Luncheon to Savor Summer!

This past weekend I hosted a luncheon on my deck to celebrate the start of summer. 

 

 

The menu was full of foods that I associate with summer.

 

First, there are tomato and cheddar sandwiches on white toast with mayo.  

 

 

My grandmother had some tomato plants in her yard and I remember having tomato sandwiches when I would visit her in the summer.  They are also a favorite of my mother's.  Nothing's better than a fresh tomato sandwich in the summer!

 

With the sandwich I served a small salad with mixed greens, cucumbers, feta cheese, fresh basil from my garden, pieces of rotisserie chicken, and balsamic vinaigrette. 

 

Cherries are a huge part of summer, so I have a bowl full on the table.  This was the first visit to the grocery store when I saw them reasonably priced--that's when you know summer's really here! 

 

 



With my luncheon I served a special tea (iced of course!), Peach Daiquiri. 

 

 

This tea by Zhena's Gypsy Tea is a mix of white and green teas and includes peach, lime, and vanilla flavors, as well as rum.  The tea was very interesting.  It did taste faintly of a daiquiri but the strongest flavors were peach and vanilla.  The picture on the tin definitely got my attention in the store--do you see how they made the peach into a teacup?  So cute!

 

Now we get to the best part of the meal--dessert!  I used fresh blackberries to make blackberry mini-pies.  My father and I used to walk to the local park in the summers and pick wild blackberries. They grow wild in the beginning of summer in my part of Virginia.

 

 

The mini blackberry pies are appropriately served in a bowl that also has blackberries with gold accents.  This bowl belonged to my great-grandmother on my father's side. 

 

 

 

 



It is marked AK France.  When I looked up that company, I found that it was located in Limoges, France, and that mark was actively used between 1890 and 1910.  I never realized that the bowl was over a hundred years old!  I can't tell whether it was hand painted or a decal, but at the very least it is definitely a high quality decal and hand embellished.  The inside of the bowl is slightly iridescent. 

 

 

Finally, no summer deck party is complete without flowers. 

 

Here are a few of the pots on my deck this year:

 

Zinnias



 



 

 

a Dhalia,

and one of my summertime favorites, New Guinea Impatiens. 

Thanks so much for joining me today!  Tomorrow I'll share my recipe for mini-blackberry pies and the rest of this week I'll share more about my trip to South Carolina (see here for my post on the Charleston Tea Plantation, where American Classic Tea is grown). 

 

Happy start of summer!

 

 

This week I'm joining:

 

Bernideen's Tea in the Garden

Tea Cup Tuesday~ http://artfulaffirmations.blogspot.com/
Tea Cup Tuesday ~ http://www.marthasfavorites.com/
Tuesday Cuppa Tea~ http://www.antiquesandteacups.info/ 

and

Tea Time Tuesday at Rose Chintz Cottage

For