There’s a perfectly good explanation for my absence & the belatedness of this Ma Belle Vie / A Day in the Life post: I was in Bogotá, Colombia for a gorgeous destination wedding. Those pictures may actually appear in the gallery before any of my previous photos from the holidays of 2014. DAVIDsTEA ran a really fun promotion on St. Patrick’s Day, which meant its downtown location was really packed. Can you guess what got so many people jammed into the store? Free tea if you’re wearing green. The line was out the door & people were stoked about getting free teas just for wearing a bit of green. It didn’t matter if the customers were homeless, foreigners, non-tea drinkers, long time customers, or randoms strangely demanding for “regular tea”–we carry over 150 teas, so what in the world is “regular” tea??–we served them all! Hot or iced, sweetened or unsweetened, free teas were served. The best part of my job is talking about tea & showing people that it can be for everyone, you just have to give it a chance.
St. Patrick's Day
In my previous post, I mentioned my distaste for purposefully dyed green items for the sake of St. Patrick’s Day. Just as I did last year with naturally vibrant & green vegetables, I present to you some recipes that are green because of their ingredients rather than glowing green because you walked down the “baking” aisle to grab dye. No dyed green beer here, folks, just deliciously healthy green recipes featuring, you guessed it from the title, matcha!
Never heard of it before? Let’s get y’all educated then! Matcha is a type of green tea from Japan & is one of the healthiest teas you can consume because you’re drinking the entire tea leaf. It was first made in China & brought over to Japan by a Chinese Buddhist monk named Eisai. After a hundred years of its introduction, matcha tea ceremonies became a pretty big deal in Japan. So, how is it made? After the tea leaf is plucked, the leaves are steamed & dried. It is sorted meticulously to yield all the best parts of the tea leaf called tencha. The tencha is then pulverized–with care of course–to become matcha, an ultra-fine powdered green tea, naturally green! So, instead of dying your cookies, pasta, or eggs green with propylene glycol, FD&C Yellow 5, FD&C Blue 1, & propylparaben, just add a little bit of matcha, baby!
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In the 2+ decades of my existence, I cannot recall a time when I actually celebrated St. Patrick’s Day. In fact, most of the time I completely forgot it was that time of the year again to wear green to avoid this absurd tradition of getting pinched. While the bars around my campus were stocking up on green beer, I was studying for finals. This year is no exception, however this time, I’m bringing you recipes to celebrate St. Patty’s day even though I’ll still be at home, studying. Today, I present two recipes using bright green colors perfect for any lunch or dinner party you might host for St. Patty’s day or any other celebration. They’re simple, refreshing, & you can make them both in 20 minutes or less. More green recipes will be on the way, but they’ll probably be delayed until after my exam on the 22nd.