Bakery takes Easter bakery pre-orders

Bob’s Well Bread Bakery, the bakery and restaurant in Los Alamos and Ballard, has announced its annual pre-order for the Easter holiday on April 9. Featured are Bob’s Easter Panettone and Hot Cross Buns. Pre-orders are available now through the end of the day April 3 and can be picked up April 8 and April 9 during operating hours. The holiday specials will be offered on a first-come, firstserved basis as supply lasts.

Pricing for the Easter Panettone is $35, and Hot Cross Buns are offered at $21 per dozen or $2 each. Bob’s Well Bread will be open on Easter Sunday for pickup or dining in. Pickup hours are from 7 a.m. to 4 p.m. at 550 Bell St. in Los Alamos and 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. at 2449 Baseline Ave. in Ballard. The kitchen serves the café menu until 3 p.m. at both locations. All pre-orders can be emailed to info@bobswellbread.com. For more information, visit www.bobswellbread.com.

— Marilyn McMahon

I learned that the simpler folk had tea caddies with two compartments, one for tea and one for sugar, lined with a tin lead alloy called “tea pewter” unless they had their own containers inside.

The wealthiest families had triple caddies, with the center having a tea bowl for mixing the different leaves on either side in a custom blend. If the tea was unblended, the glass jar was used for sugar. Political unrest over the price of tea continued to dog the politics of Britain, until the first half of the 19th century. That’s when the country became wealthier in general and more populated, the middle class was rising, and the world of fine design was of interest to all Britons because of the architectural styles of Prince Regent George IV (who died in 1830, but whose influence was felt throughout the century).

Medical improvements contributed to the increase of the British population to 18 million — double from 50 years previously.

Trade was an opportunity to all and not just the aristocracy. Cass structures became polarized even as the middle class grew stronger, and with that every man wanted to drink tea like the upper classes did.

In 1833, Britain withdrew the monopoly of the East India Co. to import tea, reducing prices and forming new trade partners for tea with the merchants of India in 1839.

Indian tea was less expensive than Chinese tea, and the middle classes craved those little tea caddies. They hired carpenters to design them in plain wood accented with gorgeous veneers, for which process a machine was invented in the 1820s.

By the 1840s, New Zealand was added to the list of countries exporting lumber to England along with the Far East, the Islands, Africa and the Americas. Because the veneers of the day were thicker than the veneers we now use, the edges of the caddies had to be “waterproofed” with a band of metal or herringbone inlay. Thus, the reasonably priced, veneered tea caddie with a decorative surface was born and even today is ubiquitous in the antique market. I would put the value of the box at $100. It’s definitely a middleclass 19th-century version.

Dr. Elizabeth Stewart’s “Ask the Gold Digger” column appears Saturdays in the News-Press. Written after her father’s COVID-19 diagnosis, Dr. Stewart’s book “My Darlin’ Quarantine: Intimate Connections Created in Chaos” is a humorous collection of five “what-if” short stories that end in personal triumphs over presentday constrictions. It’s available at Chaucer’s in Santa Barbara.

COURTESY PHOTOS

Bob’s Well Bread Bakery is offering Bob’s Easter Panettone and Hot Cross Buns during its pre-orders for Easter.