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I enjoy good food and have many tips for planning a menu for weddings or for parties.  I like the notion of serving finger food because it make it possible for your friends to have conversations and eat at the same time. For this reason, I believe serving Hors D’oeuvres are the best.  The bite size food is uncomplicated to make and can be prepare to look stunning on serving plates.

I also like the glazing style. This self-serve setup is like a buffet. It is much easier for the host. People tend to eat less with this setup. Topically, prepare 4 to 6 Hors D’oeuvres per person. You can pick a theme or select a color theme like you do with the wedding. Set up food, dessert, and drinks stations. The linens and lighting can create the environment you want. Glazing can be self serve or serve by wait staff.

When preparing the menu, begin with a food theme. For example, food items can be by country, vegetarian or meat.  Does the budget allow for seafood?  Is alcohol on the menu?  Will you have no host bar or will it be included with the party?  Will it be lunch or dinner? Once all of decisions are made, begin to identify the main courses. If you have 40 guests, plan 40 of each Hors D’oeuvres you are serving. Begin picking 4 main Hors D’oeuvres, 2 dessert choices, add drinks to calculate the total cost per person . If you are within budget, add more Hors D’oeuvres, desserts, drinks, etc.

Be sure to have servers keeping all the stations clean and filled. This is your party, make sure you are not the one to worry about the details. Pick items that can be serve hot or cold. If serving hot food, can it be reheated just before serving. For example, if serving finger sandwiches, they are usually serve cold, but needs to be seal really well so the bread do not dry out. Also the juice/sauce from the sandwich are not soak into the bread.

Bread is versatile, economical, and can shape into many forms. Here are a few ideas that can turn bread into a fancy meal. With so many recipes on the Internet today, it will be easy for you to find the recipes you need. If not able to find them, you can contact me by via my website.  Listed below are four bite size finger food options.  This is a good start for a small party.

Boutique of flowers

• Use crestless marbleized bread to create a stand up roll
• use yogurt and horseradish sauce to make a bread spread,
• toss thinly sliced apple in lemon juice,
• layer bread with your choice of beef (very thin cut) and apple, leaving one edge of the bread with no meat or apple so the bread can stay together.
• use watercress, edible flowers to create vase like roll with flowers and leave coming out of the top of the roll.

Caviar on Blinis

An substitute to using bread is making Blinis. They look like dollar size pancakes. It can be make in advance. Again, search the Internet for Blinis recipe. Cook all that you need in advance and reheat to room temperature when serving. Top it with sour cream and colorful caviar.  Once the topping is added, serve it quickly.

Smoked Salmon

Use small cookie cutter of your choice to cut out bread pieces. Spread bread with dill cream cheese and top with smoked salmon, then fresh dill or parsley. Like the Blinis above, they are serve open face.

Sweet Nutty Carrot

Mix 1 cup of finely chopped carrots, 3/4 cup of shredded sharp cheddar cheese, half cup of toasted chopped pecans, 1/4 cup raisins, 1/4 cup chopped parsley, bind all ingrediants with 8 ounce of cream cheese. Use water down honey to coat 24 pecan halves and roasted them. Spread creamy mixture on firm bread of your choice and top it with more string carrots and honey toasted pecan.

Here is an idea for beverage that can look just as good with all of the bite size food above.

Look for a fruity, floral green tea,  like our Long Island Strawberry green tea. Use about 6 teaspoon for 2 quarts of iced tea. Use one quart of hot water to steep the tea. and add 1 quart of ice to cool off the hot tea. Chill iced tea until serving time.  It’s best to make this one day in advance.  Use a fruit juice to make heart shape ice cubes. Just before serving, add heart shape ice cubes to the tea for sweetness and presentation.

You can find our tea blog for more recipe ideas. Beautiful Tea For Two pillow gift boxes are available from our website.

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Each year, tea connoisseurs, tea shop owners educate themselves with new products and new teas that enters the market place.  I took a different route and learn about the oldest tea from China.  The rare tea from Wuyi Mountain was on the top of my list.  Some say that this is the first tea that was exported to Europe in the early 17 century.

What makes these Wuyi tea plants so special lies in its geographical location.  Wuji Mountain is located in Fujian Province, Southern China. Like our rare Jasmine Ring tea, it also come from Fujian Province.

Wuyi Mountain has 36 peaks.  The river that runs through this area has 9 bends.  To harvest tea in these mountains, farmers have to hike the steep terrains and some narrow paths.  Some tea plants are deep into the gully where they do not get enough sunlight.  Starving for sunlight, the tea plants reach into the rich soil for nutrients.  Like the Matcha tea from Japan, the tea plants are kept from the sun 30 day before harvest.  Within the gully of  Wuyi Mountain, this is a natural phenomenon.  The soil contain high mineral content, rich in potassium, manganese and other trace minerals.

A tea master knows what is the best tea to make from these old tea plants.  Wuyi has been famous for Oolong teas.  Like Dragonwell, tea named by its location, some of the tea from here are Nine-bend River, Da-Hong-Pao, Tie Luo Han, Bai Ji Guan, and Shui Jin Gui. The teas from this region are usually very expensive.  Each serving can steep 3 to 15 times.  They are not sold in supermarket as the quantity are limited.  It might be a tea you can sample in one of our focus Tea Tasting Class.  Do stay tune for class schedules.

Victoria Chow, Tea Specialist

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For centuries, teas are bought and sold as a commodity.  Tea is used in spiritual practices, ceremonies, weddings, invitation to friendships, and as medicine to heal your body.  In most cases, when sharing tea opens the opportunities for conversations. What are the vibes in this year’s Tea Convention?

The buzz is stronger the ever.  While the Natural Food Trade show became an one-day event instead of full weekend, the Tea Convention is going strong.  Both took place at the large Convention Center at Las Vegas.  The tea industry continues to grow in America. The fastest growing segment of the tea market is the ready-to-drink tea.  This is due to convenient and the healthy antioxidant of the tea.  More flavored iced teas are coming into the market.

With that said, having tea is a call for face time.  One tea shop owner in San Francisco took a bold move and ask their patrons to check in their cell phones at the door.  No Wi-fi offered at his tea house.  ”While Starbuck is pushing sugar, fat, and other ingredients that hooks the American palate, we offer simple tea and educate people on the health benefit of straight teas”.  Take time to look for higher quality of life where ever you go.  Demand and expect it.  If you are not contributing it the 15 percent sale growth in the tea industry in America, be selective and find a good replacement to better your body and mind.

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Visiting Europe many years ago, I was curious about their library.  While at Paris, France, I decided to see their library.  It was in a very unusual building with tubes all round. One of the floor is a museum.  The escalator is outside of the building.  Reaching the top stairs, one can see the city below. Browsing inside the library, I found a section full of video and reading material that shows you how raw material becomes a product and how it then become an industry.  Since then, the library was remodeled.

James Taylor had started the tea industry in Sri Lanka (formally Ceylon) in 1867. Just like everything else, tea processes evolved and changed over time.  Depending on the types of tea, tea leaves go thought a different processes after plucking.  The processes for green tea are as followed:

1. sorting and cleaning,
2. withering,
3. heat treatment of steaming, pan fry, or firing,
4. cut to small piece if making Matcha
5. rolling and drying, and
6. final drying.

Each step is monitor carefully.  Some facilities in China and Japan are still processing teas by hand.

When the tea plant was taken from China to Japan around 805 AD, it developed into a different product.  Not only does the soil and climate  affects the tea plant, but the culture that consumes tea.  Plantations in Japan looks different in that the plant bushes are in rows and in each row, all bushes are grow closely together.  During harvesting, the tea leaves are pluck by hand or scissors.  To produce a better Matcha tea, tea plants are cover from sunlight 20 days before harvesting.  This extra step develops higher chlorophyll in the leave and lower the tannin content creating a darker green leave with sweeter and milder flavor.  Unlike China’s fry green tea, the plucked tea leave in Japan are quickly rush to the factory to steam for 30 seconds.  Tea leave are then fluffed in warm air to remove 30 percent of its water content.  This heating process stops the fermentation.  The next step is cutting the tea leave.  The leaves will go through sorting to remove older leaves and stalks before it go to last drying stage.  The cut leaves are called Tencha.  It is use to ground into Matcha powder.

Many other tea style are popular in Japan, including Gyokuro, Sencha, Bancha, Houjicha, and Genmaicha with rice kernels.  Matcha has become popular worldwide.  In it’s powder format, it can easily to use as an ingredient in cooking.  It is highly concentrated in nutrients, antioxidants, chlorophyll and fiber taking place of 10 cups of green tea.  It can be use as a mood enhancer or regulate sugar intake.  It is the tea to use for Japanese Tea Ceremonies.

The most common way to drink Matcha is whisk half teaspoon powder in previously boiled water at 185 degree.  It only takes 2 to 3 ounce of water and whisk for 30 seconds.  If you do not have Matcha in your pantry, here is a recipe for a Banana Green Tea Smoothie using just green tea.  In an electric blender, puree 1 cup of low-fat or non-fat vanilla yogurt, 1 banana, 2 tablespoon of orange juice, and 2 teaspoons of finely ground green tea leaves and 6 to 8 ice cubes.  One last recipe: pick your favorite vanilla ice cream, let it soften, add Matcha powder to change the color and favor, chill and serve.

Look for Matcha in our Green Teas category from our website at www.MorningGloryTeahouse.com.  Our office number is (208)550-Teas

Lynne McTaggart Interview: http://www.youtube.com/spiritatwork
“In The Bond, the brilliant and wise Lynne McTaggart gives us a life­ changing blueprint for a new way to live. This astonishing book, based on discoveries from the new sciences, sings to our hearts and speaks to our minds. The vitally important message that this mind­ blowing book delivers has the power to heal our relationships, our neighborhoods, and our world, inspiring us into a whole new future at a time we need it most.”

- Debbie Ford, NY Times bestselling author, The Dark Side of the Light Chasers.

Lynne McTaggart’s other great books are “The Field” and “The Intention Experiment”. All three books have very good reviews. Building on previous work done by Gregg Bradden, authors of ”The Secret” and many others,  now we all can better understand how the power of the invisible energy and spirit are support by scientific facts.  Lynne has a website for her book.  It’s the largest intention experiment using the internet and meditation, you too can be part of this experiment.  http://www.theintentionexperiment.com/the-author

This event is sponsor by Midge Woods of Spirit At Work. To purchase tickets from her website, go to this link: http://spiritatworkevents.com/

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According to Jean Carper, author of the book “100 Simple Things you can do to prevent Alzheimer’s“, tea can prevent memory loss. It is the 89th thing on the list of 100. A study done by UCLA found that drinking black or green tea 4 times a week has 37 percent less cognitive decline annually. The powerful antioxidant, epigallocatechin-3-gallate can block the toxicity of betaloid that kills brain cells. Israeli scientists even think that EGCG can revive brain cells that are dying.

Black tea from Camellia sinensis is good for the brain too, but green tea has 3 to 4 times higher dose of EGCG. Instant, bottled, or canned teas has very little antioxidant. Herbal teas included. Adding milk will reduce the antioxidant activity by 25 percent. If you don’t like drinking tea, taking green tea extracts is an option.

The caffeine in coffee or tea ward off memory loss and Alzheimer’s. It take 400 to 500 mg of caffeine or 4 to 5 cups to be effective.  Drinking enough coffee to protect the mind may not be the solution.  Caffeine had it’s drawbacks such as anxiety, jitters, insomnia, headaches, etc. The caffeine in tea is counteracts with methylxanthines, therefore you may not feel the side effects as the caffeine like in coffee.  So, enjoy your cup of tea and get smarter as you age.

In summary, Jean gave us many suggestions. Many of them are already discussed in other healthy eating books. She does have a few surprises, such as eating 2 to 3 egg yolk a week and benefits of caffeine for the aging brain.  If you have not read it somewhere else, here is the short list: eat Mediterranean-style, use extra-virgin olive oil, vinegar, eat salmon, tuna, sardine twice a week, eat a cup of berries each day, cut down on red meat, if you have to drink, drink red wine, eat a handful of nuts daily, eat whole grains, cut back on processed food including chips, pretzels, and cracker, cut back on sugar.

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When dining out at a Chinese Restaurants, tea is usually serve with your meals.  More often then not, Oolong tea is served.  Oolong, sometimes spells Wu Long helps with digestion.  If a restaurant caters to experienced tea drinkers, they might offer better tea selections. Beside Oolong tea, Pu-rah, Jasmine or chrysanthemum are the commons teas choices.

In general, the stronger flavor of the food, the stronger tea you can pair it with.  For example, a strong flavor Bar-barque meat dishes can pair with strong black teas.  Meat, poultry, and game dish are good with Earl Grey black tea, Kenya, Lapsang, Souchong, or Kenya .  A fruity tea  pairs well with salty taste of ham or bacon. Smoke salmon dish may be good pairing with a smoky tasting tea like Lapsang or a black Kenya tea.  Wine inspired teas like iced wine would be good with cheese sandwich or cheese cake dessert. An earthy tea like Black Kenya can be good with chocolate dessert.

Do experiment with these ideas and see what you like the most. There is no right or wrong answer.  Over time, you can train your palate to find more good teas and create your own preferences.

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How to cut the sugar craving? Is orange juice good for you? Is there good whole wheat bread? All are review in this video.
How good carbs and bad carbs effects the body? What whole wheat gains are good for you. Eating good fat will burn bad fat, but which fat are good and which fat are bad? You will be surprised to hear what Isabel say in this video. We know olive oil is good for us, but did you know real butter and coconut oil are also good fat.

When we are eating the right food, we can eat as much as we want. We are always hungry when eating food that do not have enough nurtrients. Eating right will stop the cravings. Isabel teaches us to eat less processed food. The recipes included are vegetarian friendly. She also talk about food allergies and what foods are good for pregnancy. Isabel’s plan helps alleviate menopausal symptoms, reduce the effect of conditions like arthritis, fibromyalgia, and diabetes.

The diet Solution