Hi, and Welcome!

Welcome to Teapots and Polkadots: a chronicle of food, tea, simple living in big cities, and all things cute! Some introductions might be in order...

My name is Alana. I'm 22 and have been (more or less) on my own out in the "real world" since graduating Stanford last June. I live in Seattle and work as a research assistant in a salmon genetics lab. In college, I was the kitchen manager of Synergy House, a vegetarian student-run cooperative. It was pretty much the best job ever: unlimited play time in a huge professional kitchen, cook for 50 very appreciative housemates, and order $700 a week of delicious produce. I love to dance, cook, and bake, and in my free time I can often be found playing in my kitchen.

My sister Lauren is 19 and a sophomore at Pomona college. She's a sponsor(/role model/mini RA) for a group of freshman, and she is a kick-ass modern/ballroom dancer. Not so much of a cook, but for this we forgive her. She's learning. :)

Our mom Juli is a stay-at-home Mom who lives in Los Angeles with our dad, our 16-year-old brother David, and two adorable pugs, Won Ton and Mu Shu. She is an excellent cook who raised us on home-cooked meals every night but always knew when it was the right time to go get a treat from Baskin Robbins. I definitely got my love of cooking from her, and I still call her whenever things in my kitchen are going wrong. She's also a skilled knitter, a sometimes writer, and a lover of all things tea-related.

Which brings us to Teapots and Polkadots! Simply put, these are two of our favorite things. They also rhyme, which is always nice. And they just make us happy. Which is pretty much the point--this is an "all the things we love" blog. We hope to profile a lot of different ideas and concepts, but here are some general topics you might find along the way...


Food at Home: Our cooking projects, kosher recipes (did I mention that we're Jewish and keep kosher? Duly noted. No bacon on this blog.), our baking, other people's baking, other people's attempts at baking, adorable cookie/baking stuff.

Food Outside: Local restaurants in Los Angeles and Seattle, food purveyors, farmers' markets, wine shops, good bargains.

Going green/getting greener: Slow food, organics, local eating, reducing, reusing, recycling. What we've done, what we have yet to do (at least so far, like making a compost heap), what works, and what isn't so worth it.

Fashion and Living: Makeup/hair/clothes/accessories we love, beautiful jewelry, good living on a budget, secret guilty pleasures, our favorite things.

Books: What we've read, what we'd like to read, books that disappoint, our favorite books, local book stores, and decorating with books.

Dance: Dance studios, places to dance, reviews of dance companies and performances, links to videos of dances we love.

Knitting: What we wear, what we'd love, looks from magazines we'd like to steal, reviews of local knit shops, simple instructions, and proud photos of completed items.

Tea: Beautiful china and silver, both ours and others', favorite tea varieties, reviews of tea shops, junk shop finds, and classic recipes.

Simple Living: From going without hair dye to only buying what you really need for the fridge, from finding joy in simple things to remembering what's right in a world increasingly going wrong, this might be an op-ed style piece, a single photo, a few words to serve as the day's mantra, or a list of some favorites.

Quotable Quote: Ever since I started middle school, my mom would put a card with a quote on it tucked into our lunchbox. Now that Lauren and I are out of the house and David is more likely to buy a lunch than bring one, quotes tend to be sent over email instead. We might have a quote of the day or a quote of the every-once-in-a-while, but we sure do love our quotes.

Eye Candy: All things cute, adorable, chic, and/or stylish. Yes, we know this is very subjective. We like it that way!


We hope to update this blog at least once a day, so sign up for our RSS feed or bookmark us to keep checking back and catching up on what's new. Feel free to leave us comments, and we'll do our best to respond to them. Have a topic you'd like to have us discuss, want to know where we found some cute item, or disagree with one of our recommendations? Let us know! We'd love the feedback.

So once again, welcome to Teapots and Polkadots!