Like myself, Brenna Gallagher prefers tea as a her hot beverage, but most folks in the story drink coffee with its tantalizing aroma. The fragrance of good coffee is all I like about that particular drink (okay, I really like the smell of good coffee brewing).
Previously, the housewife had been forced to buy green coffee beans and roast them at home. She used either a shallow pan over a cookstove or a long-handled roaster, which looked like a bed warmer, over a fire on the hearth. In either case, she had to continually shake the beans to prevent burning. An early cookbook advised, “Stir often, giving constant attention . . . not one grain must be burned.” Despite the cook’s best intentions, home roasting often produced charred, foul-tasting beans. (TrueWest Magazine)
Yeah, so roasting coffee before you could by roasted beans would have been a time-consuming task. By the 1880s, roasted beans were available, which would have made all the folks at Hawk's Peak sigh in relief.
Tea, though, is delicious, restorative, and is still Brenna's hot beverage of choice. She obviously has good taste in both beverages and men. Ahem, "Ethan."
Excerpt from Gallagher's Pride
The brothers looked down at the four large trunks sitting in the street where the stage driver left her baggage.
“Were you planning on staying long?” Gabriel grinned.
Brenna however was quite serious when she answered, “As long as it takes.”
Ethan nodded to Gabriel as he loaded the trunks into a large brown wagon Brenna hadn’t noticed before, being led by two exceptional creatures. She knew horseflesh and these animals were magnificent. Ethan led her over to the front and helped her up to the buckboard bench.
Once the men loaded the trunks into the wagon, already filled with supplies, Gabriel untied a tall brown gelding from the hitching post and mounted the animal as though born in a saddle. Ethan settled himself into the seat beside Brenna and took up the reins. He stared at her for a moment and then shook his head as though to himself. “Welcome to Montana, Miss Cameron.”
He slapped the reins and Brenna watched the clapboard buildings grow smaller and smaller as they left Briarwood behind them. She wondered, as she lost sight of the town, what she had gotten herself into.
The three travelers remained silent during the ride to Hawk’s Peak. The beautiful countryside had Brenna thinking of her own Scotland. The peaks looming above them certainly stood grander than her Scottish hills, and she had never seen a sky such a magnificent blue. A sky so spacious there seemed to be no end and no beginning. A flock of geese flew high above them on an invisible path in that wide expanse of blue. The pine-scented air carried with it the promise of cold, the kind of cold that made a person wish for a warm hearth and woolen blankets.
Excerpt from Gallagher's Pride copyright © MK McClintock
I hope today, and every day hence, you take a few minutes for yourself with a restorative cup of tea and an escape into a good book. We all need a little time to relax in our busy lives.
The Tea: Moringa with Spearmint & Sage from Traditional Medicinals
The Treat: Blueberry Muffins with Lemon Glaze (recipe below)
The Book: Gallagher's Pride, book 1 of the Montana Gallagher series. Read an excerpt >