The Table Girl's Birthday

Paper Plates and Crystal has been hijacked! By me, Kathy's sister. And there's a reason for that...

Once a year the family's celebrational table suffers because Kathy is not allowed to create the table setting. The family rule is that whoever has a birthday doesn't have to prep, cook or clean up. Which means that every July there is a table setting to do, and Kathy can't do it. It usually falls to me, her sister, to do the table setting. And I try to do something fun and interesting...and not outside the scope of my abilities.

This year Kathy sort of chose her own. Often she begins with a single inspiration. I decided to let her provide my inspiration. She chose a tea party with finger food rather than a sit down birthday meal, so I asked her to choose a teapot from her collection to be the starting point for the table. Such a rule follower she is. Not. She chose two. One that was a gift from friends and the other that belonged to our grandmother. The final choice was mine.

One teapot had more of the colors to which I am naturally drawn. I chose the other: a plump little apple green teapot with daisies and ladybugs. Our Mom created a wide table runner in the same apple green. The teapot was elevated in the center of the table on a glass cake stand, and a total of nine little bouquets of daisies surrounded the teapot, anchored the runner and sat on the birthday girl's plate in lieu of a place card.

I provided a slight nod to the red ladybugs (I can't stand the color red), plopping a maraschino cherry in the glasses of punch. We didn't really have hot tea because, hello, hundred-degree weather. So the yellow punch with the smallest spot of red worked just fine for me.

The menu (does Kathy usually write about menus?) included sandwiches (some were ham and some were smoked salmon), cheese-pecan wafers, stuffed snow peas, blue cheese and caramelized onion tartlets and petits fours. Pretty tasty. And the table looked fresh as...well...as fresh as a daisy. So that's the story of 2015's "Happy Birthday, Kathy!"  She'll be back for the next post. And I'll see y'all next July!