Friday Favorite

Friday Favorites: Gingerbread Tea, Favorite Muppets & Rainbow Connection song

66 Comments

I am a devoted tea drinker—coffee is too bitter for me—and one of my favorite places to get tea is from Harney & Sons, where tea can be ordered online. (The shipping is free.) For Christmas, my daughter Dee bought me a tin of their Gingerbread Festival tea, and I am hooked. When I ran out , I promptly ordered myself another tin, which came in this week. Happy, happy day! The tea has a lovely gingery slightly sweet taste, a perfect low-calorie drink for late afternoon.

For media: Two episodes of Pop Culture Happy Hour, a podcast that I’m a big fan of. Pop Culture Hour, hosted by a regular rotation of arts journalists, features pieces about books, movies, television shows, and music. Frequently, other podcasts are recommended.

This week, the Pop Culture Happy Hour crew, led by the plucky and perky Linda Holmes, explores a question that is dear to my heart—who’s  your favorite Muppet? I am too old to have watched either Sesame Street or The Muppet Show when I was a child, but I watched them with my children and found the Muppet Universe an utter delight.

On Thursday, the PCHH crew delved into their favorite Muppets. You might disagree with their choices, or you might find themselves nodding in agreement. But really, aren’t all the Muppets wonderful in their own offbeat ways?

On Friday, PCHH revealed the results of a listener’s survey for top ten favorite Muppets. I was surprised by some of the choices and rankings, but I will not reveal the results.

I will, however, share who my favorite Muppet is: the green soulful, slightly melancholy Kermit, who works so hard to keep everything together. As a Franco-American, I am drawn to his sheer froginess as well as his work ethic. 😉

Do you have a favorite Muppet? If so, which one?

As for music, how could I resist “Rainbow Connection” by none other than Kermit the Frog? Brings tears to my eyes every time I hear it.

Simple pleasures and favorites from blogging friends:

Thistles and Kiwis writes about a trip to Queenstown, New Zealand.

Ju-Lyn, from Touring My Backyard, journeys back in time to explore the new Gallop extension of the Singapore Botanic Gardens

The Belmont Rooster illustrates how to sneak in the back way and uses Classic Editor in WordPress rather than Block Editor. I am conflicted about this. I prefer Classic Editor, but I have learned how to use Block Editor and can see its merits. Anyway, complete instructions are given should you want to use Classic Editor, which definitely qualifies as a simple pleasure, especially when compared with Block Editor.

66 thoughts on “Friday Favorites: Gingerbread Tea, Favorite Muppets & Rainbow Connection song”

  1. I’m with you on Kermit – he is just a sweet character. I’ll have to listen now to the podcast to hear the choices. Thanks for the shout out too! And your tea sounds excellent.

  2. Thanks, Laurie, for mentioning my post about the Classic Editor. I hope it helps others get back to the Classic Editor if they prefer using it. Many have adapted to the Block Editor and I congratulate them. I will probably play around with it off and on to see if I can adapt. Sometimes when we are forced to change we get frustrated. I think if we can play around with it when we aren’t stressed out it would be a better learning experience. 🙂

  3. I love the Muppets, each and every one. 🙂 Thanks for sharing the workaround. I’ve watched several YouTube videos this week. I know the purpose is to have many options within a post, but it sure gets old when the block changes every single time you hit return. We may be reading some long paragraphs. 🙂

  4. I have never done more than glanced at a Muppet though I know the really famous ones who turn up all over the place like Miss Piggy.

  7. I like my tea too and I am currently drinking a blend of dimbula and oolong.

    I am sorry to say that Animal is probably my favourite Muppet.

  8. I’ve just never been a tea drinker, but I must say the name of your new favorite sounds good. As for the Muppets, I never watched the show. Of course I knew the characters, and they may be more deeply embedded in my unconscious than I realized. I met a fellow named Oscar last week, and the first thing that crossed my mind was Oscar the Grouch! I did like Oscar, and Miss Piggy; I suppose I’d say they’re my favorites.

  9. I see Kermit is #1, endearing guy he is. It is tough to pick one, there are so many good characters. I like the wild ones like Rizzo, Animal, Oscar and Pepe, the King Prawn. 🙂
    Tea YES! – my favorite is Rishi, I buy Green Jasmine and Earl Grey in bulk and store it in the freezer, keeping only a couple weeks worth in a tin in the cupboard. Nothing like a good cuppa to start the day. 🙂

  10. Loving Husband is a Harney & Sons fan too – Earl Grey Supreme (we order through iHerb which gives us free shipping to Singapore- woohoo!)!

    Ok, I have to ask – does the gingerbread tea smell like gingerbread spices, or does it actually taste like it has gingerbread dunked in it? I am very fascinated by flavoured teas and how the teamaker captures the essence of the flavour they have created.

    Favourite muppet has to be Animal – I think because of the Wild Thing in me!

    P/S Another podcast recommendation I will check out – the name came up some weeks back when I was scrolling through podcasts, but I think I got distracted by something else.

    1. It actually does taste as though gingerbread has been dunked in it. Wonderful you can get free shipping when you order tea. Animal is one terrific Muppet. Always makes me smile when he does his thing. Hope you get a chance to listen to PCHH.

      1. After reading your post, I went to dig through my tea shelf as I vaguely remember being gifted a box of Yorkshire Tea’s “Malty Biscuit Brew”. Having a cuppa now and thinking of your gingerbread tea!

        Subscribed to PCHH … will listen to it today when I do my driving (in between “The Bible in a Year” (I never thought I would enjoy & learn so much from a religious podcast) and The Sporkful (I love listening to Dan Pashman).

  11. For Christmas, somebody gave me a coffee with the words ‘turtle’ and ‘chocolate’ in the description. So yummy. I ordered more, and I’m still adding it to my coffee every morning. Some day soon, I’m going to transition to something more like spring. In the meantime….

  12. I love all of the Muppets! And I would love to find Gingerbread tea, or something like it, in Australia, it sounds delicious!

  13. I collect tea and have a different one every time I boil the kettle for tea. Earl Grey is a favourite. Sadly, this morning I finished the last of the Black Chai with elderberries that my son brought from Norway. We do not get a great variety of tea here, although you are nudging me towards ordering some online. As for the shock you gave me about the disappearance of the Classic editor … it now takes me much longer to put a blog post together and I feel ever less satisfied with the whole process of sharing what I write. I am battling, but will get things right – in the end!

    1. Same! I have a tea schedule that I faithfully follow. 😉 Any chance you can order more of the black tea with elderberries? Sounds delicious! Too bad WP doesn’t offer both Editors as easy choices. Glad to read you are pushing through!

  14. Earl Grey is good for a special treat. As for the Muppets, Miss Piggy is seductively outrageous but I empathise more with Kermit’s soulful lugubriousity (Is that a word? It isn’t? Why not, I wonder?)

    1. I really, really like Earl Grey. Miss Piggy is deliciously over-the-top. I, too, emphasize with Kermit. Not sure about “lugubriousity.” But as you note, why not?

  16. Being English, I couldn’t possibly comment on your choice of tea. Can you put milk in it? 🤣😉
    As for the Muppets, I love them all – ‘Animal’ always makes me laugh and ‘Fozzie Bear’ is so sweet We have a family tradition, started when my daughters were small, that we watch ‘The Muppet Christmas Carol’ every Christmas without fail.

    1. Sure! I think milk would be just fine in the tea.

      Fozzie Bear is sweet, and we still watch “The Muppet’s Christmas Carol” at Christmas. Michael Caine makes a great Scrooge. And who can forget Kermit’s brilliant portrayal of Bob Cratchit? 😉

  18. I’ve had a few conversations about the latest WP change. It is funny, looking back, to see everyone scurrying around helping each other break in the back door, but only in retrospect when we have the key. I have not been using the new editor because it doesn’t seem ready for use yet. I see various bloggers whose sites are definitely not working as they imagine because of it. My main worry is that I have some older readers I am very fond of who can’t easily adapt to these ‘improvements’ and will eventually give up.

    1. You raise some excellent points about older readers and bloggers. It’s too bad WP is so domineering about Block Editor. I suppose it’s because they spent so much time and money developing Block Editor. But it seems to me it would be good to let people easily choose between the two.

  20. Pingback: the art of staff – Touring My Backyard

  21. Thank you for sharing the link to The Belmont Rooster, Laurie. I noticed 2 days ago that my Classic Editor option had disappeared and was very sad because I really don’t have the time or the interest to learn a new way to publish my post. I will definitely try to get in the back door.

  22. The gingerbread festival tea sounds delicious Laurie and thank you for sharing the soulful Kermit song – he’s always been my favourite Muppet too! 🐸💕

  27. Gratitude for little things and reminders of good times and family are what keeps us going

  28. Got nostalgic reading your post. I still remember my Seasame Street and Muppet days… I never thought about getting my daughter to watch it. With series like Peppa Pig being a craze among children presently, I am not sure how much she will like Sesame Street. But it is worth trying and I can also revisit my childhood with her. This was a nice read.

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