Milton Moon

I may not have made much progress with this blog lately, but elsewhere, I'm doing ok. My husband (I'm not even going to pretend I had anything to do with it) has finished the main room downstairs and now it's up to me to do the finishing bits; furniture, rug, sideboard, mirror...
Last update, we had a thousand colour swatches on the wall. We went from white to blue, grey to green. Nothing was happening and in the end we had to put the anchors on the airy fairy swatches and get ourselves to the paint shop and make a decision. A bit of pressure can work wonders with procrastination.
After a few minutes we laid our peter pointers on a wee square of colour called Milton Moon and walked out with 10 litres of it.

The cane is a recent purchase and another work in progress. The covers are off getting made, hopefully as we speak and should be here in a week or two.

Originally when that light was hung the room wasn't painted and we weren't so keen on it, but now it seems to fit in a lot better. The outdoor lights on the other side of the French doors are a very similar style, plain glass with a black metal frame.

How's that grey? We are also happy with the oyster lights in the coffered ceiling. They were also quite the decision.

 

Both the girls have these el cheapo, yet a la pretty lights in their rooms. I got them on sale at Recollections.

It was my birthday recently. My people gave me this jardinière which I'd spotted up at Paddo Antiques. It will roost downstairs, maybe with an orchid or fern in it.

Riddle me this. Why is it that all the best television shows aren't on television or they are shown at 2.30am? Arrested Development, Mad Men, Breaking Bad, 30 Rock.

One more thing. I'm reading a great book at the moment called The Baroness by Hannah Rothschild. It's about her great aunt Nica who ran away from the Rothschild lifestyle to live in New York with her African American jazz musician boyfriend. Those Rothschilds were a wacky bunch.

A fascinating hobby

Lady Hackett's Household Guide was published in 1940. This was Gwennie's copy, or maybe even her mother's?

I've mentioned it before. I collect old recipe books. Before you click away, wait. It's actually very fascinating. Cookbooks are barometers of a society's wealth, health, fashions and values. Cookbooks can become family heirlooms and a source of nostalgia. Meals can equal memories. Recreating recipes can transport us back in time to Grandma's table or our childhood birthday dinner.
I have recipe books from the late 1800s. Many of the recipes could be recreated now and look very much of our time, while other recipes include ingredients that have long fallen
 It's chock-ful-o-handwritten recipes and magazine clippings. This one is not just a recipe book, but a guide on how to run a house; how to make boots last longer, how to re-use this and that. Lady Hackett discusses treating snake bites and toothaches. She details home hygiene and arming your family with healthy habits like getting enough fresh air and taking daily exercise.
She includes recipes, although they are mostly the ones that have either become extinct or are now only available in high end restaurants under fancier names; beef tea custard, chicken custard, jellied chicken, fricassee of tripe and devilled pig's feet.

This is Best of the Bake-Off Recipes, 1969.

Let me tell you, you'd be the most popular girl in the room if you put this Bacon and Sausage Plait on the table at Sunday Brunch.

Bacon and Sausage Plait
Pastry
3 cups plain flour, 1/2 teas salt, 6 oz butter, approx 1/4 cup water.
Filling
2 boiled eggs, salt, pepper, 1/2 teas powdered sage or basil, 1/2 lb bacon rashers, 1/2 lb pork sausage meat, beaten egg for glazing
Pastry: Sift flour and salt into mixing bowl, rub in butter until mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs. Add water, mix to firm dough. Turn on to a floured board and knead well. Roll out the pastry to 10 inch square.
Filling: Chop bacon and hard-boiled eggs, mix with remaing filling ingredients (except egg glazing), and place down the centre of pastry. Cut pastry on each side of filling into diagonal 1/2 inch strips; brush with egg. Lift alternate strips over the sausage mixture to form roll resembling a plait. Brush with egg, sprinkle with salt. Bake in hot oven 30-40 minutes.

I'm not sure if The Big Party Cookbook refers to the book itself, which is quite large, or whether it's to be used for huge gatherings?

Either way, take these Weisswurst Kebabs or Cocktail Banana Kebabs and Stuffed Sausages to your next barbecue invitation and you'll surely win yourself a husband.

Anyone who did Home Economics or 'Home Arts' as it was sold to us at my school, will be familiar with this ubiquitous little ditty. Day to Day Cookery, in all it's many revisions, was the text du jour of school kitchens - and maybe it still is? This one is from 1985.
Something I used to find hysterical as a teenager, and sady still do, is the recipe for a sandwich with....wait for it....eight steps! Step 4 is 'Cover with second slice and press together firmly'. You may be wondering how there could possibly be a further four steps after that one. I don't want to spoil it, just in case you want to read it at some stage.

Hints on Healthy Living by Dr Ulric Williams was written around 1931, I think. It has recipes with the focus being on good health. It is incredible to think of how many books have rehashed this same information in the last 82 years.
Dr Williams recommends eating as much of your food raw as possible and exercising daily. He includes recipes based on vegetables, fish, nuts and lentils. Sound familiar?

I love these little fundraising booklets published by kindergartens and schools. This one is from Mater Dei School in Ashgrove, published in 1991. Although that doesn't sound like very long ago, you'd be surprised how dated the recipes seem.

Davis Dainty Dishes was published in 1937. It has beautiful coloured illustrations of some of the recipes which seem extremely elaborate and surprisingly modern even now - orange ice cream, peach ice cream. Others are very much of their time; beetroot mould, salmon in jelly and lemon aspic.

On the other spectrum, the recipes in Square Meals for the Family (1939) are downright nauseating. First case in point, Sheep's Head and Barley Broth. Can you imagine coaxing your children to eat that?

There's also recipes for Beef Heart, Stuffed & Roasted (as if that makes it any more appealing), Tripe & Onions and Liver Paste for Sandwiches.

There's an advertisement in Square Meals for the Family from the Brisbane City Council Electricity Supply Department enticing people to have their electricity put on. It reads:

"Electricity scores. Your Matchless Servant - Electricity.

The more you use, the cheaper it becomes."

That concept has ended in tears!



 This Vogue Australia Cook Book (1969) is the height of sophistication. It includes classic French recipes like Le Coq Au Vin and Boeuf a la Bourguignonne. The book lists entire menus for specific dinner parties, many of which have also stood the test of time.

Beetroot salad with capers

Le coq au vin

Scalloped potatoes

Cheeseboard with water biscuits

Sliced preserved oranges

Other books like Cakes & Cake Decorating (1965) are demonstrative of the fashions of the day, and give us a little giggle.

Graham Kerr is a classic. The Graham Kerr Cookbook, as you can imagine with a recipe book from a man, is very meat-oriented.

And finally....are you still awake?

And finally, my favourite. The Australian Women's Weekly Original Cookbook (1977). As there have been over 800,000 sold, I'm sure you're familiar with it. This was my Mum's cookbook when I was growing up and she cooked up many a special meal from its pages.

I find old cookbooks very interesting, however, I completely understand if you don't. I hope you weren't completely and utterly bored to tears.

Hooray!

I found the camera cord. Such joy!

This is the cane setting I am currently finding the covers for. Any ideas are welcome. The problem is you could do just about anything - and when I say 'problem' I'm using the term loosely. I realise this is not a life or death situation.

After all the rain the garden is growing like a weed.

Our retro topiaries, doing very nicely thank you.

We planted star jasmine to grow over the arbour. The man at the nursery called it a weed and in fact it grows like one.

This is the star jasmine we left Honey the puppy in charge of. Not doing so well.

Happy Valentine's Day to everyone. I get fed the same line every year; 'No I didn't get you flowers, every day is Valentine's Day for us'. I got my husband a card, and the girls gave us each a paper Valentine. I wrote them each a note and popped it in their lunch boxes, in part to make up for me channeling Joan Crawford this morning before they went to school.

I don't usually read autobiographies, but I've been reading this lately for some reason (I have no idea why it is insisting on sitting sideways). I wish I hadn't started, it's giving me the heebie jeebies. Autobiographies tend to build their subjects into supernatural characters, which is annoying. And if she really was as perfect as she's portrayed in the book, well, that's even more annoying.

My bedside table doth overflow with books to read. The Love Machine is actually by the same author as Valley of the Dolls in case you're thinking it might be something else. I love a good mid-century melodrama.

Dad recently gave me this lamp. It's made of pottery, but is a dead ringer for brass.

I've been continuing my decorating research for ideas for downstairs, which we expect to start later this year.
While I'm a bit unsure about what I want, I am very certain about what I don't want. This, for example, would drive me crazy.

This is more my speed, it's a shame my budget can't keep up.

No, it's not too much.

I have a feeling this is Ralph Lauren's house, but of course, I haven't kept a record of my source.

Love a good chevron tiled floor.

This is Lee Radziwill's house. Lee is Jackie O's younger sister.

She's a 'good sort', especially considering she's now nearly 80, pictured below.

This is her house. Look, she has a peacock too although I think that's where the similarities finish.

Cheerio!

The hundred dresses

After a mammoth shop this morning I came home and reorganised the pantry - fascinating stuff I know.
It looks much better though.

Unbeknownst to me I have been stockpiling wholemeal pasta spirals of a particular size. Very specific isn't it? I have no idea why I have so much or why I keep buying it. I must have 2kg or more now. Don't be fooled by the photo, those glass jars are huge.
Have you ever cleaned out the pantry and found you've got an inordinate amount of a particular ingredient?

A little gem I picked up recently is this crocheted doiley complete with standing swan heads. It's the height of kitsch. I couldn't believe my luck. What better to pair it with than a footed bowl of faux candied fruit.

I also recently found this (supposedly) 1970s gumball machine, sans stand, this one would have sat on a shop counter. Remember they used to be outside every corner store.

We did have it full of lollies at one stage, but we've since eaten the whole lot.
I wish I could time travel back to 1982 and tell my 10-year-old-self, trying to jimmy more lollies out of one of these things at the North Street store, to relax. 'One day you'll own one yourself, then you can eat all the damn lollies you want, sweetie', I'd tell her.
Actually on my way back to now, Í may as well drop in on 1989 and tell my 17-year-old self to stop sun-baking and hit the books -  'this isn't a joke Miss'.
Do you remember the book called 'The Hundred Dresses'. I had it myself as a little girl and I recently bought it for Mim who is days away from turning eight. The story has aged well. She finished the whole book in one day and loved it. It was only when I was trying to buy it on-line that I realised what a classic 'The Hundred Dresses' is. You can even buy reading companions for it.

It's about a little girl who tells everyone at school she has a hundred dresses. She gets teased by the other girls because she wears the same old dress everyday. I didn't realise it the first time around, but it has an anti-bullying message.
I also discovered why my pseudonym is always 'Wanda'. You know how sometimes when you buy a coffee or a juice or something you need to give your name, which irritates me no end for some reason. I always say my name is 'Wanda'.
As it turns out, the main character in 'The Hundred Dresses' is Wanda Petronski. It obviously left more of an impression on me than I realised.