Conversational Chai
Many people in the world are currently seeking the who, what & why of chai. Oregon Chai wants you to expand your horizons, free your mind, enrich your life by helping you become an expert in the field of chai. Just take a few minutes to read this guide and then take a short (easy!) quiz.
Part I. Oregon: "The Puddle State"
(pronounced Or-eh-gun)
Oregon is a beautiful, mossy state on the West Coast of the United States. It is filled with happy, yet soggy people who have spent an inordinately large portion of their lives in warm cafes drinking hot beverages. Consequently, they know a fabulous, life-alteringly delicious drink when they taste it.
Part II. Chai: Need-to-Know Info
Chai, which literally means tea in many cultures, is an ambrosial blend of black tea, honey, vanilla and spices prepared with milk like a latte.
Part III. Oregon Chai: East Meets West, Sweet Meets Spicy
The ancient recipe meets the American palate in a sweet, spicy, soothing chai tea latte that's available in concentrate or instant mixes. Oregon Chai fans love it hot or iced, morning or evening, summer or winter, while relaxing or on the go, sitting by the fire or performing neurosurgery. If they could drink it in their sleep, they would.
Part IV. Tea Time is Me Time
Drinking chai is an indulgent experience. Daydreaming, meditating, self-reflecting and mind-wandering are all highly enhanced by a cup of the heavenly stuff we call chai.
Now, the quiz!
1. What is chai?
A. Slang meaning "tasty," i.e., "This bologna sauce sure is chai."
B. A new language, i.e., "Do you speak chai?"
C. A blend of black tea, honey and milk, i.e., I love this chai! I'm never drinking anything else. Ever.
2. Which of the following are ways and times you can enjoy Oregon Chai?
A. Steamingly hot
B. Refreshingly cool over ice
C. During the winter solstice
D. While performing neurosurgery
3. In which form CAN'T you buy chai?
A. Concentrate
B. Dry Mix
C. New Cheddar Chai - just heat and pour over your favorite tortilla chips!
Answers: 1) C, 2) A, B and C. Yes, you might want to enjoy your Oregon Chai while performing surgery, but we think you should focus on your work. 3) C, silly.
How'd you do?
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
Schoolhouse Rocks!
A teacher affects eternity he can never tell, where his influence stops.
—Henry Brooks Adams
If you’re from Portland or surrounding areas, you’re probably familiar with one of my absolute favorite worthy causes: Schoolhouse Supplies. It’s a non-profit that maintains a volunteer-run Free Store for Teachers stocked with classroom supplies and educational tools—everything from glue sticks and colored pencils to Crayons and notebooks.
The Free Store is open to all 3,000-plus teachers in the Portland Public School System, and each school is assigned eight shopping weeks throughout the year. In its decade of service, Schoolhouse Supplies has distributed nearly 11 million dollars in supplies, logged in more than 50,000 volunteer hours, and on a truly graceful note, supplied more than two million classrooms with pencils. Schoolhouse Supplies also puts products directly in the hands of students through partnering programs and even collects corporate office supplies such as old letterhead and refurbishes the cast-offs into usable supplies, like sketchbooks.
Obviously, Schoolhouse Supplies depends on the kindness of strangers: they rely on cash and in-kind donations, and grassroots support efforts. Companies can volunteer to act as donation drop-off points, while volunteers groups or individuals can host school supplies drives. So in honor of the school year about to get underway, I’d like to issue a little challenge to all the Oregon Chai lovers out there.
Host a school supplies drive in your neck of the woods (in Oregon or out of state) for Schoolhouse Supplies or a similar agency and make a difference in your local schools—not to mention a child’s life! The person or group that raises the most supplies by November 1 will receive a deluxe Oregon Chai gift basket. What’s more, I’ll give every person or group a shout-out by name in OregonChai Café. Join me in making a difference!
Cheers,
OregonChaiMama
Tea Party In the Park
Every cup of tea represents an imaginary voyage.
—Catherine Douzel
It’s the most perfect summer day today here in my little corner of the world. There seems to be a beautiful view, a blooming flower, or a twittering songbird everywhere I look this morning, so I’ve decided to make the most of it! I’ve unearthed my favorite wicker picnic hamper—a great vintage “prop” left over from my magazine days—and the girls and I are going to spend the afternoon soaking up the sun and each other’s company. We’re going to have a tea party in the park—an all-girls afternoon!
I’m packing real dishes—mismatched vintage plates, linens, and flatware that I’ve collected over the years for just such occasions. I’m adding a teapot, of course, plus orphan teacups and saucers. For food, I think I’ll keep it simple: just a few crust-free, kid-friendly finger sandwiches, plus a trio of sweets I have on hand—cookies, macarons, and doughnut holes dusted with cinnamon-sugar. Extra teacups stacked between dessert-sized plates will make a wonderful three-tiered “tray” for proper serving, and a salt shaker sans screw-on lid or a glass tumbler will make a perfect, easily packable bud vase for a freshly picked flowers, and a too-easy special touch.
Rather than fussing with hot water, tea bags, cream, sugar, and lemon, I’m making a thermosful of Oregon Chai with lots of milk. It’s an all-in-one convenience, the girls love the taste, and I love the fact that they make a caffeine-free version that we can all enjoy! In honor of the occasion, I’m also making my super-duper pimiento cheese spread for our sandwiches. Here’s my secret recipe!
Cheers,
OregonChaiMama
Super-Duper Pimiento Cheese
Makes about 3 cups
1 (3-ounce) package cream cheese, softened to room temperature
½ cup mayonnaise
2-3 drops hot sauce
Salt, pepper to taste
1 (4-ounce) jar pimientos, undrained
1 (8-ounce) block extra-sharp Cheddar, shredded
½ cup shredded Pepper Jack cheese
½ cup shredded white Cheddar
In a medium bowl, cream together the cream cheese, mayonnaise, hot sauce, salt, and pepper until smooth. Using a wooden spoon, stir in pimientos and shredded cheeses until well blended. Keep covered in fridge until ready to serve.
That’s Amore!
The world is a book and those who do not travel read only one page.
—St. Augustine
I have always dreamed of traveling through Italy, but sadly, I have never had the pleasure. With the economy more sluggish than any of us would like, my family’s money is prioritized and earmarked for college funds and dance classes, and five plane tickets to Tuscany just aren’t in the budget right now.
However, I am once more putting Alanna Kellogg’s words into practice. In the blog post I’ve been raving about all week, she suggests we travel vicariously to a place we’ve always dreamed of going by immersing ourselves in every aspect of the culture. Learn the language (at least a word or phrase every day), cook or sample local cuisine, study maps, and read travelogues. What a great idea—and your greatest investment is the time it takes you to become engaged.
Let me share what I’ve learned about Italy so far.
- Italian aristocrat Catherine de Medici introduced France to a then unheard-of world of delicacies when she married King Henry in the sixteenth century, including artichokes, pasta, and truffles. In her honor, I tried (and mastered) this delicious recipe from Food & Wine. It only requires one shaved truffle – a relatively inexpensive indulgence!
- I learned there are more than a dozen words to distinguish different types of water from Diana Hales, whose blog Becoming Italian Word by Word is now a new favorite.
- The Cypress tree is considered by Tuscans to be a symbol of the countryside, and there are both “male” and “female” trees.
Where would you to travel to by armchair? Tell your friends at OregonChaiCafe. We’re all ears!
Cheers,
OregonChaiMama
She-Scribes Unite!
One written word is worth a thousand pieces of gold.
—Japanese Proverb
As a writer who is no longer surrounded by a hub of colleagues, I miss not only the daily camaraderie of co-workers buzzing about me, but also having fellow editors to bounce ideas off of. That kind of back and forth is not only exhilarating—it’s imperative to the creative process! I can’t tell you how many times I’ve queried a fellow writer for his or her opinion about a word, a title, a paragraph—all in the name of sharpening my own skills and, hopefully, creating something beautiful for many to enjoy.
So, I’ve taken matters in hand. I’ve started a dinner club of fellow female writers and aestheates—an amazing group of six women who have something to say. Our pens are on fire with ideas and we have our first meeting tonight at my home. Our itinerary is loose—sit down for a little din-din, then share our work with each other with glasses of Chard all around. But our mutual goal is solid. The idea is to offer (constructive) criticism, feedback, and support to each other on a once-a-month basis. How wonderful does that sound?
Tonight’s dinner menu is exotic—a little spice to fuel our imaginations: Moroccan Chicken with Green Olives and Lemon, saffron rice, and salad. For dessert? More spice of course: Chocolate Chai Cobbler.
I found the chicken recipe, if you want to take a peek, and the cobbler recipe I’m testing is below. What do you think? Sound good?
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Chocolate Chai Cobbler
Makes 6 servings
6 tablespoons butter
1 cup self-rising flour
½ cup sugar
¼ cup brown sugar
3-4 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder
1/2 cup milk
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 cup Oregon Chai The Original Chai Latte Mix (powdered)
1 ½ cups boiling water
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Melt butter in an 8x8-inch Pyrex dish as the oven preheats. In a medium bowl, stir together the flour, sugars, and cocoa powder. Stir in milk and vanilla until smooth. Remove Pyrex dish from the oven. Spoon mixture over the melted butter. In a small bowl, stir together chai mix and 1/4 cup cocoa powder. Sprinkle over the batter. Slowly pour boiling water over the top of the mixture. Bake 30 minutes or until set. Serve warm with Vanilla Bean ice cream.
Cheers,
OregonChaiMama