total book of house plants

a great find from the other day:  the total book of house plants (1975).  tons of beautiful full color plant illustrations.  very inspiring. 













and a true sign this book was destined for my shelf...  this newspaper clipping tucked between some pages:





now that's my kind of headline!

the woman in white

by wilkie collins.  i really enjoyed this book.  finished it a couple days ago and have missed reading it since.  apparently, even after 609 pages i wasn't ready for it to be over.  my favorite (parts of) sentences:

"...and was then led into a large and lofty room where my supper was awaiting me, in a forlorn manner, at one extremity of a lonesome mahogany wilderness of dining-table"

"my emotions expressed themselves in pathetic apostrophes, which i was just self-possessed enough to couple..."

here are some sketches of a few of the characters.  they didn't look so cartoon-y in my head.

food architecture

remember when all foods were made in jello molds?  i don't.  but foods presented this way both fascinate me and gross me out.  these images are from a book published in 1970 called 'happy living:  a guidebook for brides.  it is full of all sorts of useful tips, but my favorite part is definitely the recipe section.  i mean, who doesn't love a good old fashioned apple-beef ring?

apple beef ring.

creamed eggs in a corned beef crust.

lamb kidneys with rosemary on a parsley rice ring:

brussel sprouts in a cranberry rice ring:

and, of course, the seafood loaf.

just let me know if you'd like any of these recipes.

the knife behind you

just found this book in the basement.  love the cover.

yip and yap

i recently found this book at a rummage sale.  it was published in 1958 and is so strange.  i mean, at first i thought the animals were just so cute, but then i started to think about how the images were constructed.  were some really wearing the clothes?  were their heads pushed through holes in a painted backdrop?  oh, my dears yip and yap, how are your feet bending like that?