Thursday, August 28, 2008

Tasha Tudor's Birthday

Today is Tasha Tudor's Birthday. She was a special and unique woman. I treasure the books I have that she wrote or illustrated. In honor and to share here is her Stillwater Iced Tea receipt from The Tasha Tudor Cookbook.

As an introduction Tasha says "This is one of my specialties of which I am inordinately proud. You must start with real tea, made correctly - that is, with freshly boiled water steeped for no more than five minutes. Fresh spearmint is another must."

1 cup sugar
1/4 cup water
5 tablespoons either English or Irish Breakfast loose-leaf tea
1 quart fresh, cold water
6 fresh oranges
6 fresh lemons
6 fresh limes
1 quart ginger ale
fresh spearmint sprigs for garnish

To make the sugar syrup, place the sugar and 1/4 cup water in a saucepan. Bring just to a boil and simmer until the sugar dissolves. Remove from the flame and place the sugar syrup in a canning jar. Allow it to cool before placing a lid on it. Keep the syrup at room temperature, as it will congeal in the refrigerator.

Put the cold water in a saucepan and bring to a boil. Place the tea leaves in a large pitcher and pour the boiling water over them. Steep for 5 minutes, stirring once. Pour off the tea through a strainer, into another pitcher. Allow it to cool but do not put in the refrigerator, as the cold will cloud the tea.

Allow the juice of half an orange, half a lemon, and half a lime per glass - squeezed, of course, and strained.

For each serving, put the fruit juice in a large glass, 10 ounces or so, pour in the tea to half-fill the glass, and then fill the remainder with ginger ale and 2 ice cubes. Add sugar syrup to taste. Place a sprig of fresh spearmint in each glass and serve.

Serves 6-12

Visit www.storybookwoods.typepad.com for more Tasha Tudor tributes.

4 comments:

smilnsigh said...

Thank you for your lovely Tasha Tudor entry.

And you commented that you met her. How wonderful! I'd love to hear more about that. Perhaps it's in a past entry in your blog. If so, would you be so kind as to leave a link to that entry, in comments in my blog. Please and thank you.

Gentle hugs,
Miss Mari-Nanci
Smilnsigh blog

Deb said...

Thank you for posting the receipt for Tasha Tudor's stillwater Iced tea ~ it sounds delicious!

Cathy Santarsiero, "The Christmas Corgi" said...

Love that tea. Happy TT day to you! -CS ^..^

Anonymous said...

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