HOTHAM STREET LADIES A Book for Kids! National Gallery of Victoria, 2013 87pp $14.95 ISBN 9780724103799 SCIS 1649733
Cassandra Chilton, Molly O’Shaughnessy, Sarah Parkes, Caroline Price, and Lyndal Walker are the Hotham Street Ladies. They challenge themselves to make cakes that do not look like cakes, and have had a ‘distasteful’ entry banned from the Royal Melbourne Show. They have contributed their photographs, and works of art to this record of the inventive ways handcrafts, decorating cakes and street art can be combined creatively for ages five and up.
It is a gorgeous A4 sized publication with purple fly leaves and masses of bright illustrations, handy hints and ideas. There are recipes for disastrous messes, or invitations to check out how to make street art with colourful cake decorating icing. Some conventional recipes are provided at the end along with pages where children can write their own favourites.
A little subversive and irreverent but great fun in the way it encourages imaginative new applications of some icons of our material culture. Elspeth Cameron
