Rainy Days, Tea & Sympathy Dreams

Is there a place you dream about going when it rains? For me, it's New York City's Tea & Sympathy, my favorite rainy day haunt. I do also like a good Irish pub, where I'd devour a bowl of soup or veggie burger with some Magners cider and rice or bread pudding. Just thinking aloud! Under a blanket napping or sitting by a fireplace with a book or watching a great film sounds equally inviting. I wish I had a fireplace.

At Tea & Sympathy, comfort food is a must. The Welsh rarebit: English farmhouse cheddar with mustard and tomatoes on toast, $10.95, and a pot of blackberry tea, $4.50.

Hopefully a good friend is by my side sharing something equally nourishing to the soul, like the cheese onion quiche with a salad.

Long after it was eaten, still dreaming about a rhubarb crumble with hot golden custard, $8, enjoyed at a coveted window table.

Had a bite of my good mate's chocolate hazelnut banana cake, $8. I must try adding hazelnut and chocolate chips to my next banana bread loaf.

At Carry On Tea & Sympathy, the shop next door, Will and Kate fever continues!


Keeping Up with the Karadashians? No thanks. Keeping Up Appearances is more my speed. I always want to watch an episode when it rains.

What is your ideal rainy day filled with?

The Royal Treatment at Tea & Sympathy

I wonder if she'll be in the crowd today at Will and Kate's nuptials? Patricia Routledge, who played Mrs. Hyacinth Bucket (pronounced Bouquet), one of my favorite sitcom characters ever, from Britain's Keeping Up Appearances. Surely this will top luxury cruising on the QE2 and put that Lydia Hawksworth in her place once and for all.

If not, she should be. After all, as she says, it was only an accident of birth she wasn't born someone more important.

Perhaps she and Emmet could do a duet to entertain the crowd. I'm sure he'd love that. It always brings the over seventies to their feet.

The royal fever is sweeping America. Even the library has caught it.

Shall we go to New York City's Tea & Sympathy in spirit to toast Will and Kate? Any excuse to revisit memories there and meals eaten by myself and dear mates, including Kristin who pens the poetry blog Wordfall, and Jennifer who authors Heart Laundry and has a writer site.

How does a pot of fragrant blackberry tea sound? $4.50.

Vegetarian Shepherd's Pie (lentils, onions, carrots, celery, eggplant and parsnips), $14.95.

Cheese and onion pasty with a salad, $13.95.

Off of the dinner specials: mushrooms (shiitake, portabella and button) in a vegetarian gravy on grilled white toast, $8.50.

Cream tea anyone? Rosie Lee (half English Breakfast, half Earl Grey)...

with scones and clotted cream and strawberry jam, $10.

Rhubarb crumble in warm golden custard, $8.

Pineapple upside down cake, $5.

Sticky toffee pudding, $8. After ingesting such heavenly comfort food, I wondered, as Daisy asked Onlsow, "Do you think we'll be slimmer in the afterlife?"

Pop by Carry On Tea & Sympathy next door for cups that will be almost as nice as Hyacinth's Royal Doulton.

Congratulations! And as a poster I read reassured us, "Keep calm, Harry is still single."

Passport to England: Tea & Sympathy

Visions of cozy cottages with rose gardens, cream teas, castles, posh London, witty humor, rainy days leading to green pastures in scenic countrysides. This is some of what my mind conjures up when I think of England.

I had the great pleasure of traveling to London (with some side trips to Bath and to visit Stonehenge) in my late twenties. How I would love to go Cornwall and dig deeper into the country.

Alas, I'll take a trip there for now through my taste buds to my favorite British haunt in New York City, Tea & Sympathy. A biting cold, windy January evening was the perfect weather to go there for some comfort food. And comforted my friend and I were.

One of the night's specials: their piping hot vegetarian Bubble and Squeak Pie (called that because of the noise it makes while baking). Filled with brussels sprouts, carrots, cabbage, broccoli, yellow turnip and mashed potatoes in a shortcrust pastry, with roast potatoes in a leek gravy (this was more like a broth), $14.95. With a pot of fragrant apricot tea, $4.50. The pretty cup and saucer, Mrs. Bucket (pronounced "Bouquet")-approved!

Also off of the specials, my friend's (or should I say mate's!) curried cauliflower and potato samosas with a salad, and not pictured, mango chutney and cucumber raita, $13.95. Can you believe I didn't have Indian food in London? I know!

My friend's pot of chai tea, with the treacle pudding (a vanilla sponge cake with a golden syrup glaze topped with hot custard), $8, which we shared. All divine.

"Life wouldn't be worth living if one couldn't enjoy an occasional treat with one's best friends," Hyacinth Bucket wisely declared to Elizabeth and Emmet in my favorite Britcom, Keeping Up Appearances.

Above the shelf of kitschy knickknacks, the most campy of all - a tray of Charles and Diana.

Admire their assortment of tea pots, cups and tea cozies at Carry On Tea and Sympathy, their companion shop, where I always feel like Hermoine Granger when I enter. I don't know how people drink tea out of a paper cup. In addition to being kinder to the environment, a pretty cup is so much more homey.

A Salt & Battery next door sells fish and chips fare, but for me it would be a chip butty (I rarely eat fried food, so once in a blue moon I'd allow it), side of mushy peas and Magners Irish cider. Preferably with rain coming down.

Because when it rains or skies are simply grey, a little bit of England (and Ireland) fills my heart.