It’s that time of year to celebrate the holidays with friends and family. Each year my Book Club goes somewhere different in San Francisco to enjoy a “High Tea” with tasty finger sandwiches, homemade scones and miniature cakes and cookies. This year we opted for a new tea place called Sip Tea Room. It’s in the Inner Sunset on Lincoln Avenue and was opened earlier this year by two women. It’s a small storefront that has been turned into a comfortable dining area with a kitchen in the back where all of the delicacies are carefully made.
We have been together as a Book Club for 17 years and our tradition is to vote on a book recommended by one of us and then eat at a location that reflects the setting of our book. The book this month was “Anna Karenina,” an 800+ page Russian novel taking place in the late 1800s. It is filled with fascinating characters with themes of jealousy, fidelity, social mores, family and more. It’s a timely read with the focus on Russia these days. The formal tea was a nice complement to a book that illustrates the social rituals of the Russian upper class lifestyle. Next month we are reading “Brave New Weed: Adventures Into the Uncharted World of Cannabis.” It should be interesting when it comes to choosing a place to have dinner that reflects the subject matter of our book.:)