London Fog Tea Latte and More...

Happy St. Patrick's Day

A lot has happened since my post of 3/13.  As of yesterday, almost everything has shut down: restaurants, libraries, theaters, and gyms. My credit union is only accessible via the drive-thru window. On Sunday we watched our church service on Facebook, filmed in a television studio with only the Pastor and Worship Team.  [Since we meet in a school, we don't have access to the building until the government allows school to resume, and all Michigan schools closed last Friday.]  Grocery and produce stores are still open, but the panic buying and hoarding has been unbelievable.   Who could have ever thought this could happen in 2020 - not only in our country, but around the world?

Tomorrow I'll go to The Whitney for a staff meeting while they outline their business plans caused by the Coronavirus. 

So... this is a homebound St. Patrick's Day, and I've been amusing myself with a new frothing machine I ordered.

I recently received a text and photo from my youngest son. He was sipping a London Fog Latte at a coffee/tea shop in Ann Arbor and asked if I ever drank one.  He gave it high reviews.  A quick Google search revealed a London Fog is made with Earl Grey tea and frothed milk.

Not long after that I was grocery shopping in Aldi's and came across London Fog Latte concentrate.  Of course, I purchased a carton!

I've sipped a few lattes at Starbucks, but I've never made one at home.  So the next thing on the agenda was purchasing a milk frother.   They ranged online from $10 up to $129.99.  After reading lots of reviews I settled on a Zeppoli for $39.99.  I can always upgrade to a Breville later.  Today was the day I gave it a try.

I heated the London Fog concentrate [equal parts milk and concentrate].  Then I frothed the milk. I used 2% because that's what we drink, and it frothed beautifully.  My hubby and I loved the latte and I'll definitely be making more.  Harney & Sons posted a recipe on their blog last week using their Earl Grey Supreme tea - another option instead of the premade concentrate which gives control of the sugar content.  Do you make tea lattes at home?

We sipped our lattes in honor of the Irish who are some of the biggest tea drinkers in the world.  They consume about 8 lbs. of tea per person every year.   There are about 181 cups of tea in a pound which figures out to almost four cups of tea a day.

I may not have been able to see the movie about St. Patrick today due to the closing of theaters, but my hubby and I went to the theater on Saturday and saw The Call of The Wild. There were only six of us in the theater, so we practically had the room to ourselves.  People were definitely taking precautions and hunkering down at home.  We liked the movie a lot.

I'm hoping the Coronavirus pandemic will be recovering by the time of our Ladies' Spring Tea at church on May 9th.  The down time gives me the opportunity to research the subject of shoes at my leisure.  I read that the most popular shoes people think of are Dorothy's Ruby Red shoes in the Wizard of Oz, and Elvis' Blue Suede shoes.  So I ordered a pair of ruby red shoes as one of my props, and they arrived last week.

I plan on getting a pair of bronze baby shoes from E-bay as another prop, and I haven't ordered a shoe teapot yet, but I'm planning to.  I saw a rhinestone shoe pin in a mail order catalogue that I'm considering ordering as well.

What are you doing to keep occupied during business shut-downs?  I'm actually enjoying my down time.  I've purged a lot of magazines that were laying around waiting to be read, and paperwork in my office.  I've also been sorting and organizing photos [those before i-phone cameras].  There's definitely a lot to keep busy.  

We're doing all the recommended precautions.  My hubby bought a thermometer so we can take our temperature every morning.  I haven't had a thermometer in the house since the kids were home, so it was time to get up to speed.  Thermometers have come a long way since the ones I used to use.

The longer days of sunlight are a blessing - instead of getting dark at 5:00 o'clock, we have sunlight until after 7:30 p.m.  I love it!

I'll close this post with one of St. Patrick's quotes I saw on Facebook this morning.