BREAST MILK DESSERT

ICE  CREAM  made with BREAST MILK  has proved a big hit in a London restaurant, with the first the first batch sold out within days.

The ice-cream called Baby GAGA, is made with milk expressed by 15 women who replied to an advertisement on an online forum. Each serving at lcecreamists cafe in Convent Garden costs $22-.

The milk is pasteurized before lemon zest and vanilla pods are added during churning. One donor Victoria Hiley, 35, told the B.B.C: "What"s the harm in using my assets for a bit of extra cash?" 

Icecreamists founder Matt O'Connor said he could not understand people being squeamish about the product. "lt's pure organic, free-range and totally natural" he said.

 ( l read this article in the Australian Herald Sun, February 28, 2011.)

Couldn't we start a new trend in Australia. l would love to try it.

 My daughter breastfeeding on the morning of my art exhibition

SKELETONS IN LOVE

This is a photo l found in a magazine.

It is located in a park in Nong Khai, Northeast Thailand. 

What a great talking point it would be if it was in your garden!

Obviously the sculpture based it on the "till death us do part" promise.

AMERICAN INDIANS

My youngest son can paint and draw just about anything. 

We had an art exhibition together when he was only 18 yrs old.

It featured mainly animals and scenery and it was a magical night as he had 22 exhibits and sold them all on opening night. 

But he has always loved pencil drawing and finds it relaxing.

l decided to have a large clean out last week and came across a large trunk full of special treasures that l had collected.

Surrounded by all my bits and pieces l came across a little pencil sketch drawn on lined writing paper.

l must have saved it when he was very young.

l framed it straight away.

ln my workroom (my hobby room) l have my sons recent pencil drawn sketches of American lndians hanging on my wall.

He had a series of 6 and had 200 copies made of each keeping the originals.

l have 4 individual copies, meaning to acquire the remaining 2 but they sold out too quickly.

 l love them, they seem so real as if they are talking to me.

At my ceramic class l have painted 2 ceramic molds relating to American lndians and l have placed a shelf below my sons drawings to put them.

My bull that l made and am very proud of is also on the shelf but that is another story!

3 BEAUTIFUL WOMEN

In my opinion Elizabeth Taylor and Marilyn Monroe are 2 of the most "Beautiful Women" in the world.

Marilyn in the 1950s

Elizabeth as a child and in the 60s.

Although they are Beautiful my favourite is still -Audrey Hepburn

ORANGES AND LEMONS

My daughter-in-law gave me some lemon lotion from the "Body Shop". l love the natural, sharp fresh smell of lemons.

My lemon tree has gone to heaven. l think it died because l shifted it out of a large pot to plant in the garden.

The New ldea used to be great magazine with interesting story's to read and featured a 2 page spread of rare and interesting photograph's from all over the world. (lt is now mainly a gossip magazine about the glamorous stars etc.)

l have saved many of these interesting photo's.

One of them is this house made of orange's of lemons (built during a citrus festival )

There are lemon festival held in the UK, France and California every year.

Look at the wonderful things they make!

I often make marmalade jam and my favorite sweet is Lemon Delicious Pudding. 

l'm going out to buy a new lemon tree today!

MY GLASS BALL BUOYS

Sometimes at garage sales (car boot sales) you can find some real treasures.

I was happy to find 3 old green glass balls called bouys. They were covered and linked together with old thick net rope. In my mind l could see them bobbing around in the sea for probably 60 yrs.

 My husband and brother have recently built a large construction over our B.B.Q. area to which we roped our precious balls across.

They looked great with the sun shining through them until one morning l came out to see one of my precious green balls shattered on the pavers as the rope had eroded away. 

I didn't know what to do with my remaining 2 balls to keep them safe. Meanwhile I have also found another buoy ball in a beautiful amber colour in an antique shop, so l now have 3 once again.

l decided to place them in a pot for somewhere to put them and they looked at home in this large terracotta colored pot. My large yucca plant lives in this pot with seashells scattered all around the base amongst my balls. 

The only problem l could see was my darling grandchildren playing catch with these glass balls and getting hurt. 

My hubby had a brilliant idea . He took the shells out, placed some marine ply wood at the base of the plant and glued the balls to it. We then covered them with shells again and " Viola!" 

They look great and are now secure and safe.

Our beachy garden is around our pool so it needs to look forever green, bright, and colourful which is difficult in our area because of winter frosts.

l love my hibiscus's, oleander's and roses of course.

 

We also have enormous camellia bushes which are forever green.

l know these plants aren't traditionally classified as tropical but they are forever green with bright flowers and I'm very happy with the way they look around the BBQ and pool area.

MY SEASHELL TABLE.

On this table I used large sandy coloured tiles - also from the op shop and only 20cents each!

l glued them on leaving gaps so that I could fill them with my small seashells. I have collected some beautiful shells from Loch Sport, Rosebud and Altona.

To seal the shells l used this liquid called poly resin. By pouring the resin into the gaps level with the tiles it sets as hard as a rock sealing the seashells, giving it a glass like effect. I was so excited with this method at first but over the year it has gone cloudy. Maybe there is an inside and outside resin. Maybe the resin was not meant to be in direct sunlight for so long or maybe it's just crappy resin.

MY BEACHY TRESSLE TABLES.

I have turned our backyard into a beach area as we have a large pool. I love the ocean, sand and seashells but as we live 2 hrs away from the ocean, we hardly ever see it. I thought instead of whinging, I should just do something about it. I decided to create an illusion to pretend I was there.

Our B.B.Q area is behind our pool so I started there. My daughter had 2 very old solid doors she had turned into trestle tables. As she was moving and couldn't take them with her, Mum and Dad scored! 

As I love brightly coloured beach huts, I made 8 mini sized ones at ceramics.

I glued them on the door (which is now a table) all in a row leaving room at the edges for our plates, knives and forks.

I then went to the op shop (thrift store) and found these beautiful big tiles for only 20 cents each. Breaking them in pieces, I glued them on like a jigsaw puzzle.

Of course this procedure is called a mosaic. 

My design was just a colour coordinated abstract. The colour of nature, tea tree, dry sand, wet sand and the sea. I didn't know how to colour the grout and was told to mix in paint. It has served well and hasn't faded.

SCONE RECIPE

 SCONE RECIPE

4  cups of self raising flour
2  tablespoons of sugar
300  ml. of cream
300  ml. of milk   ( l just use the cream bottle to measure the milk)
Recipe makes 20 - 25 scones

Mix and knead all items in a bowl lightly, roll out onto a bench top.

If the mixture is a little dry when mixing add a milk.
lf the mixture is a little wet add more flour.

Cut into circles or squares.
Brush the top of the scones with a smear of milk (or just dip your finger in the milk and rub it on the top of the scone as I do) This browns the top of the scone when cooked.

Cook in a very hot oven (200 degrees Celsius)  for 10-15 minutes.

(Optional) You can also add dates, currants, or dried mixed fruit for variety, delicious smothered in butter when hot.

SUPRE SHOPPING

My granddaughter has found this great Warehouse with bargains galore - for us girls of course!

My husband and I traveled up from the country to Melbourne for a visit. 

My grandson is a chef so after a delicious lunch the boys went in one direction and we went in the other direction to the Supre Factory Warehouse in Broadmeadows.

l have never seen so many clothes. As my birthday is approaching my daughter and granddaughter both gave me $30 each towards it. 

We had a trolley to wheel around so everything l liked went into it until it was overflowing.

I could take 5 items at a time into the fitting room. When I'd finished trying on 5 they would pass me another 5 items. 

There was a lot of laughter as only 7 went on the no pile and 21 in the yes yes pile. I ended up buying 21 articles of clothing for $61.25 cents. 

15 @ $2.50 = $37.50    

5 @ $3.75 = $18.75    

1 @ $5 

What a great afternoon!

We went back to their place and l made scones that we had with homemade raspberry jam and whipped cream.

I will be sharing my scone recipe with you all in my next post!

CROWSVILLE-MY VEGIE GARDEN

My husband and I recently decided to build a raised vegetable garden. 

As we are getting older and the world is so unorganic l think it is needed. 

We needed bricks for the raised borders. Seeing an add in our local newspaper for 300 bricks for sale we purchased them quite cheaply. 

They added to the bricks we already had and we started to construct. After all my hubbys ancestors did build Rome!

After we had finished (with a compost bin down one end) it seemed enormous. Slowly our compost bin started filling with fallen leaves, grass clippings, vege peels and dirt from another section we had paved. 

Then our wonderful oldest son brought us 2 trailer loads of dry cow manure.

l have called this area CROWSVILLE.

As it is on the side of our house and not seen, I made a sign in our main back area pointing to the vegie garden. My husband made the sign and l glued on the small pebbles (only costing $2 to $3 a pot)

The next step was to figure out where I could find a look-a-like crow.

A store called 'Cheap as Chips' had these life size crows for only $6 each and all I had to do now was make a scarecrow. My mother gave me 2 comical tin crows on the end of a skewered rod and the garden started to take shape.

I am currently painting a large wall behind the vegie garden practically the same as a picture l found in a book

-l love it-

DEXTER

There's a very popular T.V. series called Dexter on at the moment. 

Dexter works as a blood analyst for the police force and C.S.l. [(crime scene investigation)

His sister in the series is in the police force too. - but - Dexter is secretly a vigilante, killing people of the worst kind who slip through the system. 

In fact Dexter episodes are thrillers.

When we have 7 or 8 episodes on our hard drive we have a movie marathon at our home with our son and his lovely soon to be wife. 

We definitely need a scotch and coke and pizza's delivered as the marathon can last until 2 or 3 in the morning.

Would the world be a better place if there were more Dexters? On one hand, it doesn't seem right but then again there are so many sick terrible people out there roaming the world. 

Imagine if Hitler had been wiped off the earth earlier. 

Imagine the millions of lives that would have been saved.

 

SWIMWEAR OLD AND NEW

The following photo was taken in the early 1940's.

My pretty mother is the first young girl on the left.

She is dressed in blue and sitting next to her are her 2 sisters. They were a very close family. My mother had  4 other sisters and  2 brothers (7 in all)

I wore almost the same one-piece swimsuit in the 60's but cut higher on my legs and shaped to my body. 

At the time the 2 piece bathing suit had just come in fashion. 

Then in the 70's the bikini was all the rage. Hence the song  ltsy Bitsy, Teeny, Weeny, Yellow Polka Dot Bikini -which was a big hit. 

Now on the beaches you see it all. The one piece swimsuit down to the skimpiest bikini.

Also the topless look, aiming for the perfect suntan.

Do you remember the old style bathing suits?