Thankfully, my first Mother’s Day wasn’t disrupted by COVID 19 like most everything else in our lives in the last few months.
I was able to have the day that I had dreamt about since Giuliana was born. I had a vision: a lovely North Fork High Tea at home with the works: small tea cakes, tea sandwiches, scones, a homemade galette (Phil’s absolute specialty), bellinis and an assortment of teas.
It was the perfect excuse to finally use the tea set that we bought on our honeymoon in Murano, Italy, get dressed up and put together a tablescape that was photoshoot worthy.
Below are all the simple touches that made this day so special:
The Tea Set: Purchased in Murano, Italy while honeymooning at the JW Marriott in Venice. Fun fact: I begged my husband to buy this investment-worthy collectors set. I had been dreaming about buying a similar one since my first visit to Venice in 2009. Ever since then, I told myself that when I went back, I would buy myself this tea set. When we decided to honeymoon there, I asked Phil if we could finally buy it to commemorate our wedding. Ironically, when we were on our tour of Murano the glass stores were promoting different types of pieces and weren’t even showing tea sets anymore. When I asked if they still made them, the owner was shocked. He said that young people like us weren’t interested in classic, family heirloom types of collectibles these days. Clearly, he hadn’t met us. He eventually showed them to us and allowed us to customize our set. We chose cobalt blue and had our name and wedding date inscribed on the tea pot. That experience will go down as my most epic shopping spree of my life. It was a wonderful moment in my life where I felt as if I had come full circle. I went back to Venice with the man of my dreams to buy a family heirloom that we can pass down to our children someday.
Scones, Clotted Cream & Lemon Curd: You can’t have a high tea without classic scones. Phil used a Jamie Oliver scone recipe that turned out perfectly. I purchased clotted cream and lemon curd on Amazon that came straight from the UK.
Phil’s Olive Oil Lemon Cake with a Cream Cheese Frosting: Phil makes the BEST lemon olive oil cake anyone has ever tasted. He did quite a bit of experimenting with different lemon olive oil iterations—some loves, some cakes, some with frosting, some without. The one that is the absolute best is this lemon olive oil cake with cream cheese frosting. It’s so light and fluffy with hints of lemon within every bite. I’m not 100% sure which website we found the original recipe on, since Phil has handwritten his favorite one into our recipe book, but a similar recipe can be found HERE.
Egg salad with fresh garden green tartines: My mother and I made a traditional egg salad the night before Mother’s Day and we assembled these easy tartines the day of. We toasted some Ezekiel Bread, layered the bottom with fresh greens from our garden and topped them homemade egg salad. Simple and delicious.
Ham, Goat Cheese & Swiss Galette: For our main savory dish, Phil made one of his famous galettes—but this version included ham, swiss cheese and local Catapano Farms goat cheese. This flaky, buttery crust was the perfect complement to the saltiness in the cheese and ham. Yum. We use this Bon Appetit recipe for our galette dough.
Selection of teas: We included every type of tea we had. Chamomile, peppermint, Mother’s Milk (for me, ha!!), and traditional English Breakfast tea.
Bellinis: We sipped on peach bellinis that took us back in time to our Venetian honeymoon where we had a decadent lunch (thanks to our dear friend Natalia’s wedding gift!) at Harry’s Bar- Cipriani, the Italian establishment that is known for creating the bellini. All-time greats like Ernest Hemingway and Katherine Hepburn were known to dine there and sip on these special cocktails. So, we did the same for Mother’s Day. I made a very quick and easy version. I pureed some organic peaches in our Ninja blender and topped it with Italian prosecco. Giada De Laurentiis has a wonderful, elevated recipe to get you inspired.
What should we include in our next High Tea experience? Share your thoughts with me in the comments below!
