Wishing you a very happy Christmas day from The Cook and the Curator!
Merry Christmas!
The Cook and the Curator at Christmas Fare, Hyde Park Barracks Museum. Photo Alysha Buss © Sydney Living Museums
Monthly archives: December 2014
Christmas cookery
Christmas rum balls. Photo Jacqui Newling © Sydney Living Museums
T’is the week before Christmas – and egads! I’d better get on with the festive fare. It’s not too late to make a pudding, for the family table or as a gift for friends, or home made treats that follow long-standing Christmas traditions. Continue reading
A sobering thought
Glasses and decanter. Photo Scott Hill © Sydney Living Museums
‘The inhabitants of a beer-drinking or spirit drinking country will never possess the vivacity of those who live in a wine producing land’ Phillip Muskett, 1893
Visiting Orange during Wine Week encouraged me to reflect further on colonial wine culture. The Australian wine industry started with the first fleet, which arrived with grape vine cuttings in 1788.
Of cellarets, sarcophagi and other grave matters
Wine sarcophagus, detail from Plate IV of George Smith's Cabinet makers and upholsterers guide, J.Taylor, London, 1808. Caroline Simpson Library & Research Collection RB 749.2048 SMI
At Elizabeth Bay and Vaucluse Houses we are often asked about some large elaborate boxes seen in the dining rooms: introducing the esky of the 19th century – the ‘cellaret’. Continue reading