Before I left for California in late December, I decided to have a tea for one of my daughters and for my lovely daughter-in-law whose birthday was that week. Usually I take them out out to tea, but with Covid, the Lake Forest hotel, the Deer Path Inn, decided to start having take away high tea. Well, when I heard this, I was quickly on board!

And the reason I decided to post a blog at this late date is that I recently learned that they are STILL having this, probably until the pandemic is under control. So If I were still in my Northfield home, I would DEFINITELY be hosting a winter, Valentine’s Day, or even a Spring/Spring tea at home. It was such fun! The tea is available every day of the week and is very reasonably priced ($35 per person, including all the food, tea, and accouterments for the scones).

High Tea Outfit

For the event, I channeled the designer Carolina Herrera wearing a white silk shantung wrap blouse from Sara Campbell. My black velvet Talbots trousers were an elegant match. The most fun part of this outfit was the necklace.

This is an (old) multi-stranded pearl necklace from Talbots. I loved this piece because the pearls are always a classic touch, and these even have different size pearls on the various strands. You could easily imitate this look by wearing several pearl necklaces at once a la Coco Chanel.

Look at these lovely tea sandwiches! All were sturdily packed in plastic containers and were easy to transport as well as unpack. There were cucumber sandwiches, lobster salad on mini-croissants, smoked salmon, egg salad and chicken salad.

Here is a photo of the delicious scones (raspberry preserves, lemon curd and clotted cream were all included in individual containers), and two of the delicious desserts.

Here are the rest of the gorgeous desserts. There was a little fruit tart, a truffle, I think and a little sponge cake. It was all so great!

All you need to add is hot water, pretty dishes, and a bottle of champagne or prosecco to have a lovely girl’s high take away tea. Doesn’t this sound fun? Start your new year out right by planning an easy, festive party with terrific already prepared food.

XO

Dr. Julie