Great British Tea Party

We decided that we wanted to say thank you to the YDS community for the wonderful, generous hospitality we have received here (a glance back through this blog shows food and drink to be a recurring theme).  What better way, we thought, to throw a Great British Tea Party?  Americans don't seem to understand the concept of tea (at least, they don't seem to appreciate that the water must be boiling when it makes contact with the tea leaves), and we wanted to share with them something from home. 

Rebekah learnt how to make clotted cream, and managed to source a bakery which makes authentic scones (the Emerald Bakery in Hamden, if anyone is interested).  Sadly they lost the original order for 60 scones, which meant a morning car-chase round New Haven seeking out the all the scones they had sold (including retrieving some from an Irish tea-shop) before finishing my essay.  Dawn spent the afternoon making cucumber sandwiches and cutting off the crusts.  Paul provided a playlist of music suitable to accompany High Tea, including the national anthem, Land of Hope and Glory and Henry Wood's Fantasia on British Sea Songs.

We were thrilled that so many people came.  Students, support staff and professors (current and emeritus) all arrived to sample a cucumber sandwich and join in the debate about whether the jam or the cream should go on first.