Tag Archives: Harry Potter

Hot Leaf Juice & Firewater

A sequence of images from the TV show Avatar The Last Airbender from Nickelodeon depecting one character calling tea Hot Leaf Juice
©Nickelodeon

It’s that time again! Apparently, it’s been a while since the last one, and I’ve discovered more nerdy cookbooks on our shelves that deserve some time in the spotlight. This time around, I’ve accidentally hit on a theme, and rather than filling your stomach with food, I’ll be quenching your thirst with tea and cocktails1. There will still be some nibbles to start, but I’ll primarily focus on the libations today. Before we get too far into this, I should probably warn my readers that I’m by no means an expert on cocktail mixing or even cocktail drinking. I enjoy a nice cider once in a while, but alcohol has never been something I’ve gone out of my way to partake in, and mixing drinks sounds like a lot of work. That said, I have family and friends who enjoy a nice mixed drink, and just like with making coffee for my wife, I’m happy to pick up a new skill to show off with make their life more enjoyable.

The Official Downton Abbey Afternoon Tea Cookbook

I’ll start sober with one of the tea books. Thanks, Maya, for setting up beautifully for this section with your ways to hide from winter, though I’ll contest that tea is a year-round drink. Admittedly, The Official Downton Abbey Afternoon Tea Cookbook has more to do with food than tea, but given that it’s all food meant to accompany an afternoon tea, I’ll give it a pass. To the surprise of (probably) none of you, I know nothing about Downton Abbey beyond that it was a TV show with a rather large following. Is it particularly nerdy? The audience might prefer to avoid hearing this, but yes. British (and world) history mined for what is essentially late-Edwardian early-modern era fan-fiction? Nerdy as all get out2. So what’s in this book? Surprisingly little tea. Pages 15 and 16 cover Tea at Downton Abbey, including Tea Etiquette, Preparing the Tea, Serving the Tea, and Types of Tea. There’s also some talk of British tea history in the preamble, but most of the recipes are for sweets and treats, which makes me think that tea time was just an excuse to indulge one’s sweet tooth. Dish names here are surprisingly standard; they didn’t name a single one after a character from the show, though pictures and quotes are scattered throughout. Will the book make you feel like you’re enjoying afternoon tea at Downton? Probably not, but does that matter when you’re scarfing down English Toffee Shortbreads or Sticky Toffee Pudding3 in a very un-Edwardian fashion? Not one bit. Before moving on, I want to point to Royal Teas, which also has very little to do with actual tea and is more about the food eaten during tea time. I’m tossing it in here since an obsession with royalty is its own kind of nerdery.

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Harry Potter and the Reckoning of a Childhood Hero

Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone CoverToday is Harry Potter’s (and his author’s) birthday, and I want to start this post with a quote from a scrapped draft I had written for the 20th anniversary of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone a few years ago:

19 years ago, Christmas Day, I opened a present from my aunt. It was a hard cover children’s book with a boy and a train on the cover. I didn’t know what it was, and when I spoke to her on the phone later that morning she said “Everyone’s talking about it, I think you’ll like it.” I was 9 years old at the time, a heavy reader and not very discriminating in taste, so I shrugged and started reading. It’s now been 20 years since the UK publication of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, I’m approaching my 28th birthday, and I’ve got plans to tattoo a Harry Potter quote somewhere on my body. As you can probably infer, J.K. Rowling’s generation-defining series has never lost a place in my life. So as the world celebrates #HarryPotter20, I sat down and thought about these books, what they mean to me (and to all of us), and what stands out about them 20 years later.  

For me, the defining lessons in Harry Potter are of loyalty, friendship, tolerance, and standing up to oppression. The last book may have published 10 years ago, but don’t those sound like lessons we can still use today? 

Like just about everything in 2020, looking back on this in our current situation just seems so quaint. So innocent. Better days. What we have now is that proverbial loss of innocence—in truth as in fiction, nothing gold can stay. Especially not when a beloved childhood figure has 24-hour access to Twitter and a desire to burn her empire to the ground. I’m referring, of course, to the media firestorm one JK Rowling has created by not only tweeting openly transphobic views, but digging her heels in when criticized. She brazenly picked up a shovel, and now all we can do is watch aghast as she digs her own (professional) grave.  

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