Tea Partay: We're All Mad Here (so you'll fit right in)

Saturday I hosted my fourth annual Mad Hatter Tea Party. This year also marks the

150th anniversary of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.

Clearly I have a problem... an addiction of sorts as yes, it's true, the dishes are new! In honor of the 150th anniversary, a new teapot with Alice adorning the lid, creamer and sugar, teacups and more!

The teacups are huge, which is perfect for our group as we drink a ton of tea. I think we consumed eight pots of tea during this party.

Don't be late to fill up your plate!

(Don't worry the caterpillar did not crawl away.)

The ribbon tea sandwiches were pretty, vegan and a little too healthy for this girl. It's the first tea sandwich that I've ever met that I wasn't in love with, but they were colorful - delicate lettuce, beets, and carrots - they could have used some cheese or cream cheese.

No tea party would be complete without cucumber tea sandwiches. Kim helped make a chess board of walnut tea sandwiches - these were super yummy - cream cheese, toasted walnuts, fresh herbs, a little nutmeg and white pepper, topped with grape tomatoes and black olives, mmm. Thanks mom for the wooden party picks!

And then there were Canadian cookies! I swear cookies from Canada are just better! Shortbread with chocolate castles, crème roulèe filled with chocolate hazelnut, five varieties of tea biscuits - shortbread, currant, etc. and you can't go wrong with chocolate shortbread filled with caramel. Jackie helped me top the rosemary and olive oil baguettes with provolone, sundried tomatoes and oregano.

Crackers and Gouda as well as three kinds of English cheddar.

We also enjoyed apple cinnamon scones with coconut curd.

It was cool and gray outside so to warm things up a bit, I made a Roman soup: Pasta e Ceci. It's a simple rustic soup - tomatoes, chickpeas, little tubetti pasta topped with fried rosemary and freshly grated Parmigiano-Reggiano.

Tea! I had a lot of special tea to offer my guests. The deep blue tin is served at The Empress in Victoria, British Columbia - it's a rich black tea. The yellow tin was acquired at TWG in Vancouver and had candy notes - Kim swore she could taste marshmallows! The black tin was the official Unbirthday tea that Emma brought back from Disney - so good! We were spoiled!