Spring Harvest at Elizabeth Farm

Spring Harvest Festival at Elizabeth Farm, Parramatta. Photo © James Horan for Sydney Living Museums

“It is now Spring, & the Eye is delighted with a most beautiful variegated Landscape – Almonds – Apricots, Pear and Apple Trees are in full bloom. The native shrubs are also in flower, & the whole Country gives a grateful perfume.”
Elizabeth Macarthur to her friend Miss Kingdon, Parramatta, 1798  Continue reading

The third drawer down

Spoons and ladles from Francatelli's Cook's Guide and Advertiser. Caroline Simpson Library & Research Collection

While we’re mainly looking at the pots and pans in this series on the colonial batterie de cuisine, it’s a good time for a diversion into all the miscellaneous bits and pieces in a kitchen – all those things we keep in the ‘third drawer down’.

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Take 5

The plundered punchbowl at Sweetness and Light at Elizabeth Farm. Photograph (c) Scott Hill for Sydney Living Museums

Last Friday at Elizabeth Farm we celebrated the connections between Australia’s oldest European house and India with a night of Bengal sugar – and rum punch! Continue reading

Eating modern

The kitchen and servery at Rose Seidler House Photo © Nicholas Watt for Sydney Living Museums (detail)

We’re ‘thoroughly modern’ here at SLM, with The Morderns: European designers in Sydney and Marion Hall Best: interiors exhibitions in full swing at Museum of Sydney. Modernism came into its own on our shores with European émigré architects, interior designers and furniture makers working in the 1930s to 1960s. Not only did modernism change the way we live, it changed the way we cook and eat.  Continue reading

A devilish dish for Halloween

Devilled bones made from an 1850s recipe in the Rouse Hill House and Farm collection. Photo © James Horan for Sydney Living Museums

If you’re celebrating Halloween this weekend, add some devilishly simple ‘devilled bones’ to the menu (recipe below). They make a nice change from the now ubiquitous honey-soy chicken legs and winglets, and are great for kids and adults alike.

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