Recipe Winners Announced: Applause Please!
Good food depends almost entirely on good ingredients.
—Alice Waters, Chef and Owner of Chez Panisse
Congratulations to the first three weekly winners of our joint Oregon Chai-Satellite Sisters recipe contest!
We asked you to fill us in on how you chai, and did you ever. We received dozens of recipes and choosing the winner was not easy. But hey -- it’s a delicious job and someone has to do it.
With the help of Julie, Liz, Sheila, Monica, and Lian Dolan, we tested recipes and decided on these three for the first round of winners:
Dark chocolate + chai = winning recipe! Chef Natasha in Houston is a winner for her yummy Chai-Chocolate Biscotti.
We absolutely loved the Overnight Coffee Cake from Zanna in Leominster, MA, made with a buttery batter so refined it has to chill for at least eight hours before baking. Mmm...
For Debbie in Bethseda, Maryland, Nirvana includes a mug of morning chai and Debbie’s Scramble—a breakfast mash-up with Canadian bacon, eggs, and hashbrowns. Looks like her Westie, Einstein Squared, wishes he could have some ;-)
Natasha, Debbie and Zanna will receive freebie Oregon Chai products. Keep sending those recipes! The Grand Prize Winner will receive an Oregon Chai/Satellite Sisters gift basket. Check out all the winning recipes here.
From My Cup to Yours
Happiness is not a matter of events; it depends upon the tides of the mind.
—Alice Meynell
Welcome to the café! Your ChaiMama can seat you now .. If you're like me, you're short on time and privacy and long on lists of things that need to get done. Most women these days are on overload - whether she's stay-at-home, work-at-home or work-at-work. So it's only natural that we gravitate toward each other for a little camaraderie when we bump into each other at school events, a downtown café or at our favorite blog spots. What we talk about when we connect is what OregonChaiCafe is all about.
So to make this click, tell me what's on your mind and I'll tell you what's on mine! Right now, what's on my mind is finding a little respite from the hectic pace of my week. Occasionally even a ChaiMama needs a little time for me so here I am, neatly tucked into my favorite window seat, blogging about things I love: Oregon Chai tea, music, my family and power walks. Before I blogged from home I was an editor for a tea-related magazine as well as a handful of other consumer magazines and books, and though I love my life, I occasionally long for parts of the old one. One day one of those longings took me down to one of my old coffee-shop haunts and what started out as a search for Nirvana ended up as a relaxing afternoon with a delicious cup of Oregon Chai. Love at first sip! One empty mug later, in a heightened state of Nirvana, I knew was hooked!
Besides chai, I get a kick out of:
- Throwing a dinner party that has them talking a month later about my pad thai
- Wilco (LOVE the latest album)
- Pitching in and making a difference
- “Authentic” anything—Moroccan food, found art, vintage postcards, quality time with my family.
Enough about me for now. I hope you'll check back in each day to enjoy of cup of Oregon Chai with me and share your thoughts about chai, your own Nirvana, and what makes you tick. In return, I’ll share positive news, recipes, cooking and entertaining tips; home ideas, worthwhile causes and people—and an inspirational quote every day. Enjoy!
Cheers,
OregonChaiMama