A Lovely Day for a Tea Party

The school year is upon us. My kids went back this week..my son started daycare/preschool on Monday and my daughter stated first grade on Thursday. Last year, before entering the big bad world of kindergarten, I took my daughter to Afternoon Tea at Two By Tea in Bel Air (814 S Main Street, Bel Air, MD 410-838-3611).

I have been to tea a few other times in my life, but never as a little girl. I knew that if I ever had a daughter it would be something I would love to introduce her to at a young age. I decided that the week before school starts we would go for tea. And so the tradition begins.

For those not familiar with afternoon tea, it is an experience. This is not sitting down to a Lipton tea bag steeping in water. The Tea room has about 8 tables in the main room and a larger table in another room. All the staff got a kick out of daughter decked out in a cute summer sundress with her best manners. Tradiditional tea consists of hot tea (the Tea room has so many flavors to pick from) and it is generally served with a trio of traditional tea standbys..a scone, tea sandwiches and little pastries. You can vary the tradtional afternoon tea by adding soup, quiche or salad as well. For young kids under the age of 12..Tea By Two offers a Cambric Tea for young tea totters which includes a chocolate chip scone, peanut butter and jelly tea sandwich and a teapot shaped sugar cookie.

It was a nice relaxing afternoon with my daughter and my mom and already looking forward to the next tea time!

Sometimes You Just Have to Stop

Our extended family all live in Delaware or Pennsylvania. A hop on 95 and we are at our destination in either an hour or 2...depending on who we are visiting. To get there we have to go through Cecil County to enter Delaware. We always thought that Cecil is a relatively rural county, more so than Harford, so there was no need of stopping. From what we understood there is no mall, no Target..so what's the point? I was tipped off to a restaurant in North East, MD that is supposed to be known for crabs and other seafood entrees. I gave a call to my mother-in-law who resides in Philly to meet for lunch..it would be a 40 minute drive for us and a shorter distance for her to see her grand kids.

I put the address of Woody's Crabhouse (29 S. Main Street, North East, MD 410-287-3541) in my GPS and set out on my drive..we were approaching quickly and turned onto the street of the restaurant..Holy Hell..it was a quaint little street lined with boutiques, antique shops. specialty stores and restaurants. It wasn't plentiful but it was several blocks that could keep me entertained for an hour or so after dinner.


About Woody's. A fun place. My mother and I ordered crabcake sandwiches (10.99) which were really good. The cakes were full of lump crab meat and barely had any filler. They served it on a standard soft hamburger roll with chips, cole slaw and pickle. There were lots of other things on the menu that looked worthy of exploring..but decided on what the restaurant was known for. They also ship their crabcakes nationwide. Woody's is a very kid friendly place. My kids were provided with activity books and crayons. Since it is a crab place, the tables were covered in brown paper which let them color on that as well. Kids meals were really reasonable..your standard kid fare served with fries, applesauce, a drink and ice cream for $4.95. Surprisingly they did not have macaroni and cheese, for which I was thankful cause I'm so sick of my kids ordering that every time we go out.

We will for sure go back. Its a great meeting place for our "northern" family. I just can't believe in our 7 years of commuting back and forth to Philly and Delaware we zipped right by. We seriously should have stopped.