Visit the Grateful Plateful Diner at the library

Published 10:45 am Monday, November 14, 2016

Next time you come to the library, stop at the Grateful Plateful Diner on the right hand side of the lobby in the glade above the water fountains.

Grandmother Swanny (pronounced “Schvanny”) and her three granddaughters, Astrid, Cecily and Suzzette, are serving up six-piece turkey dinners there through November.

Swanny and her granddaughters create each dinner individually, not from scratch, but by cross-cut saw, and you can tell by the rapt expression on the face of the turkey dining that the fare is fantastic. Along with corn kernels, the Grateful Plateful staff performs pastry magic every day presenting a wide array of baked goods, including crusty boules, latticed pies, fruit tarts and cinnamon rolls, all baked in their heirloom cast iron wood stove.Fresh pumpkins and squash round out the fare.

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Swanny and her granddaughters are Lillemors, members of a clan of Danish bakers. Lillemors is Danish for Little Mothers.

Not only are they consummate bakers, they are also exceptional seamstresses. They create their colorful costumes from used clothing found at Goodwill stores. They are especially fond of fabricating ruffles from the elastic arm and waist bands on old blouses.All of their needlework and their shoes are also crafted by hand.

The Lillemors will be serving their six-piece turkey dinners only at the Clark County Public Library.

I was delighted when library Director Julie Maruskin suggested I ask them them to demonstrate their skills at the library during November.The Lillemors love family holidays like Thanksgiving. They have been kind enough to take time out from their visit with the Puppendottirs and Ouesants at Myristica Farm.

They love to meet children, so stop by to say “ hello,” the next time you bring your children or grandchildren into the library for Tiny Tots or Story Time.

Actually, the Lillemors are pleased to meet everyone, so stop by to say “hello,” no matter your age.

“Glaedelig Thanksgiving.”

That’s the way they say “Happy Thanksgiving” in the land of the Lillemors.

After visiting the Grateful Plateful, step across to the Community Room side of the foyer to take a quick trip to some of the most beautiful places in the world, courtesy of Boo and Bob Baldwin.

The Baldwins were kind enough to lend the library a sample of portraits and pictures of places they have visited in their travels to every continent on the Earth.

There are wonderful drawings and paintings of historic sites like Venice, Prague and the Loire Valley in France, and pictures of Boo and Bob dressed in frigid weather gear in Antarctica, garbed like crew members of the Enterprise atop the Sydney Australia suspension bridge before the spectacular Sydney Opera House and riding camels in Giza, Egypt.

The Baldwins’ exhibit is not only fun to look at, it’s educational.A superb painting or colored pencil sketch of Richmond, Tasmania, is accompanied by text that tells us Richmond is a fine old Gothic village that is home to the oldest bridge in Australia. It was built in 1823 by convicts whose ghosts, along with the ghost of “Grover the Wicked Flagelator,” haunt the structure.

Your homework for this week:  Google “Grover the Wicked Flagellator.”

All those cosmologist “theorizing” about “the multiverse” when it’s on display in the lobby of the Clark County Public Library.Don’t forget to travel down the community room hallway to see Al Cornette’s paintings of plasma discharges represented by ancient rock art images.

This November is a good month to travel at the library.

Before you go over the river and through the woods come to the library and travel to Tasmania or the Grateful Plateful Diner.