Michelle Blanchard Ardillo

What’s your dream job?

Lucky me, I married into a Louisiana restaurant family, and even better, a family who owned a restaurant I had been patronizing long before I met my husband.

After we became a couple, I was allowed “in the back” as we always entered through the screen door to the kitchen. The cooks all greeted me while I glanced at the giant hotel pans hoping to see my favorites on the lunch special: baked eggplant, breaded pork chops, pot roast, turnip greens, and so many others.

In fact, our rehearsal dinner was held there the night before our wedding, in the back room, as it was called, where various clubs like the Kiwanis Club met for monthly lunchtime meetings.

After we married and were living in Maryland, trips home always meant lunch at the restaurant. It was so hard to choose what to order, because we only visited there once or twice a year. But, if the breaded fried pork chops was on the special for the day, you better believe my father-in-law had saved one for me!

When our daughters came along, they were overwhelmed with the idea that they could sit in the back room where customers weren’t allowed and ask for anything on the menu and it would be brought out to them by their grandmother or cousin. They would then run through the bar area to the family grocery store and see the rest of their relatives busy at work, greeting customers, checking people out, stocking shelves, cutting meat for customers, and keeping the books.

Yes, the food was delicious, and being treated by royalty by my husband’s loving family was heavenly, but I spent much of my time in the back room thinking about the potential there. Unused most of the time, I could just see it as being the main ingredient in my dream job of owning a tea room.

The restaurant no longer served dinner so after the lunch service was done, I could potentially have free reign of the professional kitchen to make scones, pastries, and tea sandwiches. I could go to the area thrift shops and purchase mismatched cups and saucers and tea pots, along with some pretty trays, and use the restaurant silverware and coffee service accoutrements. With the bar just through the passageway from the restaurant, I could easily serve a flute of champagne or a sip of sherry to the more sophisticated crowd, or walk just past there to the grocery store to stock up on apple juice and chocolate milk for the little ones.

I could envision afternoon teas scheduled in advance for Mother’s Day teas, bridal showers, baby showers, mother-daughter get-togethers, class reunions, bridge clubs, etc. I had a name in mind, the Pelican Tea Room, given that the pelican is the state bird of Louisiana.

I even have a secret weapon to make that dream job even more special. My mom’s first cousin, Anna Liddell, on one of her trips from Glasgow to visit us in Maryland, taught me how to make scones from her mother’s (and possibly her grandmother’s) recipe. We made them together one afternoon after my dad had taken his daily nap. Anna told me I had “good hands” for making pastry as I didn’t overwork the dough. Bonus if you are reading this: here’s the recipe from my dear sweet Anna!

The scones were delicious, both varieties, sweet and savory. The sweet had tiny dried currants in them and the savory had a pinch of dry mustard (Colman’s of course) and grated sharp white cheddar. My daughters’ favorite was always the sweet scone with mini-chocolate chips in lieu of the currants, and my husband is partial to sweet with the candied ginger pieces.

I’ve had afternoon tea in some spectacular places: Windsor Court in New Orleans, the Shelbourne in Dublin, aboard the Queen Mary in Long Beach, CA, the Wistoria Tea Room in Fort Myers, FL, the Willow Tea Room in Glasgow (probably my favorite of all times, in my grandparents’ hometown), several of the well known hotels in the DC area, and many more!

Some years for my birthday or for Mother’s Day, I create an afternoon tea for my family. It may seem odd for me to make scones, tea sandwiches, tea cakes, and set an elaborate table for my own celebration, but I really love to do it and I love to make everything from scratch!

Now that I’m retired after a 20-year career in the legal field and a nearly 20-year career as a Catholic school educator, my daydreaming about owning a tea shop has been replaced by sleeping in, traveling, working on a book I’m writing, reading and writing book reviews, and spending time with family. But, if I could go back in time, I’d love to turn that back room at Ardillo’s into a real Southern gem of a tea room!