Sheila Turnage DAR Award and Book Signing

We are fortunate to have an award winning author in our area. Sheila Turnage is the author of several books including the entertaining Three Times Lucky and Ghosts of Tupelo Landing. If you haven't read them, check them out today. You will laugh your bottom off!

My local DAR chapter awarded Sheila with the DAR Woman in the Arts award in Literature in January and yesterday we had a celebration for that award and for her newest book Ghosts of Tupelo Landing. She graciously gave us a reading and signed books for all the attendees.

My friend Ashley of Little Sister Cakes provided the delicious "map cake". Some of the attendees had two slices it was so delicious! 

In the first book, Three Times Lucky, Mo and her friend Dale come to her family's cafe and find that both of her adoptive parents are not there. One of the very wise rules is to not operate the oven so the daily special is Peanut Butter and Jelly sandwiches and organic vegetable soup (this can be microwaved). We took this scene in the book as inspiration for our menu and decor. The arrangements were a vegetable bowl and a vase of sunflowers and peacock feathers.

The vegetables were in a bowl that was made from a magnolia tree that was struck by lightning. The tree stood in the chapter house front yard for generations before it met it's demise. The ladies wanted to maintain some of the memory and found a talented artist who honed the wood and hollowed it out. I wish I had a better picture of the bowl. It is beautiful. The vegetables I used were bell peppers, potatoes, mushrooms, brussel sprouts, squash, zucchini, corn, eggplant, artichoke, string beans, and carrots.

The menu included peanuts, fudge, chex mix, ritz crackers with peanut butter and jelly, and...

...delicious peanut butter and jelly bars. The bars on the right were made with grape jelly and the bars on the left were made with strawberry jelly.

Beans and rice were in mason jars as were tea lights. I love mason jars and have a collection of sizes and colors that we use for everything from food, to markers/pens, to flowers and candles. They are so versatile!

With a projected attendance number of anywhere from 30 to 100 (we had 91!) I felt it was important to have separate beverage and food stations to prevent bottlenecks. The beverages were lemon/lime infused water and Mountain Dew punch. Mountain Dew was also on the menu at Miss Lana's cafe. We were fortunate to have old coca-cola crates, soda bottles and a coca-cola cooler from the 1930's. All of these were used for decor. Visit my cooking blog to get some recipes from the event. Also go out and buy both of these delightful books!

DAR Hostessing

I was head hostess for the first time for our March chapter meeting for my local Daughters of the American Revolution chapter. The program was on the "real" Edenton Tea Party. We learned a lot about what really happened and who was really there. The oral history passed along had a lot of errors, but historians believe they have determined the truth. For the event we decided to have a tea party with no tea to honor the pledge that the Edenton residents made in solidarity with their Boston brethren. For the decor I took advantage of the spring like day to use white, cream, and pink.

I used my childhood tea set as part of the decor. The set has lots of chips from being well-loved but with light pink roses, baby's breath, and white lisianthus it really shines.

The main centerpiece was a large airy arrangement of light pink roses, white lisianthus, and baby's breath. I used my grandmother's tea pitcher. We no longer use it for tea because of it's age, but we do use it for flowers. It's the pitcher that my mother remembers as always having tea ready for the family.

We had lemonade instead of tea, Edenton Tea Party cookies, Sally Lunn bread with jam and butter, cucumber sandwiches, and pimento cheese sandwiches for our menu. Check out my cooking blog for recipes.