Awhile back I went to a tip shop north of Hobart and took my camera. A tip shop for you non Australians is a thrift shop on the grounds of a dumping ground or landfill.
S one had an artist that made things from some of the junk dumped.
I thought I’d share some of the photos. You can let me know which piece you like the best. Think aesthetics and creativity- haha. Not sure I’d want any of the pieces in my living room but a fun thing to look at and photograph for the sake of posterity! Ha!
Tonight I’m going to a book launch so will be writing about that in my next post. In the meantime let me know which piece you like best IF you had to take one home. I;ll number them for easier reference. Just a bit of fun for the penguin and me.
Number One
Number two
Number three
Number four
Number five
Number six
Number seven
Number eight
Number nine
Penguin loves a bit of Op/thrift shopping.
.
By the way, we quite like number three. The swan could go into a garden with a very colourful plant.
Following on from my last post about the recipes on gravestones, I came up with a little project yesterday.
The book is To Die For: A Cookbook of Gravestone Recipes by Rosie Grant. I’ve had a chance to look at it more. It is an American book. She travelled extensively across America and into Canada to find all of the gravestones that had recipes on them. It would have been quite an extensive trip.
I can tell you, recipes on gravestones do not seem to be an Australian thing or more specifically a Tasmanian thing.
Yesterday was a lovely autumn day so I went over to the very large cemetery we have here in Hobart. It has approximately 100,000 people buried and 60,000 cremated remains according to CHAT GPT.
Being the day before Easter I had the place to myself. I parked the car at the river and walked up the hill to the cemetery that lies next to the river. The graves in it go back to the 1800s.
With my phone camera, I walked around the cemetery for more than an hour. I read countless graves, admired the beautiful trees and views of the river and watched the cockatoos that seemed to follow me everywhere. I enjoyed the peace and quiet on a sunny autumn day. Did I find anything written on the gravestones of interest? Nope. Just names and dates. I didn’t see any poetry, recipes, comments outside of a few biblical phrases. Think how much lovelier it would be to read something about the people buried there. There could be so many things to add. Anyway….
There is one area of the place that has only young children’s graves. I’d not ever visited that part of it before. So many children over the years. I couldn’t help but think back to all those years before penicillin and vaccinations for any number of illnesses as well as polio and I became angry again of what that Kennedy idiot in America who is in charge of health does. Decimating the disease data bases from illnesses added from around the world. Discouraging vaccinations, his ignorance is breath taking. Measles is now back in America regularly. I mean, really…..I will stop at those remarks as I don’t want my posts to get political but seeing the hundred or so graves of children who died before they had access to medicines that would have saved their lives is very sad. My own grandmother lost 3 of her 10 children before the age of 5 back in the early 1900s.
Ingredients
On a happier note I did make one of the recipes in the book. It was very easy and doesn’t involve turning an oven on. I’ll put that information here from the photos.
The recipe is for No Bake Chocolate Oatmeal cookies. Easy to fix and tasted very good
Easy as…
Note: I’d take out a bit of the sugar next time. American baked goods are much sweeter than ours. Recipe makes 12 to 15 depending in how big you make each cluster. They harden quite quickly so not long to set.
The final product. I can’t go past a good chocolate chip cookie.
The Penguin wants to know if you have a favourite biscuit/cookie, cake you love?
We have a cool autumn, sunny day here today. It is really lovely but I was so tired from the week I just had a sleep for awhile. Now I am in my comfy reading chair with a hot cup of tea thinking of you all. 🙂🌻
Fridays are usually my rest day. We had lunch yesterday at a restaurant with a couple of old friends. We hadn’t seen them for awhile but one of them is in his 80s and quite severely hearing impaired as is Mr P. The conversation was quite funny as one hearing impaired asked a question to the other hearing impaired and both partners had to repeat what was said and then they would answer and again the partners would repeat. It could have been one of those old British sitcoms that make people laugh so much. Fortunately I had my hearing aids in and the partner of the other older friend is younger and can hear!! Old age is such an adventure. Things happen you never thought about before.
But let’s get on with the book I bought a couple of weeks ago. I came across it accidentally on a table while going into the local second hand book shop Cracked and Spineless. I was asking Richard, who owns the shop if he had any Muriel Spark books. I did find one but will save that for later. He also sells new books too. He has a real following of both university students and older adults, like us. He is known for getting some really quirky books in.
The sign in front of his shop.You never know what you’ll find here.
What is this new book you ask?
Cousin Eddie gets bored with my books.
The book is full of gravestone photographs. Now, photographers get photos of all kinds of themed ideas. This one is gravestones. There isn’t much new with that idea but these are gravestones with recipes on them. Little old ladies who passed away and are remembered for their wicked biscuits (cookies to you N Americans), pies or cakes, etc.
The entire recipe is carved into the marble of the gravestone. This book is full of gravestones with lovely old recipes on it.
As I have several days at home over Easter weekend I was thinking I might pick one and bake it and see if it is as good as it sounds. Though I am trying to lose a couple of kilos I could still make something and train myself not to eat it all at once.
There are also stories of some of the women who baked these delights.
I have included a couple of the illustrations. I might also take my camera and find some local gravestones and see if I can find something unusual to photograph. I think these recipe stones are probably in North America. I haven’t had chance to really read through it all yet but plan to now I am not quite as busy for a few days and feel more rested.
How good does this look‼️
Have any of you ever seen something special on a gravestone? If I do get out and get some gravestone photos I’ll post them up at a future date. I’ll also share what I bake from the book. In the meantime. Enjoy the photos.
Have you ever seen an interesting epitaph on a gravestone?
Travellin' Penguin 