Paper dolls and tea parties with Nana | Column

Published: August 5, 2026

Updated: August 5, 2026

Category: Maine News

Author/Source: Stacy Frizzle-Edgerton - Guest Column

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Is it just me or is everyone in Maine spending way more time than we should pulling weeds this year in the garden? It seems like no matter how much time we put in, there are always more weeds popping up overnight.

Up at our farm in Bowdoin the weeds are crazy. I think the cool spring with lots of rain, followed by the really hot days have combined to create the perfect environment for unwanted plant growth in the yard!

All of our perennial beds are overrunning with weeds, and it looks like seed pods are bursting earlier than they ever have, so you can’t even pull them out in time to stop them spreading.

And don’t get me started on the “volunteers” (i.e. weeds) that propagate via rhizomes underground. They’re virtually impossible to stop. For instance, does anybody have a mint infiltration? We sure do!

My youngest daughter Juliet brought home a paper cup of mint in fourth grade (circa 2014) and unbeknownst to us at the time, planted it in a corner of one of the garden beds. And there is just no getting rid of that mint now. It has spread over roughly two acres of our property and grows everywhere. There is mint around the pond, mint in the perennial beds, mint in the garden beds, mint in my annual pots and mint in the compost pile. And that’s the worst of all because then it gets spread everywhere!

Regardless, I find it hard to stay angry with the mint. It’s not the mint’s fault that my daughter planted it — and that it’s a clever little weed. It’s resilient, hardy and makes a nice ground cover that smells lovely when you walk or lay on it.

Actually, come to think of it, I love garden mint.

In fact, one of my favorite memories with my grandmother was our annual summer mint tea party. We were often dropped at her house in Allentown during summers in the 1970s to give my mom a break and like many of us, those days were some of the best days of my childhood.

We’d roll in the door and as soon as my mother left, “Nana” would have my older sister Samantha and me wash our hands and go out with her into the back garden to pick mint into a wicker basket. We’d carry the basket between the two of us back into the cool shade of the kitchen where Nana began the process of filling the kettle with water and setting it to boil while we “harvested” the leaves into a large cooking pot.

When the kettle whistled, she would pour the boiling water over the mint leaves and let it steep — for exactly 18 minutes. She would set the kitchen timer (shaped like a chicken), and we would wait (Samantha more patiently than me), for the amount of time needed for the leaves to make the perfect summer mint tea. While the leaves steeped, Nana would measure out raw sugar into a small bowl and pour a little hot water over that to make a simple syrup which is better than trying to dissolve sugar crystals into iced tea.

She would then strain off the mint leaves by pouring the hot tea through cheesecloth into a pitcher. She would then add the simple syrup a little at a time and let us girls taste small spoonfuls of the tea to make sure we got the sugar level just right.

While we were waiting for the tea to steep, she would take us girls to get the fancy glasses from the glass-front credenza in the dining room. It was a beautiful old cabinet that lit up inside and was always decorated with swag for the holidays. Samantha was allowed to carry the glasses back to the kitchen on a gold-framed, mirrored tray.

We would then be allowed to break ice cubes out of old freezer trays, the kind where you pulled up on the handle and we both got exactly three cubes in our glasses. We had to be very careful when placing the ice into the very thin and fragile glasses that were etched with flowers. The antique, black-footed iced tea glasses were only used for very special occasions and the annual, summer tea party was one of them.

After the ice cubes, Nana would pour the cooled, perfectly sweetened mint tea over the three ice cubes into the beautiful glasses. We would get a paper-wrapped straw to carry as we trailed behind her out to the very small rusty garden table for the party.

She also always had a box of After Eight dinner mints and we would each get one to nibble with our glass of tea. Do you know what those are? They are extremely thin, chocolate-covered mints that come individually wrapped in paper in a long rectangular box. And we always gave a box to Nana for her birthday and Christmas.

After the tea party, Nana would pull out the paper dolls and my sister and I would happily spend several hours cutting out dolls and paper clothes, sitting cross-legged in the garden. After a while, Nana would bring out a plastic tea pot of the mint tea with little teacups and let us share the tea party with the paper dolls.

Those were lovely summer days, and the mint never seemed to become an annoying weed or run rampant. Probably because my Nana was smarter than I am now, and she only ever had mint in container pots…

I’m so fortunate to still have those beautiful antique glasses that have been in my father’s family for generations. We also pull them out of the china credenza for special occasions like Mother’s Day, my birthday, and of course a summer mint tea party.

Jonathan and I are beginning to have grandchildren and “luckily” we’ve got plenty of that pesky weed to have mint tea parties with them, too.

Stacy Frizzle-Edgerton is executive director of People Plus in Brunswick.