Winter Archives - America's Table

February Flowers

America's Table — Mon, 08 Feb 2016 06:00:36 +0000

There’s never a more welcome time to enjoy a lush arrangement of flowers than in the dead of winter, and with Valentine’s Day around the corner, why not indulge yourself? I’ve been loving the evolution of flower arranging in the last couple of years – flower arrangements are looser, with old-fashioned and exotic blooms (or more prosaic and therefore unexpected), and things are joyously natural and free flowing. This arrangement has many different types of flowers, but only a few stems of each to keep it from becoming too formal or stuffy. You’ll notice the differentiation in height, color and texture in this photo, which gives it the feel of a Renaissance still life. It just makes me happy to look at it.

Here are the flowers we used (with thanks to Nelly Salvacion) for putting this together in about ten minutes this morning:

Ingredients

Quince blossoms
Purple hellebores, or Lenten Roses
Jasmine vine
Lavender lilacs
Cream-colored sweetpeas
Shiny Pitt brilliantine
Champagne sweetheart roses
Poppy heads
Green dianthus

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Tiny Plants

America's Table — Thu, 14 Jan 2016 06:00:37 +0000

There’s something so appealing about a tiny plant, and I must not be the only person who thinks so; every nursery or florist shop seems to be selling these adorable little greens in all their minimalist glory. Maybe it’s a reaction to the post-holiday excess of material goods, maybe it’s because they’re inexpensive, or maybe it’s because it’s an innocent indulgence to enjoy for ourselves. You can put a little plant on your desk or bedside table, near the kitchen sink, on a bookshelf at eye level – anyplace that you’re sure to see it and feel better when you do. They can also be gathered into one container and covered with a cloche for easy maintenance – no watering needed. (Ferns and plants needing lots of moisture do best in cloches.)

I’m not very good with indoor plants; I’m like the helicopter parent hovering overhead, adding too much water, pushing it into the sunshine, and building a three-foot trellis for a plant that grows a couple of inches a year. But I have hope – and I only need to keep them alive until mid-March, when I can move them outside and let Mother Nature resume their proper upbringing. In the meantime, I intend to appreciate the little lush greens and happy tiny flowers wherever I can.

Flowers include: kalanchoe, African violet, orchids, begonias, and assorted green houseplants.

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Blooming Christmas

America's Table — Mon, 14 Dec 2015 11:00:23 +0000

What a feast for the senses the flowers and evergreens of Christmas are! This year I’ve been unusually short on time and didn’t have the option of a leisurely comb through the cold rooms of the floral wholesalers. Much of my Christmas flower shopping was done at the grocery store – the apples, cinnamon, and astilbes came from Safeway and Whole Foods! The rosemary wreath was a very thoughtful hostess gift from one of my daughter’s friends. With a little doctoring, these basic ingredients became homey and welcoming holiday flowers. I used an apple, a cinnamon stick, an old flower pot, and some holly from the garden for the little apple topiary (those would make great Christmas place-card holders, by the way). The rosemary wreath was a Thanksgiving hostess gift re purposed with a new container and some elephant and white beech mushrooms. One bunch of white heather gave the kitchen a Christmas feel, and the rest – greens, roses, holly – were combined to provide little containers of holiday cheer all over the house. I hope you take the opportunity to see the extraordinary in the everyday, especially at this time of year. Cheers!

With thanks to Nelly Salvacion for her beautiful work

White astilbes, David Austin Patience roses, pepper berries, and evergreens.

Apple topiary with holly and cinnamon stick trunk.

White heather in a birch container.

Roses and greens in a Wedgewood bud vase.

Rosemary ring with beech white and trumpet mushrooms.

Double oval wreaths of juniper, shore pine, Leyland cypress, berzillia berries, and thistle eryngium.

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It’s Going To Be A Boy!

America's Table — Mon, 23 Mar 2015 08:00:11 +0000

One of my friends is expecting a baby next month, so a group of us got together to give her a shower. It’s her first child, and they know that it’s going to be a boy, so we went with a classic blue-and-white theme. We invited guests for 4 PM, and served tea and a baby blue cocktail, along with tea sandwiches, a hearty salad, and lots and lots of sweets – cake, cupcakes, cookies. There are so many clever ideas for shower foods that we decided to go with…all of them! The cocktail was very pretty, and based on one I found on Pinterest: lemonade with UV Blue Raspberry Vodka (don’t knock it until you’ve tried it – yes, the color is ultraviolet blue, but it melds nicely with the lemonade).

We kept the games to two simple activities: there was a suggestion box for baby names, and we provided blank wooden blocks for guests to decorate for the baby –two ideas I also found on Pinterest. Are you sensing a pattern here? The signs and other paper products were from Loralee Lewis, and the overall theme came from a blue-and-white baby shower I found on…Pinterest! There is a brilliant baby shower idea website called Bumpsmitten, and if you’re planning a shower I would go there now – don’t even wait to look at these photos. It’s that good.

The lesson here, I think, is that if you can Google, you can put together an amazing party of any kind. I hadn’t given a baby shower in a long time, and the world has changed so much because of technology that, for all I knew, it could be something people do via videoconference now, but with Pinterest you can find an endless supply of current and clever ideas. There’s no excuse not to give a party now!

It was great to catch up with old friends, since I hadn’t seen many of the guests in years, and, as it turns out, some things never change. We all oohed and ahhed over the gifts, and made jokes about changing diapers – and my husband even managed to slip a name suggestion for the baby into the box before we shooed him out. (He likes ‘Wayne’.) I’ll let the photos speak for themselves.

Here’s the Pinterest board I created!:
Follow America’s Table’s board Baby Shower Ideas on Pinterest.

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Valentine Sentiments

America's Table — Wed, 04 Feb 2015 13:00:34 +0000

For many years, I collected pieces of silver with monograms and messages on them. Cups, spoons, little silver boxes – the hand engraving and the messages were expressions of love and gratitude that spanned generations. I stopped collecting them years ago, because accumulating things is not so important to me anymore. I think the real value of money is in how you use it to help other people.

In the meantime, I still have this nice collection of silver cups. Reading the sentiments on them made me think that they were the perfect vehicles for a display of Valentine’s Day flowers, because they illustrate many kinds of love. There’s the “Blanche to Charles” inscription on a wide shaving cup, probably a gift from a woman to her fiancé, husband, or brother. Then there are the more formal inscriptions: “Edward H. Lytle to his Grand Niece Julia K. Macalester 1856,” obviously a doting uncle. There’s a lovely inscription wreathed in raised silver apple blossoms, “Mother to Ella, Her 10^th Birthday.” You can feel the maternal love in that.

I especially like the multi-generational inscriptions. One cup has several messages added over time, “Bessie, from Aunt E, 1869” it says, and on the other side of the same cup, “Elizabeth from Aunt Bessie, 1899.” Elizabeth must have been a treasured family name, and Bessie the nickname, which was passed down through this family along with the silver cup. Not all the engravings are happy, though they do set the imagination running. There’s one exquisite neoclassical cup whose engraving has been scratched out so the inscription is no longer legible. Spurned lover, broken friendship, family quarrel? I’ve always wondered what the story was behind that cup. They all have stories, and I think that’s what drew me to them in the first place. I hope your story is a happy one, whether it’s preserved forever on a silver cup, or in your mind as a wonderful memory.

Helleborus Winter Bells

Lathryus First Lady and Muscari

Ranunculus cloni blush pink

Sweet Paradise Spray Roses

Tulips Pink Van Dyck

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