I just finished having Tea With Hagrid. This was my Harry Potter group’s annual (roughly) get-together for an English tea, with Hagrid’s Hut as this year’s theme. But there’s still a pandemic on, so we had tea in our separate homes, shared together via Zoom.
Of course, we each had to have appropriate refreshments. I made tea in a teapot rather than my usual gauche American method of heating water in the microwave. And I decided to try something new: I baked Treacle Tarts.
I’d never had Treacle Tarts before, and in the end, I wasn’t completely happy with the recipe I used. It was British, but it was a simple recipe, with few ingredients. And I think it suffered from that. It also suffered from my lack of a kitchen scale, which meant having to guess at converting measurements by weight (British style) to volume (U.S. style). I used a solid top crust instead of a lattice one, because I was using my mini pie maker to make individual-sized tarts, but that shouldn’t have affected the taste. I’m considering using this other recipe the next time I try it.
In any case, our tea was a lot of fun, enough so that we went past three hours, for an event that was scheduled to last two hours. It’s always a fun group of people, and there were a few new people I hadn’t met before. We talked Harry Potter, showed off our baked goods and tea blends, and discussed a wide range of other topics, most of them not Harry Potter related. Some participants came late or left early, so the number of people was not consistent, but we probably had about 15 people altogether.
Some of us created virtual backgrounds in fitting with the theme, either Hagrid’s Hut backgrounds or general Harry Potter scenes. It was fun seeing what backdrops everyone came up with, and of course seeing what food people were eating. Someday we’ll be able to meet in person again and bring Harry Potter treats to share. Until then, we’ll have to make do with Zoom.
The Petrini Page 