I’m a little Teapot…

“Sir” and I had our beautiful friend Rhiannon over for dinner last night. It was one of those spontanous dinners in which Rhi skillfully invited herself over.. I love that she does that. It’s one of her MANY super-skills.

I had be toying with an idea to ‘clean-up’ (since I’m into this eating clean thing) some desserts… My Spring edition of Donna Hay inspired an idea for a coconut lime tart, with a nut/coconut oil base and then coconut milk & lime curd.. sugar free, gluten free etc etc. I will make it one day. But during my blog ‘stalking’ this week I found a recipe for some sweet little sugar free pavlovas (merginues) and a sugar free lemon curd over at I breathe.. I’m hungry  . Lemon Meringure Pie is one of my absolute favourites, so this was right up my alley! Anyway to sum it up – it failed. my meringue didn’t crisp and my lemon curd separated. it tasted good, but in my books, it was an EPIC FAILURE. I will contniue to experiement and nail it soon!

So anyway, “Sir” had told Rhi not to bring anything in the way of food with her, but he did request  “A bubbling smile please” (Another one of her super-skills!).. so rather than bring food supplies, in her spontaneous generosity she purchased me a beautiful teaset (as pictured below).

I don’t fancy myself much of a “collector”, probably more of a “hoarder”.. its terrible! But I do consider my supply of teapots to becoming somewhat of a collection..

My first teapot..  it started on our honeymoon. We stayed at “Sir’s” Grandma Christie’s place since she was no longer living there. She had left a giant red teapot with a sweet sugar thing and milk jug as a gift to me. It’s quite a bulky teapot and was a task to get home, but made it in one piece luckly.. Note: flying and crockery don’t mix well.

My second teapot was a gift from “Sir” for my 22nd birthday. It’s a sweet bauble looking red teapot. Brilliant to use for just me. I used it alot the first winter while I studied.. admittedly that lead to numerous toilet breaks as necessary procrastination! It also got a good run at work – may return soon actually, but we are coming out of tea season..

My third teapot came from “Sir’s” Nan Baker.  It’s a stirling silver set, again with a milk jug and sugar thing (what the heck are those sugar things called!?). I love that Nan gave it to me, a very special gift. Again, it had to travel back across the ditch.. Note: silver wear travels more successfully than crockery.

My forth teapot.. (gee I kind of didn’t realise I had so many until I started to write about them.. I must have a tea party soon to put them all to good use!).. this one is another GIANT one and has two matching mugs. It’s stripy, red, yellow, blue, green (I may have just made that up, but it is some combination of primary/secondary-like colours..). This one was given to me by my dear friend and work collegue, Joe. I had actually just been made redundant, so this was my parting gift since we both share a love of tea. I used this one alot over the 6 week span of my unemployment. I also ate alot of chocolate and watched episode after episode of the OC. Note: If you come across me like that, tell me to put down the chocolate, take off my slippers and get me out of the house! During this time I also came across the teacups and saucers that matched – so of course, the crockery fiend that I am purchased them for a mere $6 from Myer.. I do love a bargain!

My fifth teapot (almost there I promise) was given to me by my Mother-in-law. Mum Baker loves to give gifts. Especially to me it seems, moreso than to “Sir”. I actually had to ask her at the start of this year to stop buying me cookbooks (that’s another collection/hoard? I have that I will not go into today) because I just have WAY TOO MANY! So this teapot is a sweet little red oriental one (red again! it is kind of my kitchen utensil colour.. if I was to be given a Kitchen Aid Mix Master I would want Red.. hint hint). This, like most of the gifts from Mum Baker was a spontaneous one beacause she saw it and thought of me..

That brings me to my SIXTH (oh dear I have SIX teapots!) beautiful teapot from the beautiful Rhi. It’s very elegant, and dainty. It actually reminds of Beauty and the Beast, not because it actually looks like Mrs Potts, but I think it’s because of the yellow of Belle’s dress..weird the associations our brains make ay? I love it. I also have to make mention of a classic thought Rhi said out loud (i think its one that should be kept as a thought..lol).. “I have the attention span of a snowpea.. do you ever wonder if things like snowpeas can think?”… Hmm interesting, but I probably wouldn’t go asking too many people that one!

So thats my teapot collection ‘in a bakery’.