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Letter to the editor

Tearoom's menu fit for a princess

A decade after her death, Diana is remembered with eggplant, pudding and pie.

By MARY JANE PARK, Times Saff Writer
Published August 15, 2007

ADVERTISEMENT [James Borchuck | Times] Thelma Halawy, owner of A Corner of England tearoom, brings out one of Diana's favorite desserts, bread and butter pudding, in her left hand, while showing some of the menu items the late Princess of Wales enjoyed.

Thelma Halawy was in Shropshire, England, visiting longtime friends. They had stayed up past 3 a.m.

When the phone rang around 5, they could hardly take in the news: Diana, Princess of Wales, was dead.

"No one wanted to talk," Halawy said the other day, nearly a decade after the car crash in which the princess perished. "We just wanted to absorb it."

Halawy and her husband, Nazih, own A Corner of England-Festive Occasions, a tearoom and stationery business on Central Avenue. For the next several weeks, they are offering some of the princess' favorite foods: chilled tomato and dill mousse with shrimp; Croque Monsieur, a grilled ham and Gruyere cheese sandwich with English mustard; and stuffed eggplant Provencal with pomegranate juice and pine nuts.

The menu also includes sweets.

Lady Di Pie is a treat the young Diana assembled in hopes of charming Prince Charles during their courtship. It involves pastry, After Eight mints, strawberries, Jell-O and whipped cream.

Bread and butter pudding contains the obvious basics plus eggs, milk, raisins and slivered almonds. Diana always wanted second helpings of that, Thelma Halawy said.

The commemoration is meant to honor Diana's memory; the shop has a book of remembrance that will be sent to her family.

"She's very much missed after 10 years," Halawy said.

People throughout the world were drawn to the princess.

On the eve of the 1981 wedding of Diana and Prince Charles, British pubs offered free beer, fireworks lit the sky, and people held hands in the streets, singing Rule, Brittania!, Halawy recalled.

After her friends learned of the princess' passing that early August morning in 1997, they rushed out to buy flowers to place near Buckingham Palace. Theirs were part of an ocean of floral tributes left for the "people's princess."

"I just think that Diana is an enigma that will never go away," Halawy said.

If you go

The tribute

Where: A Corner of England-Festive Occasions, 6297 Central Ave.

Hours: 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday through Saturday; reservations suggested. Parties on Sundays by appointment.

Contact: 345-5353.

[Last modified August 14, 2007, 22:36:20]