High Tea

Something I've wanted to do for a long time is to go to 'High Tea'. I wanted to experience tea time like the English people do. I've been to London twice now and have yet to experience the real thing. Luckily for me, they have High Tea right here in Dallas. I convinced my two good friends, Sue and Margie, to join me. We had no idea what to expect.
The first thing they brought us was this lovely tier of food. There are chicken salad sandwiches, ham sandwiches and cucumber sandwiches on the lowest tier. On tier two there were scones (for which they brought us clotted cream and jam) and what I think was some kind of banana bread with cream cheese maybe? On the top there were mini eclairs, tarts and cream puffs.
At first glance you think - not very much food. Au contraire mon frere. (Yeah, okay I don't know if I spelled that right but you know what I mean). Seriously, though. I was thinking -cheeseburger stop after this.

Then we got the little tea pot. When we opened the lid we saw tea leaves. Uh-oh. We all just looked at each other. I, for one, make instant tea. I had to ask the waiter. 'Excuse me sir? we don't know what to do with the tea.'

He explained that we just poured it in the cup. Actually, he said that one person was designated as the 'mom' and that person was in charge of pouring tea. The cups, he said, came to the tea. The pot did not travel around the table. We also got a little strainer in case the leaves came out in the tea. Guess who got elected to be 'mom'.
This is Sue being a goof ball. I worked with Sue for many years; first at FirstWorthing and then at Lennar.
This is Margie. I've worked with Margie for years as well. We suffered together at FirstWorthing after Sue left and then again at Lennar when Sue left. We're like groupies. We'd follow Sue anywhere.

So back to the tea. It was actually very good. The chicken salad sandwich was not bad. The ham had kind of a weird texture. It was more like 'ham spread'. Strange. Then we hit the scones. I love scones. They brought us clotted cream, which sounds disgusting but it's really just super-good whipped cream - way better than cool whip.

So by the time we got to the top tier of treats, we were all chatty. We haven't seen one another for a while so we were busy catching up. The waiter came by to remove the stand. We thought he was going to take the plate of treats and we all threatened him with our forks and gnashed our teeth. The plate of treats stayed on the table.

The tart was like a baby key lime pie - bite size really. Then the cream puff was really good. By the time I got to the eclair that was filled with chocolate cream I was so full I could barely breathe.
The real treat was seeing my friends. I love those girls like sisters and miss seeing them everyday. The food was just an added bonus....