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Daughter Advent Day 21

December 21 Sipdown Prompt – Winter Solstice: drink a warm and cozy cuppa

I don’t usually have caffeine this late but I don’t think anything will keep me up tonight.

It has been a slightly topsy-turvy day. We did a bit of Christmas shopping but were unsuccessful for the most part, picking up only one or two small things. We were going to have a very light supper because tonight is a homemade ice cream night, but we had less ice cream left than we realized so we had some of Sam the King of Dogs’s birthday pound cake with a small amount of ice cream instead. Like an idiot, I then ate potato chips, which I can have safely about once every six months because they give me awful reflux any more often than that. Then after doing our advent reading and lighting the candles (a nightly affair) my neighbor called and said I was needed.

Turns out her family had a chili competition and they wanted an extra voter. I don’t eat much spicy food but I was glad to oblige for a good neighbor (especially since we had a very light supper) and tried four very different chilis. I was sent home with three of the four types for my troubles and a whole lot of cornbread so now I don’t have to cook tomorrow! Yay!

Returning home, I was ready to choose the cozy tea for today’s prompt and this one leapt out. Neighbors used to love my mother’s banana pudding and I have her 1940 cookbook with the recipe she used. I rarely ate it when I was a kid but I did make it for her once shortly before she died. Yeh, I think banana pudding tea is going to be one of the coziest things a Southern gal could choose.

And wow! I shook the bag as instructed and opened it and there were big pieces of banana! The steeped tea smells like real banana, and there is a nice body to it that gives off the creaminess of pudding. I don’t usually like additions in my tea but milk and/or sugar might make this a real stand in for the dessert as creamy as it is already. The banana is not fake or candy-like. Ashman said he found it to be a mild flavor but real bananas are.

We both enjoyed it very much, and it sure fit the bill for a warm and cozy tea. Banana pudding was a summer treat in my house growing up, usually for a cook out or family gathering, but this tea is definitely in the cold weather comfort category.