Detail of a silver plate oval cruet set by Crispin Fuller, 1800. Photo © Nicholas Watt for Sydney Living Museums
Now that you’re assembling your summer salads you’ll of course be looking for decorative bottles in which to keep your vinegars. Pass the cruet! Continue reading
Decanters and claret jugs as part of a setting recreating a birthday held for Alexander Macleay at Lake Innes. Photo © Leo Rocker
Mainly used nowadays for allowing good wines to breathe, in the days before commercial bottling the decanter was de rigeur. As another festive season fades into your memory, settle back with a claret jug of restorative toast water – but don’t forget to clean it afterwards! Continue reading
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
Silverplate eggcup cruet. Sydney Living Museums EB95/1-8. Photo © Paolo Busato for Sydney Living Museums
We often recreate breakfast scenes in our houses, evoking a time when the first meal of the day certainly wasn’t grabbed at a takeaway or drive-through. Here’s a tale of googy eggs, egg cups and bloody war at the breakfast table! Continue reading
Davros the rooster and chickens at Rouse Hill House. Photo Scott Hill © Sydney Living Museums
Why did the chicken cross the playground? To get to the other slide! BOOM BOOM! Okay that was far from im-peck-able. You could say it was egg-stremely bad! But how can I resist an egg-cellent yolk to introduce our new series of posts dedicated to the chicken and the egg! Continue reading
Regency breakfast at Elizabeth Bay House. Photo Jacqui Newling © Sydney Living Museums
We recently hosted a Regency-style breakfast in the grand dining room at Elizabeth Bay House as a “money can’t buy” experience for the literacy charity, Room to Read. The offer included a personalised gastronomy-focused tour of the House followed by a breakfast which was based on the menu plan given to Maria Macarthur in 1812, Continue reading
Detail of a dining scene from 'Judy', March 25th 1868, showing a chair back in use. Reproduced from John Gloag, Short Dictionary of Furniture, Allen and Unwin, London, 1972
If you’ve sat near a roaring fireplace you’ll know that you can get a tad cooked. While pole screens were an option in the drawing room, when dining there was another quick fix: introducing the chair screen. Continue reading
The Rouse Hill dining room by candlelight. Photo Scott Hill © Sydney Living Museums
Currently at various Sydney Living Museums Houses we’re running a series of night time tours, where you can see the houses as their original occupants saw them lit by candle and lamplight. Which raises the vexing question of just HOW should you light the historic dining table? Continue reading
Burleigh-ware trade plate advertising 'Willow-pattern' crockery, c1935. Private collection. Photo Scott Hill © Sydney Living Museums
Now that we’ve all recovered from a month of festive feasting, February has something to offer every foodie. Continue reading
Christmas in the South - egg-nog party, W.L. Sheppard, 1870. Library of Congress: LC-USZ62-109127
Diaries and journals are a wonderful source of detail in reconstructing past lives. Writing in the 1830s and 40s, the young Annabella Boswell recorded Christmas at Lake Innes. In her diaries we read of puddings and roast beef, cakes and shortbread, decorations – and of a drink that was the precursor to egg-nog, itself a drink that we may never have tried but have all heard of at Christmas time. Continue reading