowl or on a work surface. Mold the flour in a mound shape with a hole in the center

• In the center pour the yeast mix, olive oil, and a pinch of salt

• Then mix with your hands to form a dough ball

• On a floured work surface knead the dough briefly with your hands pushing and folding. Knead just long enough for the dough to take in a little more flour, and until it no longer sticking to your hands

• Coat a bowl with evoo and transfer dough into bowl

• Cover the bowl with a tea towel, and set the bowl aside for approximately 1½ – 2 hours until the dough doubles in volume. The time required for rising will depend on the strength of the yeast and the temperature of the room

• When the dough is double its original size, punch it down to eliminate the air bubbles.

• Separate the dough into three even pieces

• Using a rolling pin or your hands work the dough into the shape of your baking sheet

Pizza

4 tablespoons pizza sauce, I tried Casa Visco

1/2 a medium bell pepper julienned

1/2 white button mushrooms, chopped

3 hot sausages, casing removed

1 cup shredded 2% mozzarella

1/3 cup kalamata olives

• Pre-heat oven to 450-475 degrees

• Julienne pepper, chop mushroom, and de-pit olives

• Remove casing from sausage and break a part with fingers

• In a non stick skillet pour 2 tablespoons of olive oil

• Brown the meat and continue to break apart with a spatula

• Roll out dough on a lightly flowered surface

• Remove sausage and drain on a plate lined with paper towel

• Put together pizza- start with sauce, then meat, veggies and finish with cheese

• Bake for 7-8 minutes

• Let rest for 3 minutes before cutting

Serve with a garden salad in pretty bowl, like our new colored bamboo bowls! Add a crisp white wine to the mix- and sit back and enjoy the warm breezes and friendly conversation.

April

Feel Beautiful Live Beautiful Be Beautiful

For more information on Foodie Friday: Click Here

Miss our stores? Watch the videos of me at La Cache!

Last Friday (1/15) I was up in Montreal at the La Cache on Greene Avenue meeting and talking with customers for the day. All who came received a signed tea towel. I loved seeing them and you will love it too- the most charming delightful, beautiful and enjoyable people ever! If you were not able to stop by - please watch the videos - it's just like being in the store!

Hope you enjoy!

April

Tea Towel Giveaway!

Take a few minutes and share a favorite stew or soup that brings comfort on a chilly day (just the kind of stew/soup is okay - or if you're feeling ambitious let us know the recipe!). We'll choose the winner of an April Cornell Tea Towel - "The House" - from the visitors who leave a comment to this post. On Friday, we'll use a random number generator and announce the winner of a tea towel. Be sure to check back and see if you won!

A delicious seasonal stew. Friends it is time to put your apron and cook! My father loved stew, and my mother liked to make it for him. I too love stew, and find it such a comfort dish for the change of seasons. As the stew simmers and its savory smell fills the air, I set my table with a rich autumn colored tablecloth, tall candles, and deep plates. The candle light casts a spell of homey beauty, a table fit for conversation, good food and friendship.

Here's my recipe for Dad's stew, modified.
The secret - the deliciousness of this stew, is the lamb. It gives the rich meat flavor, evoking the umm, umm, yumm, spoon scraping experience.

• 1 lb of beef stewing meat
• 1 lb of lamb cut up (stew meat if available, otherwise I cut up lamb chops)
• 1 large onion
• Butter to fry the onion (about a quarter cup)
• 3 medium potatoes
• 6 small carrots (if they are quite fresh I don't peel them)
• 1 medium turnip
• 1/2 cup flour
• Salt and pepper

Serve with: Crusty Bread, Red Wine or Apple Cider

1. In a low dish put flour, salt and pepper, then roll the cubed meat in it (if you run out of flour, add more).
2. In a large frying pan, cut your large onion and fry in butter, on low heat.
3. Add meat to pan, turning so that all parts become sealed. I add more butter if it is too dry. You don't want the meat to stick to the pan; the butter and flour on the meat are creating a nice gravy. Put aside when meat is done (you can put the meat in a large pot to wait for the veggies, as it gets ready).
4. Vegetables - I like to parboil my potatoes - I have a real aversion to hard potatoes. I cut my potatoes rather small (not in cubes - a quarter potato or less depending on the size) this is mostly my own prejudice as I don't like the potatoes to dominate the stew - I like the meat, carrots and turnip to be the main experience. I parboil the carrots and turnip as well, together in the same pot as the potatoes. The turnip should be peeled and cut into smallish pieces, a little smaller than the potato. I let them cook for about 5-7 minutes, before adding to the stew.
5. In the big pot, I add the stew meat and all the vegetables.
6. Add 1/2 to 1 cup of water, not too much - this is not a watery stew, it is thick and rich and meaty. Use the water that you boiled the vegetables in, it is more flavorful.
7. Put the lid on the pot and let the stew simmer for a few hours, stirring occasionally. Add a little water if it is too dry, or flour if it is too watery (keep some of the boiled vegetable water in a measuring cup that you can mix your flour in that before adding to the stew).
8. When the delicious smells begin to waft, slice your loaf of crusty bread, decant your red wine or pour a glass of apple cider to accompany the meal.

Remember:
Some like it hot, Some like it cold, Some like it in the pot Nine days old!

April

Be Beautiful, Feel Beautiful, Live Beautiful

Simple Beauty and Gift Ideas

Like William Morris, the revered 19th century designer of wallpapers, fabrics carpets, and tapestries, I too believe that our homes should only contain what we believe to be beautiful or functional. "Live with beauty" is a mantra of mine. The simple hand-printed April Cornell tea towel, absorbent, artistic, colorful, conceived with purpose - dish drying - and serendipitously multipurpose as gift wrapping - pie covering, decor making and just plain non-stop prettifying of kitchen and hearth - is such an item. The fact that a 19 x 27-inch honeycomb cloth is also pure cotton, printed with original patterns and poetry, is made in a woman-run factory and gives meaningful employment for designers, printers, dyers, tailors, packers, shippers and salespeople, makes that humble tea towel an item we can all be proud of.

Enjoy this video and learn the magic inherent in a basic, yet beautiful tea towel. It has some great tips for hostess gifts for the upcoming holidays too!

April

Feel Beautiful, Live Beautiful, Be Beautiful

“Have nothing in your house which

you do not know

to be useful,

or believe to

be beautiful.”

William Morris, 1880

Divine Pumpkin Cookies

Good food, best shared. Here is a sweet recipe for the season shared by Mary Beth Stromberg, owner of a lovely Tuscan bed and breakfast near Nipomo, California. Pam Cowan and I had the pleasure of staying with Mary Beth, and carrying a picnic basket with hot coffee and these Pumpkin cookies, (really sort of like mookies because they are rather muffin-like), to the Remnants of the Past Show, a daylong journey into beautiful things and days gone by. They added just the right amount of homemade sweetness to get us through meeting our customers and friends.

Pumpkin Cookies (Mookies!)

2 ½ cups of flour

½ tsp baking soda

½ tsp salt

1 cup butter [softened]

1 cup sugar

½ cup brown sugar

1 egg

13/4 cups pure pumpkin [available in a can]

2 tablespoons orange juice

1 tsp grated orange peel

1 cup chopped walnuts

1 cup chocolate chips [or caramel chips]

Combine flour, baking soda and salt in bowl

Combine butter, white sugar, brown sugar in large bowl, beat until creamy. Add egg, pumpkin, orange juice and orange peel. Beat until combined. Gradually add flour mixture. Beat until combined. Stir in nuts and chocolate chips.

Drop dough from rounded tablespoon onto ungreased baking sheet.

Bake in preheated oven at 375 degrees for 12 minutes, until edges are set.

Allow to cool.

Line your basket with a pretty tea towel, add a thermos of coffee and enjoy!

Yum and yeah Mary Beth!