Minimalists Ought Not Host High Tea

But I'm going to do it anyway.

My royalty-watching, doily-crocheting, lace curtain-loving, elegant, feminine, trapped-in-a-Quaker-furniture-style-family Fifi is about to turn 12 years old. Most years lately she's chosen to mark the day with a quiet family celebration or maybe a sleep over with her very best friend. I usually throw on a pot of spaghetti and pull out the ceramic dishes instead of paper for the occasion. This year I offered to host a Tea in her honor.

What?!

In what was surely a momentary lapse of reason, I think I offered to host a Tea. My thinking was that we'd shop for a few cups and saucers, a tea pot, some tea bags and chop the crusts of some white-bread triangle sandwiches.

And then we set out to find service for 8. Apparently the best place to find the real thing (and by the real thing I mean something that will hold more than 2 tablespoons of Earl Gray) is an antique store, and since there is a fairly new one down the street that Fifi has been anxious to visit for a week or fifty, I dared to drive over. With the puppies.

Now this is going to be a fun time.

Actually, I must give them credit. When we walked in and found the winding, 18-inch-wide aisle littered with booby traps and a sign that warned "You break it, you buy it!" we made it a first priority to find them a cozy ottoman to sit upon. And they did. For more than 20 minutes. And even though their giggling caused me the occasional anxiety check (because surely there is nothing to giggle at if you're SITTING PERFECTLY STILL WITH YOUR HANDS FOLDED IN YOUR LAP!) they managed to break nothing and thereby cost me nothing and so, earned themselves a ride home.

But back to the shopping. We found ourselves a true Southern Paula Dean/Martha Stewart/Barb-type to help us open the cabinets and price the items because...well, because I suffer a debilitating imagination and could see myself pulling hundreds of dollars of china down upon thousands of dollars in lamps and crystal when the curio that held them tipped as I pulled on the door.

And that turned out to be the beginning of a wonderful retail relationship.

As we priced the items and discussed what and how many we needed, and which set had, and what that set lacked, I humbled myself a half-dozen times and told this pretty Midland, Texas transplant that, "I have no idea what you're talking about -- seeing as I'm from Arizona and grew up on Tab and Swanson's T.V. dinners and all; fancy for me meant peeling the foil from the brownie before putting it in oven."

And for whatever reason, that admission drew this next question from her:

"Did y'all have debutants?"

I almost busted a gut at the very thought, but held it together enough to acknowledge that maybe they did in Scottsdale.

"Oh, I like Scottsdale."

Yeah, well. Who wouldn't? But back to the fun...

Her first pointed question to help me do this right was about napkins.

"How about napkins?"

Right here, behind my blank stare I'm searching for the right answer amongst the few words given in the question and am about to remember the 20-count pack of elegant paper napkins that are waiting for a reason in my pantry when she saved me the humiliation by elaborating,

"Do you have linen napkins? You must use linen. And it must be white. Or ecru."

Here, Fifi interjected the news of last fall's acquisition of burnt orange linen napkins for Thanksgiving. Dressing the table. It was a first for us.

But Pretty Midland, Texas Transplant sweetly assured us that we would not be using orange. Then she asked if we had a proper tier for serving petit fours?

Huh?

It took a second for Fifi and me to get a good giggle over how we've been saying it wrong all these years. We've been calling them petite fours. Oh well.

Then Pretty, Midland, Texas Transplant Who Moved-Here-To-Live-Two-Doors-Down-From-Her-Grandchildren advised me that we'd need a passavah to serve them.

A what?

After a few tries, I deciphered in her Texas twang that she was saying I would need a pie server. Once I got around to repeating the phrase in normal American, we both laughed because, "I wasn't understanding what the Passover had to do with Fifi's Tea!"

And she had mercy on me, and showed great compassion toward me as she spent the last 30 minutes before closing time questioning me about, and showing me what I would need to do this Tea right. And then she and I spent the next 30 minutes after closing time bubble-wrapping my new stuff fine china.

And now I'm more sure than ever that I am not up to the task. But I'm going to do it anyway. And I'm open to suggestions. No twang necessary.

(To see how it all turns out, look here and especially here.)