Kitchen Kitsch

I scavenge old cook books from charity shops and jumble sales. I love the gaudy recipe illustrations. And the old recipes that inevitably involve aspic and canned fruits. Taschen, the book company whose wares you can always find for cheap at remaindered book shops, have brought out a tribute to those publications, Kitchen Kitsch.

It's a lovely book. And not covered in flour and fat splatters, like most of my vintage finds... It's a little bit of a shame there aren't any actual recipes included, but the bold, more garish than Zsa Zsa Gabor graphics more than make up for that. I'm going to scan some of the pictures in to my computer and print them on cushion covers.

Free Tunnock's Tea Cakes Games

Tunnock's tea cakes* (ironically named, as they are neither cakes, nor particularly good with tea) are the best mallow-based confectionary ever to be manufactured in Scotland. Their iconic red and silver striped packaging is a pop art gem, and the sweetmeat inside more than lives up to its exoskeleton's promise of sickly treasure.

The Tunnock's site is a joy to browse. Beautifully designed, with a rosy-cheeked kiddy straight out of a 1940s adventure annual, it gives you a warm nostalgic glow. And it's not often you get nostalgic in front of a harsh computer screen.

Don't miss the fabulously tongue in cheek games, one a Pacman-style affair, where you guide the aforementioned cheeksome child around a maze, gobbling teacakes as he goes, and the other a race to help the little fella catch falling teacakes in a winter wonderland.

While we're on a Tunnock's tip, have a good look around this I Love Tunnock's site (including lovely pictures of the Tunnock's factory) and these flickr pictures, ideal for using as a screensaver.



*"What really sets the Tunnock's apart from its Tea Cake brethren is its marshmallow which is based on egg white rather than gelatine. This gives it a consistency somewhere between shaving foam and bath sealant. The process that actually places this stuff on the biscuit base and then covers it in chocolate must be a miracle of biscuit engineering given the super sticky nature of the mallow. The fact that the Tea Cakes exist means that there isn't a machine somewhere Scotland buried under a mountain of proto-tea cake gunge." From nicecupofteaandasitdown.com