The Sunday after beach week, I went to Elizabeth and Alexander’s English Tea Room in Bothell to celebrate Julie’s birthday. Our room was decked out with a fox hunt motif, complete with a framed photograph of famed hunter Winston Churchill cradling a tommygun, because foxes don’t deserve a fair chance.
It may well be that the English gorge themselves at tea time, or it could be that Americans have taken the idea of tea and a snack and expanded it to fit our all-encompassing appetites. The lack of fried butter makes it difficult to know for certain. All I know is that each table was presented with a veritable Everest of food stacked upon three plates, and it was our solemn duty to eat our way to the top and proclaim ourselves tearoom champions.
I’m not kidding. We had scones and crumpets and strawberry jam and whipped cream and lemon curd and lemon tea cakes and lemon tartlets and shortbreads and chocolate raspberry rum torte and fresh fruit and tea sandwiches: cream cheese and cucumber, chicken salad, smoked salmon. And because that wasn’t enough, Val also had cupcakes delivered by Cupcake Royale.
I had planned on doing something after tea, but ended up sugar crashing so hard that I napped the afternoon away.
