High Tea at the Peninsula

Ahh, some days my new life amuses me.  Like today, when I was invited to “High Tea” at the Peninsula Hotel.  Can’t say I’ve ever been to “Tea” before, let along “High Tea”.  This brings up a whole series of questions like:  What does one wear to tea?  Should I eat a light lunch that day, assuming there will be lots of food?  Do you stay at your table or move around with your tea?  I could keep going for quite a while here folks… suffice to say that I wasn’t really sure what I was doing on this one.  But as I’m so rapidly learning, one must act like you know what you’re doing!

The fun part about this tea was that it wasn’t just the American Diplomatic Community.  There were Diplomatic Spouses of all kinds including Brits, Aussies and Canadians.  I tell you one thing, Brits and Aussies especially know their tea.  I was educated on the most common kinds of afternoon tea as well as how to identify a perfectly-made scone.  I made the mistake of asking someone if we were supposed to put the jelly on the biscuit and she pointedly replied, “Yes, you put the JAM on the SCONE.”  Oops – my bad.  In Minne- SOH-ta we only use jelly. Some people are mighty sensitive about those scones…

Don’t these pictures below make it look like we’re going to a wedding or something?!?  I mean seriously, all of this for TEA???  Makes me want to burst out giggling.  Which I would if I wasn’t trying so hard to be proper!

Oh, and did I mention that a “High Tea” food spread is really like a mini dinner?  Mini sandwiches and crab cakes and fettuccine alfredo and fruit and a whole bunch of desserts.  Forget the tea and scones, I’ll just do the desserts please!  And so a lovely time was had by all.  I can now say that I have a diverse new cross-section of foreign national friends (who thankfully speak english too – makes it so much easier!)  I also have my first “High Tea” over and done with and won’t make the same mistakes at the next one.  Silly Sarah, you must work on your protocol!   SIGH.