When we were small my mother would make tea using a tea pot. She would rinse the tea pot using boiling hot water before she added the tea bag and more water (one tea bag for 2 people), and then place the tea cosy on top to keep it warm while the tea brewed. This I was told was how you made a good cup of tea! I continued the tradition when I left home for a few years until the one-cup bags became the fashion.
This tea set belonged to my mother-in-law, and it got me thinking about the many other traditions that we had as children that for one reason or the other have now become a distant memory. Every other week and for all of our birthdays mum would make cakes, pies and buns. Her fruit cakes were mouth watering and we would wait to lick out left over mixture from the bowl (before the salmonella scare!). Any ingredient that she put her hand to would turn out delicious - sweet or savoury. I don't have time to bake cakes except when the mood takes me but my son has learnt to make a mean Arroz Doce (Portuguese Traditional Rice Pudding).
Another tradition is the glass cabinet...Mum still has a glass cabinet that shows off all the 'best' glasses and plates that were only used on a special occasions - at Christmas or when you had guests. I have a version of the cabinet but the special occasions are more freqent and we don't need to have guests to use them. There are many other traditions.. but that's for another post.
Times change and our kids are growing up so fast, you almost want to cling on to those special memories. I wanted to remember all of the traditions, and make new ones for my son as he too one day will be saying to his children 'when I was younger my mother used to....... '
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