fan-tea-towel-tastic!

Can I tell you how much my week has been improved 
by receiving this pretty parcel in the post?

...and unwrapping it to discover...

My very own bespoke artisan (these are all the 'it' words aren't they?!) vintage tea towel cushion handmade for me by Kylie of the gorgeous lucy violet vintage blog in Perth. Not only handmade, but hand chosen for someone (me! ME!) who collects South Australian themed tea towel cushions. (Yes, I realise that is something of a niche.) 

Isn't it gorgeous? 

And look at the super-dooper things you can see in 

SOUTH AUSTRALIA: 
THE FESTIVAL STATE.

Oooh, the Port Pirie Lead Smelter. 
(High on the list of places one should not allow children to live)

And the Whyalla shipyards. And pelicans. Adelaide's pelicans have had some bad press lately, sent to rehab for thieving picnickers' lunches. As a child my brother refused to give up his sandwich to a pelican and was in the process of disappearing into the pelican (both were equally stubborn) when my parents extracted him. *sad face*

Colonel Light's Vision. 
Is it just me, or has Col. Light been working out on his glutes?

The River Murray (Australia's longest river), looking unusually water-filled.

The Flinders Ranges looking uncharacteristically verdant.

The Chair Lift at Victor Harbor (actually, on Granite Island, home of fairy penguins). This one made me do a double-take, as I am absolutely in the right age group to have been on this as a child, and it no longer exists, and I have gone and asked my mother WHY we never went on it (entirely ignoring that I HATE things that move), and she said that she thought it was because she couldn't face it with four children. Parents!

The Blue Lake! It is blue for part of the year, and I saw it last February when it was very blue. Seriously, it is this colour:

And look at our local flowers: the Sturt Desert Pea and a Sturt Desert Rose (floral emblem of the Northern Territory, a state once part of South Australia), and a Large Frumed Mallee. "Frumed"? *googles* Oooh, a typo for "Fruited" - so excited, as this is my first tea towel error (er, I mean, apart from aesthetically).

Kylie also sent me a little note, saying that it was her first ever time at making a tea towel cushion and I was not to judge it too harshly. Now, now, I think she protesteth too much. As someone who would have failed Home Ec if it was possible to fail (I also baked a cake onto the bottom of a school oven and never believed that drinking the water in which veges were boiled gave you back all the nutrients. Seriously...), I wish I could sew a straight line, let alone put in a zip. A zip! It's like a magic trick and map-reading and the solution to Fermat's Last Theorem all in one! 

So, thank you thank you thank you so much, Kylie for a delightful addition to my collection, and I should probably finish by showing some of my others, so you can see how magnificently this one fits in with my bonkers decor.

This is the South Australian Women's Bowling Association Golden Jubilee. 
Look at the little bowling ladies!

The uranium treatment plant at Port Pirie (the same Port Pirie with the lead problem, above). Note "Maralinga" on the map too. Not a top tourist spot.

Large "fruited" mallee.

Sturt desert peas.

A relic of the Grand Prix which Adelaide lost to Melbourne. 
I should have edited my stomach and feet out, sorry.

All of these were made by bob window, but I suggest that if there is ever an Iron Chef-style competition for Vintage Tea Towel Cushions, then Kylie could so take him in a fight.

I love tea towels - they're about nostalgia and craziness and design and colour and loony parochialism and social history and so much more. 

  Thank you, Kylie, for making my week 
fan-tea-towel-tastic!

Mock Food links

• retro-food.com on Mock Chicken Salad (and see her Curried Fake Chicken Salad);
• the old foodie on How to Fake an Oyster (including a recipe for brains);
• the old foodie on Mock Chocolate Soup;
• some Australian mock food at unusual coleslaw;
• an article "In Praise of Mock Food" by Patricia Roberts in Gastronomica 3 (2003) (abstract here);
• "Faux Gras" - eddybles on mock food;
• Heston Blumenthal's Mock Turtle Soup (serves 500).

Here's the family's attempt at Mock Whiting:

The recipe ("Fried Cucumber") is can be found here.

The recipe ends with the hope that, 

"Probably you will find you have fried whiting."

A Sign

Maybe I should print it out and stick it on the monitor?



Source: brocantehome

I'll go back & look at these properly...

1. Anthony Gottlieb on What do philosophers believe? And what do people ask them in mid-air? (from More Intelligent Life).

2. The Journal of Ancient Fingerprints (via ancientworldonline).

3. Emails From Crazy People (via georgie love).

4. 'One Day I Will...' go to macaron classes at the Paris Ritz (via paris breakfasts).

5. Ancient Industries' on Marianna Kennedy's resin and glass works.

6. Elizabeth Berrier's wire sculptures (via modern cat -- below, the life-size wire portrait 'Fluffy and Mask'):

7. And let's buy some foolish gadgets: Skunk Duster, USB surgeon drive and maybe a Benedictaphone.

Drinks Monitor

Loving... "Drinks Monitor" from Wild & Wolf Vintage Old School Badges. Found mine for AUD11.95 from a great local on-line store, Brown Button Trading (pretty blog too).

Had to have it

'The Cat and the Canaries' from Matou en Peluche's etsy shop. The artwork remains copyright © 2008 the artist (S. Battersby).

Squirrels of France

It is perverse to add Chateau Vaux-le-Vicomte to the 'must see' list just because of the heraldic squirrel connection. Paris Breakfasts has some images. Sadly it is closed in Jan./Feb., but just thinking about their restaurant called 'L'Écureuil' makes me happy. I'd settle for a mug...

Images: top: www.chapitre.com; bottom: Chateau Vaux-le-Vicomte.