July 22, 2003
On the Balcony
Here are a few scanned photographs of various souvenirs and ornaments perched on the rail of our balcony. I had meant to try out the tripod I’d been given to use with the 35mm camera we’d bought last year, but had hardly yet used. In the end, though, I found the tripod frustratingly fiddly, and ended up just holding the camera anyway. One day soon I shall venture away from the camera’s fully-automatic settings, and find out what some of those buttons and dials on there actually do.
The vase pictured above is an elegant but inexpensive thing we picked up from a trip to the Kosta Boda factory the year before last.
Also from Kosta Boda is the bottle with the metal screw-top lid in the second picture. The brown fluid therein is cognac. The jar on the right was purchased from a souvenir shop in the town of Casares, in Andalucía.
I don’t recall where we picked up the green glass vase in the third picture. The blue-glazed ceramic thingy was brought back from from Morrocco for us by our intrepid friend Mr. T_____. If anyone reading this knows what kind of thingy this is, then please leave a comment below: we have no idea what such an item should be used for.
In the last picture, a bovine salt-&-pepper shaker set faces a framed photograph of a cow. I snapped that picture in a field near Winchester, during a visit to my old friend Mr. R_________ in ’98. The frame and the salt-&-pepper set came later. One of the two pieces has recently broken in two, alas, after taking a fall.
As usual, clicking on the above images will open enlarged versions of the same.
Posted by misteraitch at July 22, 2003 09:38 AM | TrackBackHi - glad you're back! Thank you for the beautiful Thomas Jones paintings, which made my morning yesterday. I love these photos too, especialyl the first one. Your unidentified blue ceramic object appears to be a "tagine", used to cook and serve special Moroccan stews called by the same name. Let me know if you want a recipe!
Posted by: beth on July 22, 2003 03:04 PMSome great finds... and what's that beautiful green-domed building in the background? Must be nice waking up to that.
Posted by: Carlos on July 22, 2003 08:13 PMLooks like a tagine, yes, except it seems to be a bit small to do any proper cooking in. A toy tagine, maybe. But Moroccan food is delicious, I would certainly recommend that you try some, if indeed you haven't already. And, I concur with Carlos - what is that building? An opera house, maybe?
Posted by: Dave on July 22, 2003 09:57 PMIt looks like a tagine to me. Here's a picture: http://www.epicurious.com/run/recipe/photo?id=106218 and a recipe: http://www.epicurious.com/run/recipe/view?id=106218&printer=true.
Posted by: Scott on July 22, 2003 10:51 PMThanks everyone for identifying our mystery object as a tagine. I'm guessing this particular example was intended primarily as a tourist souvenir or ornament, as it's really too small to be a practical cooking utensil: unless it were intended for serving an individual portion, perhaps.
The Italianate verdigris dome in the background of these pictures is Nicodemus Tessin (the younger)’s Trefaldighetskyrkan (Church of the Holy Trinity), which is also known as Tyska Kyrkan (the German Church), originally built ca. 1697-1720, later reconstructed after a disastrous fire in 1790. Here is another view of it.
Posted by: misteraitch on July 23, 2003 08:52 AM
hello...I'm from holland and I work in a shop where we also sell Kosta Boda...your collection is very beautifull !!
Good luck with collecting more Kosta Boda stuff
Kind regards
Lian Danen from Holland
