Miniature Food

It's been a very busy 3 days, as I have been slowly gluing my book covers together and working on a commission as well as a new market stall. I don't often take commissions any more, but this is for a friend, and I just hope she likes it. She is making her book vignette into a wine and cheese shop, and is much further along than I am. I was asked to provide some of the cheeses.

Along with the various types of cheese, there are some cheese boards and some grapes, apples and pears to serve along with the cheese; the grapes should look nice placed on the grape leaves.

The fishmonger's stall has also gotten some more food items, although they still need to be placed a little more carefully! I usually use a piece of packaging plastic from blister packs to build my shop stock on, as it is so much easier to work on it flat and outside of tiny shelves or table tops. Recently I discovered that tiny glue dots called Zots work quite nicely to hold items invisibly in place. As the packaging plastic remains flexible, it is easy enough to bend it slightly to slide it into place on the table top or shelves.

I made a pile of plaice and five cooked crabs yesterday, and it took me most of the day! Now I have to rearrange the display to make room for these rather large pieces; they are partially covering the cod fillets and rainbow trout.

When I was a small child in The Netherlands, my mother would send me to the fishmonger to buy plaice; it was alive, so you chose it from the tank and the fishmonger would clean it for you to take home, nice and fresh. As I can't really remember the fish being gutted etc. I am assuming he did this out of sight of his customers!

The oysters and kippers are neatly packed into wooden boxes, decorated with seaweeds, while the scallops are in a lovely china bowl with blue and gold trim on it. In the left centre are some squid, and some lemons for colour contrast. All the fish in front of the boxes on the left and the scallops were made for me years ago by my older daughter.

Tomorrow I will need to take a look at my vegetable barrow and fruit stall, to see which items badly need to be redone....