How to Live Like a Romance Heroine: Drink Tea

On this week's installment of "How to Live Like a Romance Heroine," we have a topic very near and dear to my heart - tea!

I love many types of tea, but my go-to drink while writing is strong, hot black tea with milk and sugar. My obsession started young, when I reread The Secret Garden every week for months. In my Iowa youth, the only tea I had was Lipton in a bag, and I compensated by having a sugar:liquid ratio that should have given me far more cavities than I actually suffered. Now, though, I am much more refined (read 'snobbish') in my tastes - only loose-leaf will do, and only in a proper mug. Tea is delicate enough that I swear I can taste the paper if it is served in a to-go cup. But where can you find these teas, and how can you make them yourself?

My favorite place for tea in San Francisco is Samovar, which has three locations scattered across the city. If you ever visit SF, you must make a trip to the Samovar at Yerba Buena Gardens; it overlooks a terraced garden nestled in the heart of the city, creating a warm little oasis of pleasure in the midst of the skyscrapers of the Financial District and the pressing humanity of Union Square.

This is the inside of Samovar on a recent weekend - doesn't it just make you want to sit and drink tea for hours? Luckily, the staff sincerely do not mind if you linger (which is much to be preferred from the 10-15 minute tea-guzzling social calls of the Regency period!).

But you do not need to pay someone to make the perfect cup of tea for you - unlike espresso, it's easy and cheap to make great tea at home without any special equipment. You only need the following:

• Loose-leaf tea of your choice. There are hundreds of varieties out there, divided into categories such as black, green, white, oolong, rooibos, herbal, etc. My standby is English Breakfast (excellent with milk and sugar). There are hundreds of stores out there that sell loose-leaf tea in tins, as well as online sites like Teavana and Samovar. Better yet, seek out your local tea purveyors so that you can test the products and learn more from them about how to brew the perfect cup. You should look for full, unbroken dried tea leaves; generally, crumbled bits of leaves or the dust that you find in teabags are the most inferior byproducts of the tea production process and should be avoided.
• A tea kettle. Either stovetop or electric - I'm certainly not advocating for living like a real romance heroine, with a kitchen servant keeping a pot of boiling water over the fire all day! You could also boil water just as easily in a saucepan, but I prefer the aesthetics of a real pot.
• A tea ball or a strainer. The advantage of a tea ball is that you can keep the leaves contained within the ball; as they expand, they stick to the insides of whatever you are brewing the tea in, and a tea ball makes it much easier to clean up. You may also see this called an 'herb ball', and it should be available for only a couple of dollars at a kitchen supply store or Target.
• A teapot. By combining the leaves and boiling water in the teapot, you can brew the tea in one vessel, leaving the leaves there when you pour the tea into a cup. Note: when making tea for myself, I've become lazy and just toss a tea ball directly into my mug; this saves me from having to wash up a teapot, since I don't have scullery maids at my beck and call.
• A teacup or mug. Pretty self-explanatory, really - you need something to drink out of, don't you?

It's all quite simple after that: boil the water, spoon the appropriate amount of tea (usually as directed on the package) into a tea ball, pour boiling water over the tea ball and steep as directed, and then enjoy. Steeping for longer than recommended won't kill you, but it will release more tannins the longer it steeps, making for a more bitter brew.

For those of you who want to learn more about the history of teadrinking in Britain, the wonderful writer Joanna Bourne wrote an excellent (albeit long) post on the subject a few weeks ago at Word Wenches, replete with lots of photos and fun historical tidbits - check it out and let me know what you think!

Do you like to drink tea? Or would you rather live like a Regency heroine by drinking champagne, ratafia, or the insipid lemonade at Almack's? All comments are welcome, even if you (like me) secretly nurse an addiction to Diet Coke that cannot be eclipsed by the beverages of yore.

RWA 2010 Day 0: Settling In, Catching Up, and Trying Not to Be a Fool

The 2010 RWA conference doesn't kick into high gear until tomorrow, but I overscheduled myself as usual -- rather than giving my poor California body clock a chance to catch up, I forced myself out of bed at 7:30am (4:30am at home, alas), into a dress AND makeup AND defrizzed hair (miracle of miracles), and downstairs in time to attend the Beau Monde retreat. The Beau Monde is a special-interest online chapter devoted to all things Regency; I joined a couple of months ago, and am consistently impressed by the quality and quantity of historical knowledge demonstrated on the loop.

So, I was quite looking forward to the retreat, and it didn't disappoint. The first panel I attended was about a Regency romance seminar taught at Yale last year, which thrilled me to no end because I'm glad to see romance start to get a teensy tinsy modicum of respect in academia. The second panel likely would have shredded that teensy tinsy modicum of respect -- it was all about courtesans, whores, and the men who loved them (or, at least, paid them a farthing to toss their skirts up against the nearest available alley wall).

After the Beau Monde lunch (with Gaelen Foley, acclaimed Regency writer, as the keynote speaker), I skipped over to the Golden Network retreat. The Golden Network is another special-interest online chapter, but this one is only open to current and former Golden Heart finalists. They had similar content as last year, but it was still eyeopening; in the most brutal display of sadomasochistic behavior I've seen since "Secretary" (or the Folsom Street Fair, perhaps), authors anonymously submitted first pages of their works, and then the moderator read those pages while a panel of editors and agents said 'stop' at the point where they would stop reading. Only one entry made it all the way to the end of the first page without anyone saying stop; several of them lost every single agent/editor in the first paragraph. The bar for publication is so incredibly high that it can be scary and disheartening to hear this; but as I did not submit a page, I just sat back, drank my coffee (while wishing desperately that it was Diet Coke, my one true love) and enjoyed the show.

After the Golden Network retreat was over, I hung out for a couple of hours with Grace and Tina, who are both part of the San Francisco chapter. Grace is up for a Golden Heart in Regency this year (which I am presenting at the awards ceremony on Saturday, since I won last year!), and Tina is doing some fascinating stuff with self-publishing on Amazon -- and more importantly, we seem to click well, and Grace and I share a love for Catherine Coulter and some of the other "ew, gross, 80s" romance novels that gave romance a bad name, what with all the abductions, rapes, bodice rippings, forced marriages, etc.

Tina, Grace and I then attended the Literacy Signing, at which published authors sell and sign their books, with the proceeds going to benefit literacy programs. I bought way too many books -- on the first pass, I got books from Eloisa James, Courtney Milan, Elizabeth Hoyt, and Carolyn Jewel from the San Francisco chapter. I may have been utterly awkward with Eloisa James; I'm having lunch with her on Friday, which I won in an auction, but she now probably thinks that I'm a weird stalker fangirl because I a) knew that she had been in Paris, since I follow her on Twitter, and b) bought a paperback of the book she *just* released after saying that I already read it on the plane yesterday (but in my defense, I read it on my Kindle, and it was good enough that I want a paperback as a keeper). So, we'll see if she shows up to lunch, and whether there are any hotel staff standing by in case I turn out to be rabid and crazy.

I parted ways with Grace and Tina, came back to my room with the intention of taking a nap before dinner -- then remembered that I had forgotten a couple of people whom I meant to get signatures from, because the room was huge and I failed to plan ahead. So I dashed downstairs again and got books from Tessa Dare (adore - she actually ran out of books, but signed a nameplate for me), Sabrina Darby (have been meaning to read her book for ages, and she was at the Beau Monde retreat this morning), Sarah MacLean (loved her "Nine Rules to Break When Romancing a Rake"), and Addison Fox (one of my Ruby Slipper sisters, who writes paranormal). I failed to track down the other Ruby Slippered Sister who was signing, but at that point, I was loaded down and late for dinner, so I ran upstairs...

...and then as it turns out, dinner ended up being much, much later than anticipated. We left the hotel on time, got to the restaurant fifteen minutes early for our 8:15pm reservation -- and then weren't seated until almost 9pm. The food was outstanding (we ate at Kouzzina, owned by Cat Cora, whom I adore from 'Iron Chef America'), and I had a Greek lasagna that smelled strongly of cinnamon and tasted divine. I also had two glasses of wine, which made me quite chatty, particularly on an almost empty stomach. But, my table had a v. good time, even if we didn't eat until 10pm.

And now, I really, really must go to bed -- I'm not going to be foolish enough to get up at seven tomorrow morning, but I should get out of bed sometime. More to come tomorrow!

RWA Nationals: Day -1 Recap

I should have known that going to bed at 2am would force me to have a late start this morning -- and unless I get this posted, I'm going to repeat the cycle tonight, so this will be much briefer.  But despite my laziness, I had another excellent day. I managed to make it out the door by noon, and I had a great sandwich at Lawson's in Dupont Circle. It wasn't in the top five of sandwiches I've ever had, but I think part of that was my ordering mistake -- a Californian turkey sandwich sounded great, but the avocado here can't possibly be as fresh as the avocado in SF, which was a shame. However, the turkey was outstanding -- it was freshly carved off a still-warm turkey roast. And, I do love me some sandwiches, so it was the perfect lunch. After lunch, I headed back to the National Archives. Ironically, the line was in exactly the same place that it was when I aborted my attempt yesterday -- but, it moved quickly, and it was very well worth it. I saw the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights on a previous trip with my family in the 1990s, but it was cool and v. moving to see them again. Then, since I didn't have my family with me, I took the time to peruse the rest of the exhibits and read every placard in the place. They have some very cool stuff, and because it's the 75th anniversary of the Archives, there were a few things out that usually aren't (such as the original 13-foot scroll of the Articles of Confederation). I have a feeling that there's a bit of a turf war between the National Archives and the Library of Congress, since they preserve somewhat similar things and are only a mile away from each other -- I would love it if their staffs occasionally get into gang-style street fights over black market documents.

Next, I went to the Sackler Gallery, which is a Smithsonian museum focused on Asian art. They had a special exhibit called "Tsars and the East," which highlighted gifts that the Russian tsars received from Turkish and Iranian delegations in the 16th-17th centuries. I've seen fabulous Russian treasures before, but because these treasures were created by some of the best artists and artisans of the Islamic world, it was all quite different from some of the more classically Russian pieces. There was a lot of interesting merging of traditional Iranian/Ottoman design (curved watered-steel sabers, Arabic verses, and geometric patterns) with elements that would appeal to the tsars and Orthodox patriarchs whom the items were destined for (crosses, opulent embroidery, even a couple of icons and a gorgeous box designed to hold the communion wafers/wine).

Seriously, while the Russian nobles lived a fairly backwards (by our standards) existence and engaged in levels of brutality against their serfs and each other that make modern people cringe, they did have some amazingly opulent stuff. One of the items was a mace, which looked quite lethal, but the head of the mace was pure gold. There were ruby-encrusted stirrups (that were actually used in processions), saddle blankets embroidered with gold thread, a gem-covered waterskin with a rock crystal stopper, a drinking horn banded with gold and stones, fabulous bejeweled daggers, swords, and scabbards, and one sword whose hilt and scabbard were covered with so many precious gems that the item was once considered the most expensive and valuable item in the entire Kremlin collection. It's no wonder most of the tsars were so insane -- if you live your life surrounded by such extreme wealth in the midst of a poverty-stricken country, venerated by all and never, ever crossed, it must be easy to treat others' lives carelessly.

After getting my fill of the tsars and seeing some of the other exhibits, I made my way back to my hotel, chatted with my parents, and took a quick, restorative nap before getting ready to go out again. I met up with some of my fellow Golden Heart finalists for dinner -- I've interacted with many of them online, but this was the first time I've met anyone in person. I had a really lovely conversation with the woman sitting next to me, and also chatted with some of the other people around me. Then, I walked back to the Metro station with another woman who was sitting farther down the table, and we had a nice discussion while waiting for the train. All in all, it was great to put some names and faces together, and I'm looking forward to meeting many, many more people in the coming days.

When I got back to my hotel, I took the last opportunity I'll have for awhile to put in some downtime, talking to one of my best friends while painting my fingernails. But now, I really must sleep -- tomorrow I have to repack and move to the conference hotel, and then things really take off! Wish me luck -- and if you're at the conference, say hi!

RWA Nationals: Day -2 Recap

Yes, I realize that "Day -2" may not make sense. However, I arrived in D.C. two days early to sightsee/take a break from the day job, and so it feels like the convention has already started even though the fun doesn't really kick into gear until Wednesday. On the whole, I was determined to have the best day possible despite only sleeping for four hours on my redeye flight from San Francisco. I arrived at my hotel at 8am, after a nice conversation with my Afghani cab driver (we discussed India and the former Soviet Union, since we both lived there at different points), and was serendipitously able to check in early. I took an hour to freshen up and plan my activities for the day, and then forced myself to leave before the thought of going to bed lured me to ruin.

My first stop was the Library of Congress. This is an absolute must-see for any writer, reader, bibliophile, or history buff. The building itself is gorgeous, in that ornate, over-the-top way that you usually only see in European palaces, replete with statues, murals, mosaics, and acres of marble floors. For whatever reason, I'm totally in love with the mythology around Athena, the Greek goddess of wisdom (and, according to Wikipedia, "peace, warfare, strategy, handicrafts, reason...and heroic endeavor"), and so I appreciated the giant tiled mosaic of Athena/Minerva in the Great Hall. I salivated over the grand reading room, a circular temple to books surrounded on the second-story balcony by some of the most revered Dead White Men of the arts.  They also have one of the best-preserved copies of the Gutenberg Bible -- and yes, I know that I should think this is awesome, given that the printing press changed the world, but a) I had already seen another copy in the British Library, and b) let's face it, mechanical printing just cannot inspire the same awe as the manuscript illumination techniques that it replaced.

But I think my favorite part of the Library was the exhibit on the foundations of America, captured through drafts of the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and various contemporary letters and books. The gallery led up to a room holding a recreation of all of the books in Thomas Jefferson's private library (a combination of the books he sold to the US and exact-edition replacements of the portion of his library destroyed by fire in the 1850s). I may be in love with my Kindle now, but will I someday regret not having a library that can stand the test of time? Then again, it's not like I'm reading Plutarch and Plato, so perhaps the Library of Congress wouldn't be interested in my collection anyway.

Overwhelmed and in love and filled with the desire to go forth and read every book in existence, I walked out into the gorgeous summer day and set off in the direction of the National Mall. After walking past the Capitol, inadvertently checking out a Capitol policeman on a bike (I claim this as research), and strolling past staffers and tourists sitting around the Capitol Reflecting Pool, I made it to my next stop -- the relatively new Museum of the American Indian, part of the Smithsonian system.

The building itself is worth seeing -- with its curving lines, its warm stone, and the gardens and cascading waterfalls around it, it felt like a particularly lush version of the cliff-dwellings of some of the Southwest tribes. Even better, my first stop was their cafe, and I recommend it if you're looking for someplace to eat on the Mall. Since entrance to all of the Smithsonian museums is free, you can go to the cafe anytime. It is cafeteria style, with different stations representing five different traditional cuisines of the Americas. My tray ended up being somewhat random -- chicken mole verde tacos, shrimp and scallop ceviche, and tortilla chips that I added to eat the ceviche with. The tacos were perfect, as was the salsa that came with the chips; the ceviche was slightly disappointing, but I think that's because I realized too late that there were many other things I would have rather tried, since I can get ceviche in San Francisco quite easily. Then again, I can also get Mexican food, but these tacos were quite different, and so well worth the choice.

I spent a couple of hours wandering around the museum itself. The curators seem to have done quite a good job of working with the various tribes to tell their own unique stories and shed light on the traditional ways while exploring how their lives have changed in the five hundred years since Columbus's arrival. Perhaps I have an overdeveloped sense of empathy, but some of the exhibits made me a bit teary-eyed (particularly when considering the devastating impact that disease had on the inhabitants of the Americas, and -- again, I'm betraying my bibliophilia -- thinking about all we lost when Cortez burned the Aztec libraries).

By this time, it was almost three o'clock, and my energy was rapidly failing. I made an aborted attempt to see the National Archives, but since I've seen them before and the wait was 45 minutes, I decided to try again tomorrow. I came back to my hotel and took a two-hour nap; as a sign of how dead tired I was, when my alarm went off it took forever for me to figure out what the sound was, and then I thought it was 5:30am.

As tempting as it was to stay in bed, I dragged myself up, redressed, and eventually made it out in search of dinner. My hotel is right on Dupont Circle, and I walked down one of the streets radiating off the circle in search of Five Guys Burgers. It's apparently home to the best burgers in D.C., and reviewers on Yelp compared it favorably to California's In-n-Out chain. I had their regular burger (actually a double cheeseburger) and fries. The burger was undeniably tasty, and I scarfed it down -- but I didn't think the fries were either crispy enough of soft enough, and instead were in some sort of weird in-between place that I wasn't a fan of. Then again, I'm not a fan of In-n-Out's fries either, since I think they sometimes taste too starchy. Ultimately, in the battle between Five Guys and In-n-Out, I think it comes down to two things: 1) Five Guys doesn't have milkshakes, and 2) a review they posted on their wall got it right when it said something along the lines of "Five Guys has the ambience of a large tiled bathroom". In-n-Out is tiled too, but it seems brighter and a little bit cleaner. So, In-n-Out is victorious, but I would eat at Five Guys again if I'm back in the area and in search of a delicious heart attack.

I wrapped up my night on the patio of a nearby Starbucks, planning out which activities/workshops to attend at the conference. So, all in all, it was a great day -- I didn't push myself as hard to sightsee as perhaps I should have, but since my top priority is being prepped for Nationals, I don't regret it at all. I have more sightseeing planned for tomorrow, followed by dinner with some of my fellow Golden Heart finalists. Wednesday's coming all too fast!

Are you going to Nationals? Alternatively, do you have recommendations for what I should see in D.C.?